Academic: SHIFT consumer behaviors to be more sustainable by David Hardisty

Welcome to Episode 8 of AGILE Sustainability. In this episode, we will switch our perspective from business to focus on consumers for a change, as a business can't transition to sustainability properly without the buy-in from its consumers.
The speakers for the podcast, David Hardisty and his co-authors Katherine White and Rishad Habib proposed a SHIFT framework that could serve as a toolbox for practitioners to form business strategies to influence consumer behaviours on sustainability.
The SHIFT framework includes the following factors:

• Social Influence
• Habit Formation
• Individual Self
• Feelings and Cognitions
• Tangibility

The topics in this podcast are:
00m58s: Introduction on David and his research focus
01m25s: Motivations for building the SHIFT framework
03m50s: Consumer behaviours' impact on the environment
05m33s: SHIFT consumer behaviours walkthrough
10m53s: Staring point to use the SHIFT framework
13m03s: Things to avoid when forming strategies to influence consumers
16m54s: Future opportunities for collaboration on the SHIFT framework
One of the highlights from David's sharing is to avoid guilt-tripping consumers when businesses form influence strategies on sustainability. One of the reasons to avoid guilt-tripping is that it might backfire and create resistance among consumers that will eventually drive them away. Instead, what businesses could do is to make sustainability behaviours very easy to achieve for consumers. For example, set the paperless option as default and provide an option to opt-out if users want to receive paper mail.
Articles on the SHIFT framework

• The Elusive Green Consumer
• How to SHIFT Consumer Behaviors to be More Sustainable: A Literature Review and Guiding Framework
• Shifting consumer behavior to address climate change 

To learn more about David's upcoming research, follow him on Twitter @dhardisty or check out his personal website and university profile.

Find out the topics to be explored at https://www.agilesustainability.org/
We would like to hear from you at podcast@agilesustainability.org
Reach out to us for any questions or challenges you face in adopting sustainability solutions.
Music by Wataboi from Pixabay