Why behaviour change can’t be separated from accessibility, systems and choice architecture.
We talk about changing consumer behaviour as if consumers operate in a vacuum.
We tell people to buy better.
To waste less.
To choose sustainable products.
To recycle.
To consume more responsibly.
And when behaviour doesn’t change fast enough, we often conclude that consumers simply don’t care enough.
But what if we’re asking the wrong question?
The intention-action gap
One of the ideas I found particularly interesting in my Cambridge studies is the so-called value-action gap: the distance between what people say they value and how they actually behave.
The numbers are striking. Research cited in the course suggests that 97% of consumers want to live more sustainably, while only 13% are actively changing their lifestyles.
At first glance, that sounds like a consumer problem.
But look closer.
People don’t make choices in isolation. Their decisions are shaped by price, availability, convenience, infrastructure, social norms and the options that businesses put in front of them.
Wanting to make a better choice and being able to make one are two very different things.
We keep asking people to choose better
Imagine two products sitting next to each other.
One is cheaper, more familiar and widely available.
The other has a lower impact, but costs significantly more and requires more effort to find.
We can tell consumers to “make the sustainable choice”.
But have we actually designed the conditions that make that choice realistic?
This is where the conversation needs to move beyond consumer responsibility.
If the better option is inaccessible, inconvenient or unaffordable, awareness alone won’t solve the problem.
And this isn’t unique to sustainability.
We see the same principle across health, mobility, food, finance and countless other categories.
People respond to the systems around them.
Choice architecture matters
This is where I think marketing has an especially interesting role to play.
We often think of marketing as the function that persuades people to choose.
But it can also influence what choices exist, how they are presented and which ones feel normal.
What if the better option became the easier option?
What if repair was easier than replacement?
What if refill was more convenient than buying new?
What if sustainable products weren’t positioned as a compromise, but simply as better products?
What if the most responsible choice was also the most desirable one?
That is a very different role for marketing.
It moves us away from telling people how they should behave and towards designing better conditions for behaviour to change.
From consumer education to system design
There is a tendency in sustainability communication to put the responsibility on the individual:
You can make a difference.
And, of course, individuals matter.
But individual action is only one part of a much larger system.
The Cambridge framework makes this point by looking at sustainable consumption as a multi-stakeholder challenge involving consumers, businesses, production processes, infrastructure and policy. It also highlights the importance of affordability and accessibility in making sustainable choices possible.
That changes the role of the brand.
Instead of simply communicating a more responsible choice, brands can help make that choice available in the first place. Instead of asking people to consume differently without changing the system around them, businesses can rethink products, services, pricing, distribution and even the underlying business model.
And marketing can help connect those changes with people.
The opportunity for brands
This doesn’t mean consumers have no responsibility.
It means responsibility is shared.
Brands influence supply.
Governments influence infrastructure and regulation.
Culture influences social norms.
Marketing influences meaning and desire.
And consumers make choices within all of those conditions.
If we want behaviour to change, all of these pieces need to move together.
The opportunity for brands is therefore bigger than communicating that they are sustainable.
It is to make better choices:
accessible.
affordable.
convenient.
desirable.
normal.
Because ultimately, behaviour change doesn’t happen simply because we tell people to change.
It happens when the world around them starts making a different behaviour possible.
So perhaps the question isn’t…
“How do we convince consumers to behave better?”
Perhaps it is:
“How do we design a system where better behaviour becomes easier?”
That is a much more interesting challenge for marketers.
And potentially a much more useful one.
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