When nudge goes wrong: what can happen when the best intentions don’t lead to the ideal outcome

For our last #nudgemonth feature, as Halloween approaches, our Behavioural Scientist, Isobel Madle takes a look at the scarier side of behaviour change: what happens when nudges go wrong, the unintended consequences of the best laid plans and our natural resistance to any sense that choices are being made for us. These cautionary tales illustrate how any behavioural intervention must be carefully calibrated, based on evidence, research, close engagement and a deep understanding of the context.

As DG Cities’ nudge month is in its last week, it feels like an important time to highlight what happens when ‘nudge’ and other behavioural science techniques produce unintended consequences; what that means for practitioners and how we can protect against it in the future.

In general, behaviour change interventions identify one target behaviour to increase or reduce, for example, reducing car use or increasing the number of people walking to work. For us, this might also be helping to ensure the successful adoption of a new technology that can improve people’s lives. However, as behavioural science has become more popular, it has become evident that we need to consider how this behaviour change impacts on other behaviours. People do not perform single behaviours in a vacuum; they are inter-related and influenced by their context, so it makes sense that attempting to change a single behaviour might have an unintended impact on another. Below are a few unintended consequences of behaviour change interventions:

Positive or negative ‘spillover’ effects

A positive spillover effect occurs when the adoption of one behaviour causes the adoption of other behaviours. For example, a behavioural change programme might use nudges to reduce the amount of people who use their cars to commute to work. A positive spillover from this intervention could be that people also reduce their car use for leisure journeys. From a policy perspective, investigating the possibility of positive spillover effects is really attractive, because it could suggest that we can change several behaviours in a cost-effective way with little regulation.

On the other hand, a negative spillover effect occurs where performing one behaviour reduces the likelihood of performing another. For example, a person might decide that because they went for a run that day, they can have McDonalds for dinner. Another example of this can be found in energy reduction behaviours, whereby people feel that, because they’ve done something ‘good’, they can then do something ‘bad’ to compensate - this ultimately results in zero behavioural impact. Lucas Davis [1] found that consumers who bought energy-efficient products increased their energy use to the extent that they offset any potential energy reductions. For example, in the US, consumers who bought energy efficiency washing machines increased their clothes washing by 5%, so offset any potential energy savings.

Negative reactance to nudges

Occasionally, nudges can cause reactance in consumers. For example, ‘choice defaults’ are commonly used nudges that promote pro-social behaviour change. One example of this could be making environmentally-friendly energy contracts the default option on energy websites, in order to increase their overall uptake [2]. However, this can backfire and consumers may feel that they want to exert their autonomy and choose a different option.

Boomerang effect

Another effect is that receiving feedback on their behaviour can cause consumers to alter their behaviour in the wrong way. For example, often energy companies provide consumers with feedback on their energy consumption habits compared to their neighbours, known as social norms. Those with higher consumption can often be prompted to lower their energy consumption as a result. However, those with already low consumption see that others have higher consumption and can ‘boomerang’ [3]. In other words, they use the opportunity to increase their consumption to match their peers.

There is a clear need to study these holistic effects of behaviour change interventions. As we may nudge an individual in one domain, we could be ‘un-nudging’ them in another. This is why at DG Cities, we often use system dynamics techniques to map out systems of behaviours and influences prior to designing the intervention. From this, we can identify how our intervention will have an impact on the entire behavioural system, rather than just the single behaviour to be changed. However, this comes with its own complexities of system development and design, and we are investigating how we can design interventions that take into consideration these complexities of behaviour and context.

We are always learning, from project experience and academic research; our approach to behaviour change is guided by the people we are trying to benefit, based on the understanding we gain through engagement with them. If you would like to find out more about any of the projects or themes raised in nudge month, get in touch.

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[1] Lucas Davis, (2008) Durable Goods and Residential Demand for Energy and Water: Evidence from a Field Trial https://www.jstor.org/stable/25474381

[2] Ebeling, F., and Lotz, S. (2015). Domestic uptake of green energy promoted by opt-out tariffs. Nat. Climate Change 5, 868–871. doi: 10.1038/nclimate2681

[3] Bhanot, S. P. (2017): “Rank and Response: A Field Experiment on Peer Information and Water Use Behavior,”

How do you make change stick? Five points to consider

Although a behaviour change programme can be cost effective for a local authority, that economy is wasted if change doesn’t stick. For one of our final #nudgemonth pieces, Economist, Leanne Kelly sets out the principles for lasting, positive change, from building a programme on a sound conceptual basis, to drawing on established research frameworks and understanding the different stages of the user journey.

At DG Cities, we’re committed to understanding the drivers and enablers that make beneficial behavioural change lasting and sustainable. This means being open to continual learning about what works, when and for whom, and applying an iterative approach. We don’t think about solutions for our towns and cities as one-off interventions, but as ideas that can be refined or adapted in response to how communities and individuals engage with and benefit (or not) from them over time.

We recognise that behaviour change can be challenging, even where people want to make changes. This may be due to existing habits that are easy to continue; in-the-moment barriers, such as timing, immediate alternative gains and required effort; levels of self-efficacy and capability, and of wider contextual and external factors that can influence choice at an individual and social level. We also know that nudges may not always be sufficient in isolation, or appropriate – for example, if they are misaligned to individuals’ preferences, motivations or opportunities. If this is the case, their impact may fade over time due to the novelty effect, or because reliance on attention and incentives may not be sustainable.

Below, we’ve pulled together some of the ways we approach challenges that incorporate behaviour change alongside technology and infrastructure interventions, followed by some salient lessons and themes from the latest academic research.

These are our key lessons for enabling lasting behaviour change:  

1. Articulate a clear ‘theory of change’ early on, and revisit this throughout the project

   A theory of change – a clear, comprehensive description of how and why change is anticipated – is a powerful way of mapping the effect you intend to have on behaviour over time. There can be real value in developing this with appropriate stakeholders, such as client and local authority teams, community group leaders and potential end users. The framework can reflect relationships determined in previous projects, trials and research as a basis. However, it’s important to ensure the specific (and future) context of the project is understood so that the ‘theory of change’ and its relationships remain open to refinement. This also provides a good basis for our team to workshop the context and external influences, along with assumptions, risks and potential mitigations that relate to the project. This theory provides a clear framework we can revisit through a project’s design, delivery, assessment and evaluation.

