[Report] Changing our Ways? Behaviour Change and the Climate Crisis

Changing our ways? Behaviour change and the climate crisis
The report of the Cambridge Sustainability Commission on Scaling Behaviour Change
Peter Newell, Freddie Daley & Michelle Twena
Cambridge Open Engage. doi:10.33774/coe-2021-544jx
May 12, 2021, 73 pages

Behaviours change. That much we know. But there is little consensus about how best to deliberately shape and directly influence everyday behaviours around transport, food and energy use in more sustainable directions and where responsibility and agency to effect that change lies. This report of the Cambridge Sustainability Commission on Scaling Sustainable Behaviour Change draws on research syntheses about the potential contributions of behaviour change towards climate and sustainability goals to attain the goals of the Paris Agreement. The commission focused on the state of knowledge and empirical evidence of leverage points for societal transformations at national and regional scales. The report provides examples of past evidence and future options of major shifts in lifestyles and values, providing evidence, where possible, of leverage points for deep social transformations.