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Wednesday, 3 June 2009
Nudge, nudge!
OK, so I'm a 12 months behind the curve, but I've just finished last year's political must-read "Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness" by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein. The central thesis of the book is that we humans like having choices rather than being told what to do, but paradoxically we're not that good at making the best choice for ourselves or society if the issue is complex. Thaler and Sunstein introduce the rather clunkily titled concept of "libertarian paternalism" which translates into plain English as "the choice is yours, but if I were you I'd pick that one", the second part of this being the 'nudge' of the title.The book is long on examples and arguments and a little short on the 'how to' aspect, but I've gathered that the three main types of 'nudges' are:
1. The default choice is chosen carefully to be the 'best' one eg should we have to opt out of organ donation rather than opt in?
2. The 'best' choice is the easiest, cheapest or most obvious one eg lower car tax for less polluting vehicles.
3. Sufficient information is disclosed to help the chooser make a good choice (would the current MPs expenses scandal have happened if they all had been forced to disclose their expenses claims to the electorate?).
On some levels this may appear manipulative, but the authors make a strong argument that the alternatives are to either ban undesirable behaviour (the infamous 'nanny state'), or to abandon people to make suboptimal choices.
Chapter 12 of the book is entitled "Saving the Planet" and examples of eco-nudges include:
1. Cap-and-trade for industrial carbon emissions (not cutting emissions is going to cost you, but the choice of how to cut them is yours).
2. Information provision through disclosure, labelling or feedback eg the US Toxic Release Inventory, domestic smart meters, and cars that tell you if you're overdoing the accelerator.
3. Voluntary schemes and standards for industry (the authors use the US 'Green Light' label as an example).
I can think of many more cases where these have been, or could be applied. The EU's energy label (below) has been brilliantly effective in transforming the white goods market, raising the market of share of the most efficient A-rated models from 0 to 76% in a decade. It's easy to see why this nudge works - you can buy any washing machine you like, but as you're spending the money you might as well go for an A-rated machine rather than a D. Who wants a D? And, if no-one is buying Ds, why would anyone manufacture one? The market is transformed, but the only rule is that showrooms have to display the certificate.
Kerbside recycling shows how communities can nudge themselves - once a certain proportion of a street puts out their separated waste participation suddenly shoots up. In contrast, when UK councils started trying to reduce residual waste collections from weekly to fortnightly by dictat there was uproar in the media and some councils changed political control due to this issue alone. Maybe if councils had introduced it by saying "you can keep your weekly collections, but you have to opt in for this on an annual basis" the uproar would have been subdued and the laggards would have gradually caught up with the mainstream as those neighbours who went with the default option demonstrated that the system is OK. Actually, it strikes me that local authorities could benefit most from the 'nudge' approach - they tend to bear the brunt of media attacks on any change ("Town Hall Bullies/Loonies" etc) and this could deflect most of that initial ire and transform behaviour more gradually.
Having read Nudge, I'm not surprised it caused such a fuss in the political sphere and there is a huge opportunity to use it to transform environmental behaviour both within industry and consumers alike. Highly recommended reading.
Labels: behaviour change, eco-label, energy, nudge, sunstein, thaler
# posted by Gareth Kane : 07:00
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Thursday, 27 March 2008
Carbon Trust Label Revisited
I saw a presentation by the Carbon Trust yesterday on Teesside. It was excellent and the presenter was full of enthusiasm - helped no doubt by the fact the Trust was the only such organisation to get an increase in funding in the Budget.Well I was a little disparaging last year about the Trust's carbon labelling of Walkers' Crisps. What I didn't fully realise is that the label is given on a 'reduce it or lose it' basis - so the main purpose is to cajole the manufacturer to reduce the footprint, not just label proclaim it.
Currently the label is only found on crisps, Boots' shampoo and Innocent smoothies. The Trust is working with a huge raft of new companies in 2 tranches, covering everything from strawberries to paving slabs. It looks as if this one could run and run.
Labels: carbon trust, eco-label
# posted by Gareth Kane : 19:10
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Wednesday, 5 March 2008
Greenwash Abounds!
I finally got around to reading the February edition of the ENDS report yesterday and was disappointed, but not surprised, to find four major stories on Greenwashing.- Two of these (mastic asphalt companies and British Gas) were claiming that their products had no carbon footprint as they were offsetting their carbon emissions. While I (somewhat controversially) believe in offsetting as a CSR strategy, it is very unwise to use it as a claim in this way. In my book, you can say "we offset our carbon emissions", but not "our products have a zero carbon footprint". Obviously the Advertising Standards Authority agrees with me.