2. Comprehensive behavioural diagnosis and change drivers

   There are various behavioural science models available to diagnose challenges through a behavioural lens and understand how change might happen. The Behavioural Insight Team’s MINDSPACE and EAST frameworks have been helpful to set out insights and early suggestions across behavioural drivers (messenger, incentives, norms, defaults, salience, priming, attention, commitments and ego – and timing). There are more recent guides, such as the UN’s Behavioural Drivers Model, and various sector and departmental behavioural guides for this stage and onward, and taxonomies of behaviour change interventions and techniques. Our team has used the COM-B model too, as part of the behaviour change wheel, setting out the Capability, Opportunity and Motivation factors for achieving a target behaviour, reflecting the social, psychological and physical and their automatic and reflective elements. This is a really useful accompanying framework to the wheel, with its potential intervention areas, and ensures the factors required for change remain central.

   Engagement is a key part of this stage, to understand how people currently think and feel, where motivations and capability currently lie, and what good change looks like and why. Qualitative analysis can help to draw out common barriers and enablers for the current and future context, and to understand where and why these differ… which leads us well to number 3!

3. Develop bespoke user journeys

   This is something our team really enjoys developing and we find it incredibly useful through a project. Engagement is crucial here for those already on the journey and those who could be users. This also provides a framework for when and how communities could be engaged with a particular intervention – the touchpoints. These might be receiving initial information, registering interest and exploring understanding of delivery stages and how uptake can be supported, as well as feedback with users. Of course, this differs between people, as does the extent to which the different stages matter, points at which drop-off or unintended consequences might occur and how to mitigate them. Applying a ‘systems thinking’ approach can also be useful, to reflect the interdependencies and relationships through this journey.

4. A clear monitoring and evaluation plan, with KPIs

   This is a key part of an iterative approach for learning and refining a project. The more the indicators can be broken down by different groups and stages, and with both objective measures and subjective insights (such as attitudes and experiences), the more useful this can be, whilst recognising limitations, such as reliance on self-reported measures. This is an important part of an evaluation framework, whether a process, impact or value for money approach is taken, for testing the project objectives against successes and areas for improvement.

   Each of these steps can and should be revisited and updated throughout the trial or project to enhance learning and ensure we’re meeting objectives. We revisit users and stakeholders early on, to understand how designs are viewed, how delivery stages are going, and if anything has gone less well or has changed. Sustainable behaviour change necessarily involves a process of revisiting, as environments and behavioural drivers change over time – being open to this and being prepared for how to measure and respond is critical, and here, behavioural research is key.

5. Reflect on the latest academic research

   Our team has been fortunate to attend some excellent workshops, conferences and training in this space, such as the recent International Behavioural Public Policy conference hosted at the London School of Economics. Behavioural science fields are increasingly recognising and responding to the limits and critiques of nudge, and developing behavioural approaches that are more appropriate, alongside nudges for sustainable change. This has also been driven by a growing focus on sustained environmental behaviours, and the critical objectives that such interventions seek to meet, as well as an increasing bank of public policy applications and transparent evaluations. This has been accelerated by recently reported issues in nudge research and questions around how substantially and for how long they shift behaviours.

The above steps are valuable to consider in creating lasting change – in a future piece, we’re going to be looking more closely at some useful insights from academia to help focus interventions and deliver greater impact.

Travel and behaviour change: the journey from intention to action

Future mobility is an important theme of our work at DG Cities, not least for the impact of transport on decarbonisation efforts. For our next #nudgemonth blog, Economist, Leanne Kelly explores some of the conditions that can be conducive to positively changing travel behaviours – from timing and the opportunities around major life events, to the impact of social norms and trials. This aspect of behavioural science is central to our understanding of how people think and feel about travel, and thus how well any solution can meet their needs and perform.

Here at DG Cities, we recognise that the successful planning of future mobility is central to the way a place will function. Mobility matters for decarbonisation, of course, but also for a breadth of socio-economic activities, neighbourhood resilience and vibrancy, and for individual choice and experience. Therefore, we are committed to understanding and incorporating the behavioural dimension – people’s attitudes and feelings about new solutions, their barriers to uptake, and individual-level outcomes, including wellbeing. These are some of the key behavioural principles that we try to keep in mind when it comes to travel and innovations in mobility:

• The role of testing and trialling

• Attitudes and norms are a key part of travel behaviour

• Different outcomes matter to people, at different times – not just journey time

• Travel matters for wellbeing.

Test, trial – and repeat

We believe it is critical to ensure that the widest groups of potential users and non-users are engaged in testing and trialling at every stage, from generating ideas to their design and delivery. Our D-Risk project for self-driving vehicles, for example, found great value in engaging diverse groups in deliberative workshops and surveys. Asking people about their thoughts and feelings – How do you feel about road safety? Which features would you like to see in a self-driving car? Who are autonomous vehicles for, and who should they be for? Who would you trust to operate in the industry? – prompted interesting discussions, which we followed up with ongoing attitude ‘temperature checks’ and produced a bank of ‘edge cases.’

Giving people opportunities to test new technology can stimulate access in a broad sense: by ensuring solutions have been developed with a range of people in mind, that early understanding of how solutions work and could work is distributed more widely. Trialling (and trialling again) matters, as travel, especially regular commuting behaviour, is well-recognised as being habitual and ‘sticky’. Indeed, people are typically more likely to change this behaviour around major life events – moving home, job or family changes.

Research also demonstrates the role of:

• Attitudes

  Pro-environmental attitudes make switches away from car commuting, for example, significantly more likely. Attitudes precede behaviour change and travel perceptions are an important early step in long-term change – though importantly, intentions alone are not enough.

• Norms

  Social norms, that the behaviour is seen from and acceptable to a relevant social group – and personal norms, where an individual sees the behaviour as familiar to them and self-expected in particular situations – matter. The premise is that testing, say, an electric vehicle or a cycle route for oneself and seeing others also test and use it (has your neighbour now gone electric?) will enhance take-up of new solutions. Norms will also have a critical role in shifting attitudes towards mobility as a service and away from ownership models.

• Self-efficacy

  It’s important that we feel we have behavioural control and can make changes to meet our goals, so having a chance to test and trial in a relevant environment is important, beyond hypotheticals.

There have been some excellent trials promoting sustainable travel in new residential developments, from EV car clubs to walking and cycle promotion, reflecting the role of life changes and nudges to create new habits within a conducive spatial context. Some key lessons here are that community-level norms can work well, with concentrated local action being very apparent and social, and that commitments can be supported where a sense of community is evoked and brought into the trial and individual feedback.

The route from attitudes to intentions to behaviour

There are various examples across the sector where testing, attitudes and understanding (or lack of) have mattered, such as cycling uptake and continuation across different groups, the operation of smart motorways, and pedestrianised or low traffic streets. A further, simple mnemonic is that a proposed new option be made per the Behavioural Insights Team’s EAST framework: Easy, Attractive, Social and Timely.

