Six behaviors policymakers should prioritize to mitigate climate change
Rare's Center for Behavior & the Environment identifies the six behaviors with the greatest potential to reduce emissions in the United States.
The latest issue of Behavioral Science & Policy features a groundbreaking analysis by Rare’s Center for Behavior & the Environment identifying the six behaviors with the greatest potential to reduce emissions in the United States.
This special edition of the international peer-reviewed journal focuses on the critical role that behavioral science plays in addressing environmental challenges. Our research compares a range of behaviors that can affect the environment and prioritizes the ones that produce the highest emissions (see below). The analysis is published alongside other evidence-based research exploring a spectrum of behavioral interventions, insights, policies, and opportunities. Rare’s research has since formed the foundation for our Climate Culture program.
Table 1. Six priority behaviors to target
| Behavior | Illustrative policy | Behavioral principle |
| Commute and travel | ||
| Purchase an electric vehicle. | Provide discounts at the point of sale or that expire within a set time. | Leverage hyperbolic discounting, a cognitive process that undervalues costs or savings in the future relative to those incurred today. |
| Reduce air travel. | Require airlines to highlight the environmental consequences of air travel through labeling, such as by informing ticket buyers of the environmental effects of their flights. | Increasing the salience of the effects of one’s decisions can prompt active consideration of a factor that might otherwise have been ignored. |
| Lifestyle | ||
| Eat a plant-rich diet. | Mandate adding emissions information to food labels. | Information provision can influence behavior when it contradicts preconceived beliefs and is consistent with existing values. |
| Purchase carbon offsets. | Require emitters to have customers explicitly choose whether to pay for carbon offsets. | When people are required to make an active choice—to explicitly decide on something rather than absentmindedly continue with the status quo—they are more likely to shift from the status quo. |
| Waste reduction and management | ||
| Reduce food waste. | Regulate dates on food labels, which are currently set by manufacturers and result in the unnecessary disposal of still-edible foods. | Information provision can influence behavior when it allows people to more effectively express their already established preferences. |
| Residential energy use | ||
| Purchase green energy. | Default utility customers to a green energy provider. | People often go along with the default option presented to them rather than giving the choice active consideration. |
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