Theme → Sustainability

Behavioural Design for sustainable behaviour

Almost everyone says sustainability matters. Few people actually buy sustainable.

Q: How does SUE make the sustainable choice easier?

SUE uses proven behavioural principles: defaults, which make the sustainable option the standard, proximity, which brings the sustainable choice closer in the choice environment, and social norms, which make visible that the majority already chooses sustainable. No lecturing, no guilt, just smart design.

The difference is context, not motivation. The sustainable option is often more expensive, harder to find or presented less attractively. You design sustainable behaviour by changing the choice environment: the defaults, the social norms and the place of the sustainable option. You learn to influence that choice environment with Behavioural Design, and so you gain influence on what people actually buy.

View the training → Individually or with your team

10,000+

trained

9.3/10

rating

EQAC

accredited

€1,190

from, ex VAT

Team working on designing sustainable behaviour during the Behavioural Design training at SUE Amsterdam

Familiar in sustainability programmes

"We launched a beautiful sustainability campaign. The behaviour doesn't change."

The forces behind the intention-action gap

Seven forces that hold back sustainable behaviour

They are documented by Kahneman, Cialdini and Thaler. They apply to your customers, your employees and your own moments of choice. And they are all designable. As long as you leave them untouched, every sustainability campaign evaporates after the launch.

01 - The awareness illusion

Awareness doesn't change behaviour on the floor

Everyone knows plastic is bad for the environment. Yet you reach for the plastic bag. Knowledge is necessary but not sufficient: between knowing and doing sits a gap no information campaign closes.

02 - The intention-action gap

You say one thing and do another

Not out of hypocrisy, but out of humanity. At the moment of choice, ease beats conviction. The sustainable option is too expensive, too far away, or too hard to find.

03 - Green fatigue

The default decides what most people do

Whoever designs the standard option effectively designs the behaviour of most people. If the non-sustainable option is the default, customers have to actively opt for sustainable.

05 - Reactance

Obligations trigger resistance

Bans and obligations backfire the moment they restrict choice freedom. The harder you push, the more resistance you get. Effective sustainability policy works with human nature, not against it.

06 - Proximity

Hidden is the same as absent

If the sustainable option is hard to find or placed far away, people take the shortest route. The distance to the choice often matters more than the quality of the argument.

07 - System 1

Most behaviour is automatic

Most sustainability campaigns address the conscious, rational mind. But behaviour sits on autopilot. Rational arguments never reach it.

Read the full article: why informing people doesn't work → What is nudging? Explanation and examples →

Behavioural Design is the missing layer.

Sustainability is a choice environment. And a choice environment is designable.

Designing sustainable behaviour is the process by which an organisation shapes the choice environment so that the sustainable option becomes the easy, obvious choice. Not by convincing people with facts and campaigns, but by designing the defaults, the social norms and the place of the sustainable option so that sustainable behaviour becomes the path of least resistance.

Diagnose the behaviour, not the motivation. You map which forces hold the current behaviour in place: which defaults, barriers and norms make the non-sustainable option logical.

Design the choice environment. With the SUE Influence Framework you design interventions that make the sustainable choice easier than the old one.

Prove the effect. You test the interventions and measure whether behaviour actually shifts, so sustainable behaviour is not an assumption but a demonstrable result.

What professionals say after the training

From ABN AMRO to the City of Antwerp: they look at choice environments differently afterwards.

The sustainability and policy professionals among our 10,000+ alumni have one thing in common.

At the Academy you learn a lot about behavioural change and how to apply it in a short period of time. The training flew by and was very well put together. Amazing how complicated material comes to life in a fun and interactive course. I am definitely going to apply it in my work.

Alina Chakh

Change & Transformation Consultant - ABN AMRO

★★★★★

The programme with SUE taught me the importance of thinking about the human behind the client, because a client will not act from expected rational thinking patterns. As an organisation it is important that we start thinking outside-in at the right moments to create that much needed added value.

Koen Lauwers

Team CDO - City of Antwerp

★★★★★

I am so happy with these results. The order of first doing a Behavioural Design Sprint, then testing and running an effect measurement worked very well. We are now in a position to roll this out with confidence. The numbers and effects help us to truly convince people.

Majka van Doorn

Coordinator Behavioural unit - Ministry of Justice and Safety

★★★★★

The training for this challenge

Learn the principles that really change sustainable behaviour.

People say sustainability matters and still choose differently in the moment. In The Art of Influence^© you learn how choices and behaviour come about, and how to design the environment in which the sustainable choice wins.

Participants during The Art of Influence© training at SUE in Amsterdam

Most chosen

9.3/10

rating

lessons

Self-paced

online

Online, at your own pace

The Art of Influence^©

You learn why people do what they do, and how to influence choices and behaviour. You learn the method, apply it straight away and leave with the tools you keep using afterwards.

What you get

33 online lessons at your own pace

Or live: two days in Amsterdam, max 16 participants

€1,190 online or €1,490 live, excl. VAT

View The Art of Influence^© →

Want to tackle it with your whole team or organisation? See the in-company training →

Why the SUE Behavioural Design Method

Behavioural science made applicable for people who want to design sustainable behaviour.

Most behavioural science knowledge sits locked in academic papers. SUE built the Influence Framework, a practical step-by-step method that any sustainability manager, policy maker or communication professional can apply without a scientific background.

SUE Influence Framework: the forces that shape sustainable behaviour

No academic theory, you work on your own sustainability challenge during the training and go home with a worked-out plan

Built on Kahneman, Cialdini and Thaler, scientifically grounded but accessible for practitioners

A method of our own, the Influence Framework can't be learned anywhere else, described in the #1 management bestseller

16 years of experience, from ING and KPN to central government: the method is proven on the biggest behaviour and sustainability challenges

“ SUE Behavioural Design was a real experience that led me to look differently at behaviour. They take you along a very pragmatic way under challenging themes. I think the Influence Framework will solve many problems in the world. It is more than just a method, it is a fundamentally different way of thinking.

Eline Grouwels

Founding partner - Umital

★★★★★

9.3/10

★★★★★

4.8/5

★★★★★

accredited

Trusted by

Frequently asked questions

One more thing

Because awareness addresses System 2, the slow, analytical brain. But most of our daily behaviour runs through System 1: automatic, on autopilot. You know you should live more sustainably, but at the moment of choice, ease beats conviction. The intention-action gap is the core problem of sustainability communication.

The intention-action gap is the difference between what people say they want to do and what they actually do. Many consumers say sustainability matters to them, yet few consistently buy sustainable. The difference is context, not motivation: the sustainable option is often more expensive, harder to find, or presented less attractively.

We use three proven behavioural principles: defaults, which make the sustainable option the standard, proximity, which brings the sustainable choice closer in the choice environment, and social norms, which make visible that the majority already chooses sustainable. No lecturing, no guilt, just smart design.

Yes. Most organisations choose an in-company programme, where we apply the Behavioural Design method on site to your own sustainability challenge. That can be a one-day training, a training with follow-up days, or an organisation-wide Learning Journey. Your team works on the behaviour that is actually stuck in your organisation, not a case study from a book.

It depends on the format. An individual Deep Dive starts from €690 and the two-day course The Art of Influence^© from €1,190. For teams and organisation-wide sustainability programmes, we design in-company training or a Learning Journey. In a no-obligation call we look together at which format fits your challenge and scale.

Almost everyone says sustainability matters. Few people actually buy sustainable.

Seven forces that hold back sustainable behaviour