An interesting nuance to the attitudes-behaviour route is that an individual’s different objectives may have quite different impacts when it comes to the actual decisions they make about travel. Timing matters. Sustainable travel demand should increase as more of the public seek improved environmental outcomes. However, this objective can become lost in the travel moment, as a fast or familiar journey is more urgent, tangible and personal. Making the outcomes and objective contributions of travel more salient may be part of informed travel decision-making solutions. Technology can have a role to play – there are examples with sustainable and active travel apps with varied goal-framing (health, environmental, cost savings), and lotteries – people are incentivised to cycle to not miss being in the (small reward) lottery draw. Or sometimes, increasing their shared steps is incentive enough.

But with such examples, supporting harder to reach groups in making the changes that they would like to make, and ensuring changes are maintained beyond the first, novel incentives, is important and challenging… 

Making it easy

Personal behaviour change planning can be helpful. Learning shows that setting short and long-term objectives with people can work well with appropriate messaging, reminders and goal feedback. People may ultimately be supported in choosing, say, the fastest journey now, but the greenest later in the day, such that neither becomes the default and that each trip is understood to be potentially different – by time, weather, co-passenger, mood, and so on. Travel and its planning can be effortful. That’s why ‘making it easy’ is key, where travel defaults and habits only become stronger at the start of a busy day or end of a long day.

Beyond the infrastructure and market delivery, the routes to sustainable and beneficial travel behaviours are of real interest to our work at DG Cities. How people think and feel about travel and different options matters, in terms of how solutions meet needs and will perform. This has been a real focus of some of the projects our team have undertaken in the last two years, such as our EV consumer survey, micro-mobility consumer research and D-Risk programme.

 Travel matters for wellbeing

There is a great bank of research exploring the wellbeing of travel, particularly commuting, which has been described as a stress factor and often an unpleasant part of daily life. It is longitudinal studies that are of real insight here, as they show where there are associations with worse mental health for people with longer commutes, or commutes by certain modes, over periods of time, and associations to lower job and time satisfaction measures, as part of overall life satisfaction.

Travel trips have different interactions with elements of wellbeing – some require more concentration, or are noisier, more or less reliable, or allow for other activities or thinking time, and offer different levels of meaningful choice. There are also the health benefits of active travel. The design of future mobility solutions should learn from the elements and their combinations that most impact people’s different journey experiences – and there are a range of valuable techniques to use here.

The impact of Covid-19 on travel behaviour

Returning to the test and trial principle, the Covid-19 pandemic experience for travel meant that many people were involuntarily or voluntarily adapting and using transport differently. There are important questions here for how the nature of travel has changed in the long-term, and what this means for individuals, subjective wellbeing and urban planning. Our team is interested in the ongoing travel data, and the limited level of modal changes that were made in comparison to travel frequency changes. The wellbeing evidence is emerging and can provide insights from a larger, more varied population that has commuted less – or continues to do so. Whilst some people may now have the autonomy to change their work travel to support their wellbeing, others do not. This has important implications for benefit distribution, and supports the case for considering wellbeing in transport design and investment cases.

Going forward, our team is committed to keeping the role of behavioural insights central: asking people what they think and feel about transport, and if they’d like to test it. We are excited to consider mobility behaviours and how these interact with ensuring places are resilient and full of life. Get in touch if you would like to find out more about this area of our work.

LOTI: enabling innovation through engaging the digitally excluded

This week, as part of our series exploring the benefits of delivering behaviour change programmes in tandem with new technologies, we are delighted to welcome a guest blog from Sam Nutt, Researcher at the London Office of Technology and Innovation (LOTI). So far in #nudgemonth, we have looked at the ethics of applied behavioural science and highlighted the need for initiatives to be community-led and based on primary research – for this to work in practice, access must be equitable. Here, Sam highlights some of the ways London councils are promoting digital inclusion and embedding residents’ views at the heart of every decision, even the most technical data policy.

Innovation doesn’t just have a speed, but also a direction.

Across the capital, the London Office of Technology and Innovation (LOTI) works to promote a vision of innovation that is uniquely collaborative and inclusive. We want to see councils building the most effective tools with data and digital, empowered by the needs and perspectives of residents. However, to ensure the benefits of data technologies and a digital economy are felt by everyone, councils need to include digitally excluded people.

One London authority that has worked hard on this is Camden. Camden decided that they wanted their residents to thoughtfully deliberate, and then propose what they wanted the council’s data strategy to actually look like. The council showed great trust in their residents by bringing in a randomly sortitioned and representative group from across the borough to create their first ever Camden Data Charter.

Given that this group included older people, people with less knowledge in data, and even people who could not afford to spend the time learning this, the council had to make special efforts to include their residents, to ensure their commitment and participation. To help residents of all income levels to attend each weekend deliberation, everyone was paid London Living Wage. And, to ensure residents had an adequate handle on this technical issue, expert and neutral organisations like the Alan Turing Institute helped create dedicated educational resources and ensure residents could engage on their terms.

Lastly, and most importantly, residents will only choose to engage if they believe their input will actually lead to change. There is plenty of research from organisations like the OECD or Nesta that shows that this is one of the key enablers to encourage residents to engage with councils more. In Camden, not only did the residents directly determine the shape of the Data Charter, the panel of 2021 which designed the Charter also ensured accountability for their work, as the council has to report back to a new panel of residents in 2022. When residents feel genuinely trusted with meaningfully shaping council decisions or actions, then they are much more likely to choose to engage.

Luckily, there are growing numbers of tools for councils to help embed resident voices in decision-making, but considerations still need to be made for the digitally excluded. Newham Council demonstrates good practice in this regard. Their digital engagement platform, Newham Co-Creates, has around 5000 active members, but 3000 members were registered in-person in a single month during a dedicated push by their community neighbourhoods team. And, Newham’s Community Assemblies, a programme which gives residents £800,0000 a year to spend on however they vote, uses a hybrid model, combining in-person and online deliberation and voting. So, whilst there are new technologies and approaches which are empowering residents, Newham is showing that with the right design approaches, councils can both embrace new technology and empower their digitally excluded.

There is so much more to be done, but by meaningfully including all residents in decision-making, even the digitally excluded in technical issues like data policy, councils can massively improve the quality of their engagement with residents, ultimately allowing them to create policies and services more in line with resident need. If London can develop and embed this practice systemically, it won’t only be a great city for public sector innovation, but a great city to be a resident.

