Nudge nudge

A friend sent me a book called "Nudge" for Christmas (thanks Stephen). It originally hails from the US, but my copy is the "New International Edition", which makes it sound a bit like a Bible translation (but doesn't appear to have influenced the spelling). And I suppose environmental and social activists could use it as a sort-of bible in the modern sense of the word, i.e. as a source of information, advice and ideas for influencing individuals, companies and governments. It's not about 'command and control' policies, but about designing how choices are offered to achieve desirable results, e.g. better eating habits, higher rates of pension scheme membership, more organ donations. Here are a few snippets related to the environment.

Framing
Campaigns to encourage energy efficiency are far more effective if framed in terms of losses than savings. In other words, if you don't insulate your loft, you'll be losing £200 a year to your gas company.

Following the herd
We choose what others choose. For example, people were told about how much energy they and others in their neighbourhood consumed in a week, and whether they were above or below average. In the next week, above-average consumers decreased their energy use. Unfortunately, the below-average consumers increased their use! But half of the households were also given an emoticon to indicate social disapproval :-( of their above-average consumption or social approval :-) of their below-average consumption. In this case, the above-average consumers decreased their energy use even further, while the below-average consumers kept their usage low.

Information disclosure
The Toxic Release Inventory was originally just intended to provide the US Environmental Protection Agency with information about the quantities of potentially hazardous chemicals stored or released into the environment by companies and individuals. It didn't mandate any behavioural change, but resulted in greatly reduced emissions as companies tried to avoid the adverse publicity of being on the 'blacklist'.
Labelling goods with their energy/water consumption when used (A-G rating) and ideally their embodied energy (energy consumed in their manufacture and maybe transport) helps in making decisions over whether to replace that old washing machine, and if so, with which model.

Feedback
Often we don't have immediate feedback on the consequences of our choices; the cost of turning up the thermostat isn't apparent until our next monthly or quarterly energy bill. Smart meters are being rolled out across the country, but will only provide information about your consumption back to the electricity companies. Many local libraries have stocks of electricity monitors for borrowing, and these will tell you how much electricity you are using at any one time - it may well be shocking!