- Another is a compost company, William Sinclair, putting a 'cradle to gate' carbon label on their peat products. This is a bit naughty as peat is a fossil fuel and will decompose in use to produce 5 times as much carbon dioxide as the figure on the label. A bit like saying petrol has a carbon footprint of X as long as you don't actually use it.
- The last story is about 'ethical' investment funds. These have been found to be sort-of ethical in that they avoid certain industries (such as the arms industry) but some only have 1% of their stocks in 'green' industries, despite the image they portray.
All of these examples show that green claims are a minefield and that you're better not doing it at all if you're not going to do it properly. As my primary school teacher used to say, you're only cheating yourself, you know...
Labels: carbon footprint, eco-label, green claims, greenwashing
# posted by Gareth Kane : 06:06
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Monday, 21 January 2008
Greenwashing or Clear Communication?
Terra Choice, a US Green Marketing company has released a 'green paper' entitled the 6 Deadly Sins of Greenwashing. It details the results of a survey of over a thousand products with green claims - only one was regarded by the authors as being robust. The graph below shows how the company categorised the offenders against the six sins they identified:1. Hidden Trade-off - the claim only covered one item of the product's lifecycle impact;
2. No Proof;
3. Vagueness - eg "non-toxic";
4. Irrelevance - eg being CFC free when CFCs have been banned for over a decade;
5. Lesser of Two Evils - greening a 'bad' product eg "organic cigarettes";
6. Fibbing.
While I am completely against greenwashing, I have a problem with some of these alleged 'sins' and think the company may be guilty of chasing headlines.
For example, the biggest sin, 'Hidden Trade-off' suggests that single-subject eco-labels are taboo. Yet it is these labels that have proved the most popular with the public. The EU energy label (right) on white goods has been responsible for a huge shift in consumer preferences and it is so successful, it is being used for cars, windows and even aircraft. Why is it successful? It is clear, objective and people understand it. Conversely, the more comprehensive EU Eco-label is widely ignored. One person's 'vagueness' is another person's clearness. More people understand 'non-toxic' than know what BFR or LD50 mean. I'd tend to lump this one in with 'no-proof' myself.
Likewise, I'm not sure about the "lesser of two evils". People laugh when they hear the army is interested in lead-free bullets, but most rounds are fired in training, often in areas of great ecological importance, so it is important not to scatter toxic material around. If someone is going to kill themselves smoking, then I'd rather they did it with tobacco that hasn't been grown using toxic chemicals.
If you cut these elements out of the graph above, then relatively few products fail the tests - and only one percent were actively found to be fibbing. I've been harsh on Terra Choice, but many media commentators do the same thing - poke holes in the genuine efforts of others to do the right thing and communicate it to their customers. Having said that, every time the Advertising Standards Agency rap the knuckles of a genuine Greenwasher, I punch the air and shout "Yes!".
Labels: eco-label, green claims, greenwashing
# posted by Gareth Kane : 15:31
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Wednesday, 20 June 2007
Eco-Labelling: What Does It Mean?
Yesterday I was looking for the carbon footprint of shampoo for a client project and found that Boots were now using the Carbon Trust's new(ish) carbon label (right). One bottle of shampoo is apparently responsible for 148g of carbon dioxide. The other product that has been labelled in this way is Walkers Cheese & Onion Crisps - 75g a packet. While this is very useful for those of us who need this sort of information to calculate carbon footprints, it left me wondering what it will mean to the shopper in the aisle of their local hypermarket. Is 75g a packet high or low? Is 148g a bottle good or bad?The main advantage seems to be pressure on the manufacturers. Walkers claim that they have reduced their footprint by a third before the label was published.
The EU Ecolabel (left) does show the average punter whether or not a particular product (ranging from mattresses to campsites) actually meets best environmental practice. But have you ever actually seen one on a product? And would you choose, say, your new shoes based on this label?I also worry that the logo is a bit weak and fluffy - one of the basic principles of marketing a 'green' product to the mass market is to avoid anything that even hints at treehugging.
The most effective label is undoubtedly the A-G rating on white goods. These have transformed the market: the market share of A-rated white goods sold has risen from 0% in 1996/97 to 74% in 2005/06. There has long been talk of extending this scheme to consumer electronics such as TVs and DVD players and a similar scheme has started for windows. The label is bold, clear and the consumer knows exactly what they are getting - and who would want a product with a big 'D' on it?
Labels: carbon footprint, eco-label
# posted by Gareth Kane : 08:19
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