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Thanks, Sam for sharing LOTI’s work in the capital and some of the initiatives that councils are developing to achieve these aims. You can find out more about the GLA and LOTI’s Digital Inclusion Innovation Programme on their website.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the shift online for key services, from education to healthcare, highlighted the urgency of enabling universal access. DG Cities was appointed by Greenwich to identify and address the barriers to digital inclusion in parts of the borough - you can read more about this in Hiba’s piece.

A conversation with leading behavioural scientist and developer of Nudge+ theory, Sanchayan Banerjee

For our #nudgemonth series this October, we wanted to highlight the value of partnering with academia in our projects, how it helps us devise and trial innovative solutions and gives researchers real-world case studies – this approach is not restricted to behavioural science and applies to much of our work, from self-driving vehicles to technology.

We were delighted to have the chance to speak to Sanchayan Banerjee, Assistant Professor, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Visiting Fellow at LSE and Kings College London, and developer of the influential Nudge+ economic and psychological theory. Here, he talks to DG Cities’ Behavioural Scientist, Isobel Madle about the limits of nudge, ethics, frustrations with ‘quick fix’ expectations, and the growing prominence of behavioural public policy.

You can watch the interview in full on our Vimeo channel: https://vimeo.com/759558072

5 ways local authorities can make the most of technology + behaviour change interventions

Behaviour change and technology programmes, conceived holistically, have the potential to improve the lives of residents, create better neighbourhoods and deliver a number of benefits for local authorities. But how do you go from an idea to sustained, positive change? Next in our #nudgemonth series, Ed Houghton draws on our experience designing and implementing this type of project to offer his top five tips.

The breadth and depth of local authorities means they have the potential to deliver transformative change across sectors, from climate to health, wellbeing and education. Not only do local authorities have the mandate and ability to work directly and in partnership with communities, they also have legitimacy and access to the levers to create change – and many are increasingly using technology and behaviour change in combination to deliver on their goals. The potential for impact is beyond compare to most other institutions; the opportunity to create to create lasting, positive change is massive.

In practice, however, tech-related behaviour change is by no means a simple exercise. There are often significant barriers that can prevent these projects from working, or even getting off the ground. Lack of knowledge, lack of resources and lack of management buy-in are all common issues that can stop even the best designed intervention in its tracks. From our experience of the realities of implementing new technologies and behaviour change programmes with a local authority, we have compiled our five key lessons to help ensure a successful outcome:

1. Do your research – not only drawing on literature reviews, but speaking to real people

   There is a tendency for researchers to rely on published studies alone to build their interventions. While this is an important step, for new innovations and behavioural change programmes, it can be severely limiting. Instead, researchers should look to draw on other forms of data, in particular data taken directly from stakeholders and members of the public, to help with their design. We try to speak to the communities we are working with at every stage, but it is particularly important at the start, when a project is being designed.

2.  Plan flexibly and build in timeline and resource slack

   The reality of working with local government means that priorities and plans are often in tension. Unlike ‘lab’ work, which is structured (sometimes artificially so), the reality of local authority life means that plans need flexibility. Ongoing consultation and engagement can help to ensure that timelines are met, but projects should look to build in space for the unexpected – in our public engagement work on self-driving cars, for example, we were able to rapidly switch to virtual rather than in-person trials during the Covid-19 pandemic. Flexibility in methods can help to overcome challenging timelines, and means resources can be drawn on when they’re needed.

3. Make the most of your access to people and communities

   As well as refining the methodology, starting a dialogue with particular communities also provides significant scope for expansion and innovation. For our fly-tipping project, we have spent time meeting people on their doorsteps to test our approaches and come up with new ideas. This access is something that many organisations severely lack. Local authorities, however, benefit from well-established relationships with a range of communities, often through pre-existing networks, who are happy to help. The advantage of developing and drawing on these is in building a more inclusive, appropriate and achievable design.

4. Be pragmatic in your design and approach – don’t get distracted by perfection

   Good design quality is important, whether in selecting the right sample group, designing appropriate interventions, or testing and piloting. Sometimes, however, projects don’t make it out of the studio – they get stuck at the design phase, constantly honed and reviewed as theory while the issue they are intended to address continues. Start to pilot and learn through delivery. In the end, a project must be deliverable, and ultimately must make sure it produces data and results of the quality needed to inform a decision. Many behaviour change projects strive for perfection, when instead pragmatism and a focus on getting things ‘as good as they need to be’ can be more appropriate and useful.

5. Help stakeholders to see value and build their input into the programme at every stage

   ‘Selling’ a behaviour change programme is important at every stage. Local authority teams may be reluctant, cautious, or have little experience of this type of project in their area. Sharing case studies and stories from other projects can help to showcase the art of the possible, and also helps to validate and build your own approach. Stakeholder input should never just be at the start – it should be built in at every stage. This way, the impact of the project can be realised, and a culture of learning and evaluation can be supported to develop.

These are just some of the lessons we’ve learned along the way. We love meeting others interested in behavioural science and behaviour change interventions, and learning about what works in their areas of expertise. If you’re inspired by the above, or have your own lessons to share, get in touch!

Behaviour change in practice: the DG Cities team and approach

For the second week of our Nudge Month series, we’re sharing a little more about our team, our approach and recent projects. To kick off, Head of Research, Ed Houghton has written a short blog explaining who we are, what we do and how (and why) we do it. He explains the makeup of our multidisciplinary team and the value of this to a full-cycle approach, from undertaking primary research to evaluation – we don’t stop at delivery, but examine what works and where any improvements could be made, learning all the time.

 At DG Cities, our research touches on a wide range of place-related topics, from the latest in self-driving cars to digital inclusion for the most vulnerable in society. If there’s a technology and community angle, we’re interested. Whilst this is super exciting and interesting, it also poses all sorts of challenges – most significantly, how do we make sure what we do has impact and that we have the knowledge we need to make it work? This is why we are intentionally multidisciplinary. Our ability to approach a problem from different viewpoints is, I think, the secret to our success.

As a company, we combine years of experience and knowledge from our jobs and studies in all sorts of areas, from environmental science, engineering, psychology, economics and communications, to transport planning, geography and digital technology. This breadth of backgrounds allows us to take a holistic view of the problems we’re looking to tackle – and as such, means we can bring a unique perspective to the challenges our partners and clients face. This breadth is something we’ve built into our behavioural science team. We bring together both quant and qual perspectives, pairing psychology and economics disciplines. As an approach, this brings some exciting combinations of skills and approaches. Let me introduce you to our key team…

Isobel Madle is our Behavioural Scientist, and leads the design and delivery of our behaviour science projects, focusing on qualitative methodological design and analysis. Isobel has a background in psychology and communications and is passionate about helping people and places become more liveable, fairer and more sustainable. Her focus on wellbeing, and how to improve it, means she is always interested in approaches that create positive and lasting impact for communities, particularly those who are most disadvantaged. Her background in some of the UK’s biggest communications agencies gives her deep expertise in how to deliver change at pace, and work with people from diverse backgrounds via a multitude of channels and methods.

