Choice Architecture Is One Piece of the Climate Action Puzzle

August 2024
Citation:
54
ELR 10652
Issue
8
Author
Reuven Sussman

Choice architecture as defined by Professor Mormann in Climate Choice Architecture is helpful and important, but it is also easy to overestimate its impact. It is not everything. This Comment argues that choice architecture is framing a decision at the point of decisionmaking, presenting a list in a specific way, like the decoy effect, setting defaults. Sometimes, social norms and feedback is choice architecture if presented at the time of making a decision or if presented at the optimal choice opportunity. But Sussman doesn't typically put these in the choice architecture bucket. There are many other psychology-based approaches and understandings that are important, like reward and punishment.

Reuven Sussman is Director of the Behavior, Health, and Human Dimensions Program at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE).