![\"sille\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/daniellau\/files\/2016\/03\/sille.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nCurrently, companies and organizations have been measuring their success of converting people into \u201cgreen\u201d purchasers through \u201cawareness\u201d as they hope to reach out to consumers and help them to live more sustainable lives that correspond to their ideals. \u201cAwareness\u201d would be measured with questions such as \u201chow many people saw our \u2018green\u2019 campaign? \u201cHow many hits did we get?\u201d And \u201chow many people liked our message?\u201d At the end of the day, \u201cvictory\u201d is only defined to the extent of motivation and imparting knowledge and is not enough to propel the \u201cgreen\u201d movement. The hidden root of the problem is that brands assume consumers to be \u201cperfect\u201d, and what they mean by that is that consumers will take the knowledge that they have received and act upon it. In reality, they do not follow through because they are distracted with numerous other tasks in life to care about one more thing. With businesses and organizations trying to help consumers switch to more sustainable behaviour purely through raising awareness, the outcome just becomes another form of green washing. But fear not, this is where behavioural economics comes in.<\/p>\n
Behavioural economics deals with how choices are presented to consumers and examines the environments in which decisions are made. In traditional stores and supermarkets, choice architecture usually focuses solely on revenue maximization, ie. Products that bring the greatest profits are those that are in the \u201chotspots\u201d, where purchases are most likely to occur. With behavioural economics, stores and supermarkets can explore opportunities to change their choice architecture and gear it towards the goals in sustainability, ie. Making it easier for consumers to differentiate and select sustainable options, changing store environment, layout, and design, and incorporating \u201cnudges\u201d such as associated smell, sound, or color. At the end of the day, behavioural consultants and green companies and organizations need to identify consumers\u2019 underlying goals and use techniques such as a cost-benefit analysis to determine which nudges will instigate the greatest change and effect incurring the smallest expense. Only then will there be real change in consumer behaviour towards sustainability.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n