At DG Cities, Isobel is leading some of our most exciting work helping to implement new technologies which shape behaviours, including delivering an innovative waste-reduction project in a Greenwich housing estate using smart cameras and behaviour change communications. She is also developing new approaches to help people conserve energy in the home, again, using a mix of new technologies alongside “nudges” to help consumers save energy and money.

Leanne Kelly is our Economist, with a behavioural economics MSc, bringing skills in quantitative data and behavioural insights analysis. This helps to paint a picture of the significant, and interrelated, challenges our towns and cities face, and ensures we can measure impact and create a robust evidence base. Leanne’s passion for data, evaluation and wellbeing means she brings to work unique perspectives and analyses, particularly in relation to community level interventions where, in data terms, things can get ‘messy’.

As a trained economist with over a decade of experience working with local authorities, in infrastructure and urban development, Leanne takes a big picture view of the problem and ensures when we design interventions, undertake assessments and deliver evaluations our approaches are fit for purpose. This is invaluable for work with local authorities where policies and interventions must have a clear business case and demonstrate tangible (but often hard to measure) impact, and where learning through the project lifecycle is critical. 

And finally, me. As the sector lead, I help to oversee our behaviour change projects, supporting design and delivery, and enabling the team to engage through our partnerships and work with clients. As an engineer with a social science career, I’ve been driven to explore ‘what works?’ through all my projects, from evaluating mental health interventions for those working in financial services to building a network of professionals and academics to help disseminate evidence and change practice for the better. In essence, I try to find the gaps in knowledge and work out ways to plug them. Ultimately, I’m excited about meeting and working with others passionate about creating positive change through the better use of evidence and data.

As a team, we think our approach and background puts us a unique position to deliver transformative projects that can create meaningful change for residents, while offering value for clients and local authorities. We’re still growing, learning and developing; we will never finish building knowledge, as every project informs our understanding, deepens our insight. Every interaction is unique, just as no two places or communities are the same – we might draw on literature reviews and best practice in the field, but we place a high priority on primary research and getting out there, speaking to the people we are trying to support and keeping an open mind. Evaluation is also a fundamental principle of our approach; seeing what works, where we might improve things further. We’re excited about the future, and the opportunities to develop new ways to combine emerging technologies with behaviour change to improve people’s lives.

If you would like to find out more about us, our work or have a chat about your own experience, get in touch.

How do you make sure a programme aimed at changing people’s behaviour is ethical?

Next in our Nudge Month series, we are exploring the ethics of implementing behaviour change projects. What is the policy guidance and best practice in this growing field? How do we make sure we are working with people fairly and designing the right kind of measures to achieve meaningful benefits for them? Behavioural Scientist, Isobel Madle outlines the need for a considered, research-based approach – and one that doesn’t rely on demographic assumptions…

Behavioural science helps us to refine our understanding of human decision-making. This research can be extremely useful in policy-making, because these insights can be used to develop effective, low-cost public interventions in a wide range of areas, including energy, environment, health and financial services. However, as more public and private companies begin to utilise behavioural science to influence consumer or citizen decision-making, the ethics of these techniques have, rightly, come under greater scrutiny.

There are several arguments for using behavioural science in policy. Namely, behaviour change programmes are often quick, cost-effective and successful ways to promote beneficial outcomes for a population. Second, because behaviour change is a science, behaviour change techniques such as nudging lend themselves well to testing through randomised control trials, and therefore support evidence-based policy-making. It is also valuable to promote the use of evidence in developing new policies at both a government and local authority level.

However, there are several ethical challenges that arise when applying behaviour change methods to the general population.

• Because of the perceived ease and low-cost manner of behaviour change interventions, often they can be implemented quickly without consideration of the context in which behaviour change occurs, meaning it can be unsuccessful.

• Because behavioural science is a relatively new field of research and practice, so far there is no one set code of ethics for behavioural science interventions.

• A concern about nudging is that it reduces one’s rational agency. Some argue that nudges undermine rationality because they work through irrational processes. So, even if nudges are intended to promote a person’s goals and wellbeing, they fail to acknowledge the rationality of human beings.

These are extremely important issues to consider when using behavioural science. At DG Cities, we put people at the centre of all of our projects, therefore we take these ethical considerations extremely seriously.

The importance of primary research

We know that behaviour change is highly context dependent and that just because a nudge worked for one behaviour, it doesn’t mean it will work in all cases. That’s why when conducting a behaviour change project, we always conduct a thorough literature review and primary research with the population in question. We’ve found that, particularly when we’re working with low-income groups, the literature isn’t always right or relevant. For example, during a recent energy project, research suggested that energy behaviours were habitual, that is to say that generally, people do not think about their energy usage at home. On the contrary, when we conducted our own research by interviewing the local community, we found these people were extremely energy conscious and aware of how much energy they consumed and where. This meant that we could design an intervention that was tailored much more accurately to this group, rather than based on assumptions.

Best practice guidelines

As mentioned above, there is not currently one set code of ethics for behavioural science interventions. As this field is growing in popularity and use, it is a challenge for practitioners like us to balance the needs of our clients with these ethical considerations. While there isn’t one code for behaviour change interventions, there are adjacent codes for public policy, such as the Nudge FORGOOD ethics framework. This mnemonic suggests that policymakers consider fairness, openness, respect, goals, opinions, options and delegation when considering what nudges to use in their public policy. Similarly, Government Social Research (GSR) has developed an ethics checklist for social and behavioural research, to ensure research is unbiased and disseminated fairly. At DG Cities we refer to both of these checklists when developing and implementing behaviour change programmes to ensure participants are treated as fairly as possible.

Respecting people’s autonomy

A common challenge in the use of behavioural science is concern about reducing people’s agency and autonomy. Often, nudges are criticised because they take advantage of human shortcomings, like uncertainty, inaction and impatience, therefore exploiting people’s irrationality. Some argue they undermine autonomy because they influence people ‘behind their backs’. This is a really important consideration when developing behaviour change programmes.

