
The fourth ESG forum was held in Athens. Anita was invited as a keynote speaker on the topic ‘Transformation towards sustainable lifestyles’. She presented the concept of sustainability from the perspective of consumers and the concept of nudges, which can be used as a strategy to change consumer habits towards more sustainable choices.
The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) is now embracing nudging as a strategy to help meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and protect the global environment, with support from the Behavioural Insights Team.
‘Nudging is based on an understanding of the psychology of decision-making. Our brains have limited resources to make sense of a world that is complex and uncertain, which means that we use mental shortcuts that make our behaviour highly context-dependent: for example, “do what everyone else is doing” or “take the easiest option”. Also, a lot of our behaviour is automatic, as we follow ingrained routines or act on auto-pilot. With knowledge of these cognitive processes, we can make changes to the options people have (the “choice environment”) in order to encourage certain choices, or we can explicitly design choices to harness or overcome common cognitive biases.’
More about this event you may find here [ATHENS ESG FORUM (athens-esg-forum.gr)].