Changing citizen behaviour – the missing link in the fight against climate change?

The news that Morrisons is planning to replace ‘use by’ dates with ‘best before’ labels on milk products was a bold move that will hopefully be the first of many such announcements by retailers.

Confusion over date labels is a major cause of food waste. We know that because of in-depth research we have conducted in the past to understand how citizens interact with date labels on the food they buy.

Changing citizen behaviour through insights like this will be a critical component in the fight against climate change. Government policy, business action and new technology can take us a long way – but the majority of emissions reductions required for the UK to reach net zero involve some level of behaviour change. In fact, 45% of UK emissions come from our use and consumption of products.

So much depends on what citizens do in the collective fight against climate change. But, so far, attention has centred on energy decarbonisation and technological innovation.

The behaviours of a circular economy range from recycling the right items to avoiding food waste, buying sustainably, and putting unwanted clothes and goods back into circulation – easing pressure on our precious natural resources and mitigating further climate change.

Changing citizen behaviour often means disrupting entrenched habits, which is complex and challenging. For meaningful change, organisations must recognise the real-world challenges people face. Carefully targeted support is needed, so that people feel motivated, are capable and are given the opportunity to change their behaviour.

This is at the heart of our work with citizens. It’s what underpins our targeted campaigns, which have, among other things, supported them to recycle overlooked bathroom products; use up leftover food; take unwanted clothes to charity shops; and turn their fridge temperature down. These are all individual actions which, on a national scale, add up to significant reductions in waste and consumption.

The insights behind behaviour change approaches, and the interventions that follow, give governments confidence to introduce new policy, and encourage businesses to engage their customers on sustainable consumption: an approach that helps drive systemic change.

But there’s so much further to go. An ever-expanding range of items needs to recycled at scale, while recycling contamination needs to fall. Food waste needs to be slashed, in the UK and globally. This is why we are delighted that Wrap and Behaviour Change have formally joined forces, with our newly announced partnership cementing years of successful collaboration.

It means we can accelerate our approach of combining science and technical expertise with hard-hitting, citizen-facing campaigns that generate real impact on the climate and ecological crises we now face.

Our new partnership will mean an even greater focus on understanding why people currently do what they do, with real-world insight positioned as the critical first step in any attempt to facilitate change.

For years, Behaviour Change has invested in ground-breaking ethnographic research on a wide range of social and environmental issues, research that brings us closer to understanding how lives are lived in context and the barriers people face when trying to live more sustainably. We look forward to developing exciting and creative interventions, trialling ‘on-the-ground’ pilots and scaling ideas that really work to drive change on a national scale.

Citizens are the vital link in the effort to protect our planet. But thinking and doing can sometimes be a complicated journey. We must all work to bridge that gap.