This is another reason why it is beneficial to conduct primary research with your target population, as we did during our recent energy project. By interviewing our target population, we identified that it would be more useful to use nudges that work on both System 1 (automatic, intuitive thinking) and System 2 (rational, deliberative thinking), because our target population were already aware and thoughtful about their energy behaviours. So, we are using ‘nudge plus’ techniques, whereby we set goals with residents to reduce their energy behaviour by a certain amount each month and then provide monthly feedback, social comparisons and helpful tips to help them reach their goals. The benefit of this is that residents’ autonomy is maintained, because they are both aware of the nudges they will receive and have the choice of whether to comply with them.

Ultimately, there are ethical considerations with behaviour change programmes that we must fully understand and address when implementing them. However, with careful thought, reference to the available ethical guidelines and primary research, behavioural science can be implemented fairly and ethically to promote positive behaviour change in a population – and ultimately, to improve outcomes for this group.

Nudge Month at DG Cities!

For the whole of October, we’re going to be dedicating our Twitter, LinkedIn and blog features to our behavioural science work. We’ll be sharing insights from our projects (and some of our favourite diagrams!) and exploring some of the issues a behaviour change approach raises, from ethics and risks to the opportunities for local authorities. Head of Research, Ed Houghton leads our behaviour change practice and explains more…

Too often, we see innovation projects fail to deliver as expected because they aren’t adopted or welcomed by the people they were intended for. In smart city innovation, this is particularly common. For example, new smart lighting is installed or an e-scooter service deployed, but they have little impact, or worse, actively frustrate or even harm their target communities. Sometimes the technology may be at fault, but more often than not, it’s because people and their behaviour just haven’t been taken into account.

The best new technology interventions put people and human behaviour front and centre of their design. That is because the most sustainable change comes from choice – not through some anonymous form of implementation, or the deployment of an opaque new technology, but by encouraging people to make better choices for themselves and their community. This is where the concept of behaviour change comes in, and why we see it as vital to local authorities and communities across the UK. Using practical tools and methods developed from the worlds of economics and psychology, we use this approach to facilitate better informed, healthier and more sustained decisions and actions, and we support communities to make the most of new technologies.

Behaviour Change at DG Cities

People have always been at the heart of what we do at DG Cities. As much as we are fascinated by technology and excited by its potential benefits, we put people first, and consider technology as a facilitator and enabler of improvements, and not an end in itself. We have a wealth of experience in stakeholder engagement and user-centred design. Whether we are tackling fly-tipping on a housing estate or trialling new self-driving cars on public roads, we always start with an understanding of what change means to people – the impact of new technologies and services on their lives. For these innovations to bring positive benefits, councils need to illuminate how citizens’ lives might change as a result. Our behaviour change practice works to ensure innovation and technology projects not only meet the needs of real people, but also supports them to make better decisions.

In the years ahead, our towns and cities will be under pressure to do even more with less. Behaviour change offers a powerful, robust and practical approach to maximising impact with minimal resources. And it’s not just something to consider for new projects; established services and projects can also take advantage of fresh thinking. This is one of the core benefits of our methodology. Through evaluation, we can help to unlock hidden opportunities and enhance services that are working ok, but could work even better, through the application of behavioural science.

Understanding risks, ethics, processes and opportunities

All local authorities can make use of behavioural change interventions, but it requires expertise and experience to spend time understanding patterns of behaviour, drivers and motivators, messaging channels, designing interventions, and creating robust tools and processes to deliver projects in the real world. This is no small task and it requires a focused methodology, a keen sensitivity to risk, ethics and skill to get it right. But with the right steps and support, all local authorities can benefit from a focus on people and their behaviour, and access to the latest insights and evidence. Later this month, we’ll be introducing some of our team and the valuable quantitative and qualitative expertise they bring to behaviour change projects.

While some local authorities are already on their journey to empowering citizens by utilising behavioural science, many are still to get started. Wherever you are in the process, we’d love to help you make the most of behaviour change to meet climate targets, save public money and improve people’s lives. Discover more about our services this month and get in touch at [email protected].

IoT in practice: a case study of smart home devices in Greenwich

In February, we introduced our IoT programme and looked at some of the benefits of connected smart technologies for local authorities. For our latest blog, Project Manager, Nitika Raja explores in more detail different scenarios for use, including a ‘smarter homes’ initiative that aims to improve residents’ welfare and the management of housing in the borough.

When you hear the phrase ‘smart home device’, what comes to mind? A sophisticated gadget like an Amazon Alexa or Google Nest? Perhaps video doorbells, security cameras or smart fridges? Although the smart home market is dominated by luxury gadgets for individual households, smart home devices are increasingly popular in the public sector. 80% of social housing organisations say they are considering smart home solutions. The most popular are those that focus on tackling strategic priorities within a council, such as identifying high humidity and mould growth, reducing fuel poverty and identifying malfunctioning smoke and fire alarms. These are some of the topics we intend to address through our smart homes trial with the Royal Borough of Greenwich (RBG).

Our proposed smart homes trial

Smart devices were first trialled in Greenwich in the EU Horizon 2020 Sharing Cities project. In this small-scale trial, we focused on devices that could reduce costs and environmental impact, including environmental sensors, which provide insights into health hazards and air quality in homes. We showed that these sensors can be a worthwhile investment, delivering benefits to both RBG and its residents. We were then tasked by the RBG Housing team to research whether there is value in rolling out devices on a larger scale and to outline how this should be done. We summarised our findings in the Smart Home Strategy and prepared a separate decision report for a larger-scale trial. Our proposed trial involves installing environmental sensors in approximately 160 council-owned properties across Greenwich.

What do we aim to achieve by installing environmental sensors?

In the Greenwich trial, environmental sensors will alert the council to damp and mould risks early on, before they turn into expensive issues. The council spends a significant amount each year on repairs for damp and mould and we want to test whether the installation of environmental sensors can reduce this amount through a more proactive repair service. These sensors provide detailed insights that help the council assess the cause of damp and mould. The council can then implement the most suitable solution – repair works, if the issue is with the building, and potentially, behavioural nudges (e.g. prompts to open windows or use an extractor fan) if the issue is linked with resident behaviour.

We expect that environmental sensors will have a positive impact on people’s health and wellbeing by giving actionable insights into indoor air quality, damp and mould. As more households are in fuel poverty, sensors can alert the council to these properties through specific insights, like unusually low temperatures over a prolonged period. The council can then provide the necessary support, such as enrolment on RBG’s Stay Warm Stay Safe scheme, and also investigate, where appropriate, different methods of reducing energy consumption and heating bills.

