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SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Health Education and Promotion
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1396958

Promising Behavior Change Techniques for climate-friendly behavior change - A Systematic Review

Provisionally accepted
Lisa Masciangelo Lisa Masciangelo Susanne Lopez Lumbi Susanne Lopez Lumbi Michel Rinderhagen Michel Rinderhagen Claudia Hornberg Claudia Hornberg Michaela Liebig-Gonglach Michaela Liebig-Gonglach Timothy Mc Call Timothy Mc Call *
  • Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Besides societal and governmental actions to mitigate greenhouse gases, individual behavioral 28 changes are also urgently needed to limit global temperature rise. However, these individual 29 changes have proven to be difficult to achieve in the general population. We conducted a 30 systematic review in five electronic databases with the aim of systematically depicting the 31 content of interventions that promote climate-friendly behavior in individuals and households 32 in high- and upper-middle-income countries. We included 25 studies. The analyses included 33 identification of the used Behavior Change Techniques (BCTs) and comparison of their promise 34 ratio. Across our three outcome categories energy consumption, water consumption, and 35 mobility the most frequently used BCT categories are not the ones that are most promising in 36 terms of behavior change. Based on these results, our recommendation for climate change 37 mitigation interventions is to include components that provide concrete instructions on how to 38 perform the desired behavior (shaping knowledge), setting goals and commitments (goals and 39 planning), substituting undesired behavior, and practicing desired behavior (repetition and 40 substitution). Other reviews with similar aims use different wordings, definitions, or degrees of 41 detail in their intervention component labelling which makes it difficult to compare the results. 42 We recommend to use a standardized classification system, like the BCT taxonomy in 43 combination with the promise ratio, which this study has shown to be a suitable tool to classify 44 applied intervention techniques and give an indication of successful techniques.

    Keywords: sustainability, mitigation, intervention, household, energy use, Water use, mobility, BCT

    Received: 06 Mar 2024; Accepted: 29 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Masciangelo, Lopez Lumbi, Rinderhagen, Hornberg, Liebig-Gonglach and Mc Call. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Timothy Mc Call, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.