How Reduce Personal Carbon reduction can contribute to a Net Zero society

In January 2023 the Behavioural Insights Team (BI Team) published “How to build a Net Zero society: Using behavioural insights to decarbonise home energy, transport, food, and material consumption” (How-to-build-a-Net-Zero-society_Jan-2023-1.pdf (bi.team) which spelt out the barriers to achieving Net Zero and how these can be overcome by utilising lessons from Behavioural Science. Within this context, this paper discusses how the Reduce Personal Carbon Reduction approach can support a wider programme based on the BI Team’s recommendations.

1. How to build a Net Zero society

To address the barriers faced in building a Net Zero society an “upstream-downstream” model is used, with three dimensions identified:

Upstream (Redirect the flow) – align businesses, markets and institutions with Net Zero

Midstream (The back-eddy) – create an enabling ‘choice environment’ so sustainable choices are easier

Downstream (Swim harder!) – encourage citizens to take direct action where they can and build public support.

It is argued that while encouraging individual action is important, it’s unreasonable to put too much onus on individuals’ agency and willpower when they’re acting in a system which makes it difficult to make green choices. Therefore, to change behaviour, it is necessary to change the stream as well as the swimmer.

This is backed up by the last few decades of research in the behavioural sciences which highlight the primacy of the ‘choice environment’ (the context) in shaping and influencing behaviour which often have more influence than internal factors like attitudes and knowledge. This means that to change behaviour it is necessary to deploy a range of well-evidenced techniques including pricing, availability and salience of options, convenience, perceived social norms, and defaults. So while Downstream actions matter, Upstream and Midstream interventions and each brings different tools to bear.

Ultimately, the biggest carbon reduction will be achieved by addressing the major cost, convenience and desirability barriers. This means utilising interventions which operate at the Midstream such as changing choice environments to make green options easy, appealing, affordable, salient and normal, and Upstream interventions such as leveraging commercial incentives, institutional leadership and regulation in ways which ultimately create those choice environments at scale.

The approach to behaviour change put forward is therefore less about targeting individuals to implore different choices, and more about targeting people’s environment.

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2. The Reduce approach to Personal Carbon Reduction

As with the BI Team’s Net Zero report, Reduce Personal Carbon Reduction was developed using Behavioural Science. Importantly though, Reduce was also created on the back of practical, real-life experience of achieving voluntary behaviour change in an aspect of people’s lives where social norms, habitual behaviour, individual emotions, and the environment all worked against change. The change in question was car driver behaviour and, although the level of change varied depending on circumstances, reductions of 10% were achieved[1], noting that The CCC calls for a reduction in car use of 9% by 2035.

The Reduce approach recognises that people don’t want to be told what to do and need to feel both empowered and motivated[2]. It also recognises the low level of understanding about the scale of impact of different behaviours and, as the Net Zero report pointed out: “many people are left prioritising the easiest but ultimately quite insignificant actions”. It therefore looks to take people on a journey through six steps, starting with understanding current emissions using a bespoke calculator. Using the information collected, personalised recommendations are provided which focus on those actions which can have the greatest impact.

?3. Reduce and Net Zero

Given that Reduce is aimed at changing individual behaviours it may seem inconsistent with the emphasis given by the BI Team on changing the environment. However, a critical factor not explicitly considered in the Net Zero report is timing. Whilst it is unarguably the case that actions by government, institutions and business can have a bigger impact than ordinary citizens, the reality seems to be that the chances of substantive action by these Midstream and Upstream players in the short term is extremely low. If anything, recent backtracking by the government has made the kind of institutional changes needed less likely, with any pricing intervention seemingly knocked completely out of the park. Though there may well be a change in government next year, a new government will need to bed itself in before addressing any of the tougher challenges it faces. There will also need to be a concerted campaign to bring the general public, business community and media on board with the actions needed.

A particular barrier to Midstream and Upstream changes is the belief in economic growth as a panacea. The blockage this creates is that anything that can be interpreted as anti-growth (irrespective of its actual impact on economic activity) faces stiff opposition, the reaction to Low Traffic Neighbourhoods being a prime example.

This leaves us in a situation where it will be some years before the necessary interventions are even formulated and discussed, let alone implemented. Given that the effects of climate change and biodiversity loss are exponential in nature (not even taking into account all the potential tipping points that might further accelerate the negative impacts), some more immediate action is needed.

This is where Reduce Personal Carbon Reduction comes in: by focussing on actions which are both impactful and within the gift of the individual to change, the journey to Net Zero can at least be started. Such citizen-led actions should also instil some confidence in government to support these changes and help embed changes across society.

Although saving the planet is a weak motivator for personal action because of its lack of salience, there are other more immediate reasons individuals may wish to participate in Reduce including:

·?????? Saving money

·?????? Improving health & wellbeing

·?????? Alleviating climate anxiety by helping people to feel empowered

·?????? Being part of a social movement with a competitive element for those with a competitive streak.

Of course, it is still hard for people to act on their own and for this reason Reduce is designed to involve some ‘Midstream’ activity with employers, local authorities or educational establishments providing some support to individuals to make change easier. Employers can be encouraged to support Reduce since it addresses their Scope 3 emissions and helps employee wellbeing. Similarly, many UK local authorities have declared a climate emergency and helping residents with Reduce shows some commitment to tackling the emergency without the use of coercion.

So, Reduce Personal Carbon Reduction is entirely consistent with the BI Team’s vision for achieving Net Zero and would make an ideal starting point for a programme of interventions based on this vision. ?

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[1] The approach used was Personalised Travel Planning with one of the significant applications being the Sustainable Travel Towns demonstration project funded by the Department of Transport.

[2] This is consistent with the COM-B model of behaviour change which states that people need the capability, opportunity and motivation in order to change their behaviour.