Accessibility considerations

We considered how our trial can be inclusive towards tenants with different accessibility needs. The environmental sensors will transmit data to the council via LoRaWAN (low-power, wide-area network). Residents will need a mobile device with network connection to use the ‘resident app’, which displays insights from the sensors. The app includes a dashboard, recommendations on how to reduce energy usage and bills, and access to support services. We want residents to have access to this useful information, while ensuring that lack of mobile device is not a barrier to participating in our trial. For residents who are vulnerable or are not confident with technology, for example, control of the app can be given to a carer, friend or family member, with the tenant’s consent. We are looking at setting up an ‘information hub’ that displays dashboards and recommendations for households – the council can then share this information with households using alternative communication methods, such as letters and phone calls.

Addressing data privacy concerns

We will be transparent with tenants about how their data will be managed, so that they can make an informed decision on whether they want to participate in the trial. We will comply with a strict GDPR policy, which ensures that no personally identifiable information is linked to the environmental data collected, and that all analysis is performed on anonymised data.  

Understanding the wider picture

We intend to gather data from a selection of properties within an estate to get a general understanding of issues that might affect the whole estate. Building up a broader estate view from a small number of devices can also be cost effective for the trial by limiting the number of devices installed. When deciding which groups of properties to include in our trial, we focused on properties where residents could get maximum benefit, and ones which could provide the most valuable insights for the council.

Which groups of properties have we decided to include in our trial?

• Properties with existing or historic damp and mould issues
  Installing sensors in properties with existing or historic issues will deliver high value for both tenants and the council. For properties with existing issues, environmental sensors will help us determine the cause (whether it is due to tenant behaviour or problems with the building) and then swiftly take action. For properties with historic issues, sensors can provide insights on what led to damp and mould in the first instance, and how to prevent issues from re-emerging.

• Sheltered accommodation properties with heating improvements
  Two Greenwich sheltered housing schemes –are due to have heat pumps installed and refurbishment measures carried out to improve energy efficiency. We proposed installing sensors to analyse the impact of these heating improvements and to collect evidence to inform future energy efficiency projects.

• Void properties
  There are several benefits to installing devices in empty properties before they are re-let. It is the most cost-effective option, because installation of sensors can be combined with other general electrical works. It can often be the quickest option, and there is an opportunity for behaviour change and education when new residents move in to the property.

• A proportion of properties in a high-rise building
  We want to test whether we can monitor an entire building with only a small number of sensors. We hope to answer the following questions: Can installing sensors in a range of properties within a building provide an understanding of the general environmental characteristics for all residents? What is the ideal proportion of homes to be monitored to have a good understanding of the building as a whole? With RBG colleagues, we have identified a 24-storey building on an estate as a potential trial location. We propose installing sensors in properties across different storeys, with both north and south orientation, to create a picture of how temperature and damp characteristics vary within the building.

We will evaluate the success of the trial for each of these different property types, and based on our findings, will explore the possibility of scaling across the whole borough of Greenwich. This project is an exciting opportunity to bring the latest tech innovations to make a real difference to people’s everyday lives, as well as helping a council manage properties more efficiently and address issues before they become more expensive to rectify. We look forward to putting our roadmap into action and updating you on our trial as it develops!

If you are a council or social housing provider looking to harness the potential of IoT devices or other new technologies to improve the management of your housing stock and decarbonise get in touch with Head of Delivery, Balazs Csuvar to discuss how DG Cities can help.

Where to next for self-driving vehicle research?

It’s CENEX time! So when better to introduce our latest insights report into public attitudes to self-driving technology. Through our work on pioneering initiatives, such as D-Risk and Project Endeavour, DG Cities has become a leading UK authority on public engagement in the sector. Head of Research and Service Design, Ed Houghton explains more and looks at the next challenges research needs to address and some of the perceived barriers to deployment…

Adam WIlson/Unsplash

Where to next for self-driving research? And is the most difficult part still to come?

The DG Cities team has been exploring the potential of self-driving cars for several years. Our work has taken us the length and breadth of the country, where we have met different communities and explored some of the urban and rural spaces where self-driving technology could have the potential to change how people get around. Through our projects, we have also collaborated with some of the world’s leading technology developers in this exciting and complex field.

This week we’re delighted to be on the road (or train!) again, visiting the Cenex Low Carbon Vehicle Event and Cenex Connected Automated Mobility Event to share our research with the public, and to highlight where we think self-driving technologies are headed next. We’ve been trialling new ways of engagement and we’re looking forward to showcasing some of our insights from this. For example, in several of our self-driving projects, we’ve been able to deploy new techniques, such as simulation and virtual reality. This has widened our reach and enabled us to share information with a larger number of people, helping them better understand what self-driving technology is, and what it might mean for their daily lives. So, what do the public really think of self-driving services, and what could the technology mean for mobility in our towns and cities in the future?

Project Endeavour: diving deeper into public acceptance and interest in adoption

Project Endeavour was established to rapidly accelerate the development of road-ready self-driving tech, and to provide insights to policymakers, researchers and local authorities about the realities of deploying self-driving services. As part of Project Endeavour, we delivered an open trial to allow the public to experience self-driving technology, and see for themselves how it works. We invited over 120 members of the public to join the live trial in Greenwich, London. Attendees met with safety drivers and self-driving vehicle engineers to learn about the technology and took a ride on roads around the local area. We were able to do deep research with these participants, interviewing them, and conducting before and after surveys to measure their attitudes and perceptions. We also ran a national survey of more than 2,000 people that explored their views on self-driving vehicles. Together, the trial and survey research showed us:

• The majority are either undecided or are not yet comfortable using self-driving vehicles: findings from our national survey show 26.8% would feel confident using a self-driving vehicle tomorrow if it were possible to do so. Over half would not (55.1%). The remainder are undecided (18.1%).

• The safety case for self-driving vehicles has yet to fully convince the public: findings from our national survey show that three in ten (29.9%) believe that self-driving vehicles will be safer than traditional vehicles, whilst 44.2% disagree. A quarter (25.9%) are undecided.

• Live trials improved perceptions of safety by 15 percentage points: before the trial, 68.3% agreed that AVs would be safer than human driven vehicles, whilst after the trial 83.6% agreed, an improvement of 15 points.

VR: bringing the self-driving future closer to the public

A key part of our engagement work for Project Endeavour was to trial innovative and accessible methods of engagement that could enable us to reach as many participants, from as many perspectives, as possible. We trialled virtual reality (VR) as a method because it allowed us to do several things:

1. Bring to life a ride in a self-driving car, which we did by inviting people to sit and experience a journey around Oxford in the Project Endeavour vehicle.

2. Support engagement with the public through the COVID-19 pandemic, while adhering to restrictions on personal distance.

3. Create a sustainable tool that has had a life beyond the project to support broader engagement. Our VR trial reached over 2,500 households and schools nationwide, meaning many more were able to participate than could be accommodated in a physical trial.

