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 on the public: consumers and voters. That has always bothered me because people can choose only among the options presented to them, and those options too often give environmental concerns short shrift.

If policy is the lever we want to pull, we need to focus on policymakers, business leaders, and their advisers. My work helps them break complex decisions into more manageable parts.

That starts with helping them define and place guardrails around the problem they are trying to solve. Climate change, for example, is an emissions problem more than it is a fuels problem. So, the problem that triggers decisions about climate change is emissions reduction. Focusing on that opens the door to many more creative options than focusing on fuels alone.

I also help decision-makers clarify their objectives, evaluate how well different options advance them, and anticipate the long-term consequences of their choices. Most importantly, I help them confront tradeoffs. I’ve never encountered an environmental decision in which every objective could be maximized. Decision-makers inevitably must give up something they value to gain something else. In my experience, avoiding those tradeoffs is where environmental decision-making by policymakers and business leaders most often breaks down.

Much of my work is rooted in decision analysis, but it also draws on the psychology of intuitive judgment. If you want to avoid common decision-making traps, you need to know where to look for them.

JP: How can policymakers effectively influence values and preferences at scale?

JÁ: They need to give people a wider range of better options to choose from. That takes time, but for environmental risks, the time to act is now.

Consider transportation. In most places, the options available today are not fundamentally different from those offered nearly a century ago. They may be more efficient, but the basic model remains unchanged.

Climate change makes the problem especially clear. Transportation is still a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, yet the market remains dominated by internal combustion engines, even though better low- and zero-emission technologies exist. Policymakers and business leaders simply haven’t done enough to put those alternatives in front of consumers.

There are many reasons for this, but two stand out: special interests determined to preserve the status quo and policymakers who lack the courage to challenge them. Neither of these obstacles is insurmountable.

JP: What are the limitations of choice architecture and decision engineering?

JÁ: Choice architecture has proven effective with consumers, but at the policy level, my experience is that it is not a viable tool. Because of their lofty positions, it’s hard to nudge a policymaker or business leader; it’s critical to them that they retain control over their choices.

Senior government officials have told me point-blank that they would much rather make errors of omission than errors of commission. That’s why my work with policymakers and business leaders focuses on improving the decision-making process itself, rather than trying, and failing, to use choice architecture to guide them toward certain options.

JP: Are there ethical concerns with certain decision-engineering approaches?

JÁ: How options are presented to people makes it more or less likely that they will choose them. That happens whether or not it is intentional. Personally, I’d sleep better at night if choice architecture were used only when its outcomes aligned with the values and objectives of the vast majority of people it targets. And, selfishly, I’d feel even better if the options being promoted by choice architects were also better for the planet.

But, for the reasons I mentioned earlier, I am not comfortable with the idea of engineering a policymaker’s or business leader’s judgments and choices. I see my role as helping policymakers and business leaders think differently and reason critically. I am not there to exploit biases or manipulate the process to produce an outcome that reflects my own values.

JP: How do we measure the effectiveness of policies designed to influence human behavior in such complex and dynamic contexts?

JÁ: It has to be a combination of process and outcome. Are policymakers making choices in a way that reflects the gravity of the problem? That is a question of both effort and accuracy. My job is to help them understand that consequential decisions demand a high degree of both.

For consumers, I look for uptake: Do the available options resonate with their varied concerns and priorities? Ultimately, are people choosing and adopting them?