People can choose only among the options presented to them.

How options are presented to people makes it more or less likely that they will choose them.

For climate action, we can give people a wider range of better options to choose from.

People engage in complex decision-making every day, and many of those decisions affect the natural environment. Focusing on how people make these decisions might be the key to achieving significant progress on climate mitigation.

One way to influence decision-making is to deploy choice architecture with a focus on consumers. But consumers’ choices can only be as good for the environment as the options made available to them by policymakers and business leaders. This raises a question: How can we also influence the environmental decisions made by these important groups?

To answer this question, I reached out to Joe Árvai, Professor of Psychology, Biology, and Environmental Studies and Director of the Wrigley Institute for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Southern California. His research focuses on improving the judgment and decision-making capabilities of people working under conditions of risk and uncertainty, particularly when they must confront tradeoffs among conflicting social, economic, and environmental objectives. And he has been a frequent advisor to governments and businesses around the world.

JP: What are the most effective levers of change when considering how to influence decision-making through policy?

JÁ: A typical response to this question focuses........

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