Are we nearly there yet? Where research must go next

The technology that drives self-driving services is maturing quickly. Vehicles can now be trialled safely and successfully, and as Project Endeavour showed, they can travel through busy, complex cities and towns. However, to move forward, we now need to focus on adoption and acceptance by investigating the barriers, and exploring techniques and approaches that can support communities to build their confidence in and knowledge of self-driving services. We think that future research should look to cover the following important areas:

• Deeper public engagement into service design: a recurring theme across our research is that of emerging understanding and public expectations of how future services may be operated using self-driving technologies.

• Investment in behaviour change intervention design to tackle limited acceptance of and interest in self-driving technology: Project Endeavour highlights a significant number of ‘undecided’ participants who have yet to be convinced by self-driving technology. This group could be potentially shifted positively with the right intervention. More work is needed to understand which type of intervention would be successful in doing this.

• Increased engagement with excluded and vulnerable groups: interest and engagement in public trials and survey methods is often amongst those with access to resources, and with interest in the topic. Future service models must be developed with accessibility for excluded and vulnerable groups in mind.

• Support for additional research on capability and capacity building in local authorities around self-driving technologies and their potential impacts: local authorities need support to better understand the opportunities autonomous vehicles can offer, and the influence that deeper consideration of self-driving services can have on wider highways issues.

We’re excited to see where self-driving technologies go next. But one thing is clear: if the innovation is to become mainstream, it must be developed with the public at its centre. Without this, the technology could stall, which could be hugely damaging – not only for the industry, but also for all who could benefit from the potential advantages of its deployment.

To find out more about our work on public engagement in the self-driving field, read our latest insights report: Towards safe, accessible and trustworthy self-driving services. 

How can the latest tech and behaviour change be used to combat fly-tipping?

For our latest blog, Behavioural Scientist, Isobel Madle explains how DG Cities has been working with the Royal Borough of Greenwich to trial new ways of tackling fly-tipping on a local housing estate. By combining behavioural interventions with new technologies, the team is exploring low-cost and innovative approaches that can cut waste and improve the area for local residents.

Visit to Barnfield Estate with Councillors, council staff, the DG Cities team and local residents to talk about tackling fly-tipping and antisocial behaviour

Fly-tipping is a prolific problem across the UK. In 2020, almost half a million (485,000) incidents reached prosecution, and cost local authorities over £11.5 million pounds a year to clean up. However, this is considered to be the tip of the iceberg, when unreported incidents are included. For local authorities with already tight budgets, this is an issue they could do without.

Reducing fly-tipping is easier said than done; it’s a complex issue, with many barriers that need to be overcome. That is why the Royal Borough of Greenwich commissioned the team at DG Cities to investigate the problem, and develop an innovative approach to pilot, and eventually roll out across the borough. Our solution was to combine technology and behaviour change to reduce fly-tipping on one estate in the borough, the Barnfield Estate, where it had been identified as a particular issue. Fly-tipping is particularly bad at Barnfield due to its location behind two high streets, with easy access for local businesses. It also has multiple entry points, meaning criminal fly-tippers can easily drive on to the estate, dump waste and drive off. Some residents have also been seen fly-tipping.

During phase one of our project, we installed four Internet of Things (IoT) cameras at key locations. The cameras use motion sensor technology to enable quick identification of culprits in real time. We also designed a new process to make it easier for residents to remove their bulky waste, using QR codes. We used techniques such as systems thinking to define and visualise the fly-tipping problem for our partners at the council to help the team understand the problems on Barnfield in more detail. During the project, we have also encountered our fair share of set-backs, from competing local priorities to the theft of two cameras, which highlighted the lengths to which people will go to fly-tip.

Mapping the problem: understanding motivations and drivers

When it comes to enabling behaviour change, it’s important to assess the motivations and barriers of each group, which could explain why they come to fly-tip. From this we, as intervention designers, can understand how we can reduce it. There is no single set of circumstances. Criminals and local residents have very different motivations to fly-tip, therefore require different interventions to create sustained behaviour change. To understand these motivations, we conducted interviews with both residents, businesses and council staff. We even shadowed the caretaker of the estate to see how he collects and processes fly-tips each day. These findings were presented in a systems map to show the scale of the problem and opportunities for our interventions.

Phase one: cameras and communications

This brings us to phase one. We found that residents often fly tip because:

• They lack the space to store bulky items in their home.

• They were unaware of a bulky waste storage space on their estate.

• They were unaware that bulky waste collections were free.

• The bulky waste collection service required them to call the Greenwich council phone number and wait on hold to be directed to the right person.

To reduce these barriers, we produced a simple and quick new process for bulky waste collection. We developed a QR code that went to a short form where residents could complete their collection request. This information is emailed directly to the Barnfield caretaking team. Each resident received a colourful leaflet with the new QR code that set out the process. Already, the system is working – in one month, there has been a 300% increase in bulky waste collection requests.

For criminal fly-tippers, we have taken an enforcement-based approach. Criminal fly-tippers generally dump large amounts of commercial waste, which can include entire kitchens, construction waste and cooking oil. This has physical and psychological health impacts on residents, as well as being detrimental to the local environment.

We partnered with iDefigo and Vodafone to install IoT cameras in fly-tipping hotspots on the estate. The benefit of these cameras is that they have motion detection, meaning they only switch on when they detect movement in an area. The cameras then notify enforcement team members via an app, so that they can watch the fly-tip in real time and save the evidence. This saves a huge amount of time and resources, as the enforcement team no longer need to look through reams of CCTV. They are also better for data privacy: a short retention period protects the identities and privacy of local residents, whilst still catching criminals in the act. In fact, they have clearly rattled the fly-tippers, as two of the cameras were stolen within weeks of installation. This was also caught on tape and has been shared with the appropriate authorities.

Phase two: outreach and physical nudges

In the coming months, we will be installing phase two of the intervention, which includes a social media campaign and physical intervention. The aim is to see which behaviour change approaches generate the most impact and are preferred by local residents. We can then discuss the potential applicability of the approach for other areas where fly-tipping is an issue.

DG Cities has a dedicated behavioural science team, who work with local authorities to explore how behavioural change interventions can help to improve the lives of residents, reduce energy and save councils money. We are working across a range of projects, from improving how people recycle waste or consume energy at home, to supporting active travel and new approaches to electric vehicle infrastructure. Our team includes experts in research, behavioural science, behavioural economics and specialists in project management and the latest technological solutions. Follow us on Twitter to find out about the next phase of our Greenwich project, or get in touch if you are a local authority looking to find a new way to meet your net-zero targets or tackle a challenge in your area.