Design Recommendations 

Most products are made for human use, which means how people live is a more fundamental root of the environmental crisis. "Greenizing” products is far from enough; we need to greenize people as well. By changing people’s environmental behavior, a sustainable way of life can be made possible. Nature-friendly design and behavior-steering design are not mutually exclusive; rather, they should complement one another. Nothing could be better than a product that achieves the two goals at the same time.

If the product-in-design only aims to be nature-friendly, its impact on users’ environmental behavior should be taken into account. Will it cause anti-environmental behavior? Will it counteract the effects of other behavior-steering technology? Among other problems, the rebound effect is probably the most noticeable one. A so-called energy-saving appliance may give its users a false impression that they are saving energy by using it and therefore can lead to a zero or negative result. A nature-friendly device does not need to improve users’ environmental behavior; however, it should not worsen it.

After the behavior to be changed has been targeted, consider MBST first. Due to differences in mechanism, MBST is usually more effective than IBST, both qualitatively and quantitatively. In other words, when thinking about how to change users’ behavior, try taking an extrasomatic route first. While personalized IBST may work, it tends to create the problems of privacy and transparency, so it should be the last option. Simply put, the more concrete, the better.

Echoing Recommendation 3, “mundane artifacts” in people’s daily lives, such as chairs, houses, roads, and the like, are concrete and solid, and have no less impact on what people do than electronic devices or advanced technologies. But as such technologies exert their influences silently, we tend to pay little attention to them. While the notion of innovation is often associated with high-tech, we might already forget that a creative redesign of existing technologies can be counted as innovation as well. Moreover, as pointed out by countless studies on technology, new technologies often bring unexpected side effects and may even put people at risk. The environmental crisis is definitely a consequence of this kind. Prioritizing low-tech designs helps to avoid such a problem. Again, this is where MBST prevails.

Due to the environmental problems, designing for separate individuals may have little or no effect. But the number of the people to be steered cannot be too big. Considering MBST’s physical constraints and the experimental nature of behavioral engineering, a community with about one thousand people is probably the most adequate. Designing and implementing behavior-steering technologies in a piecemeal fashion not only helps to ensure that a design works, but also reduces the risk of unexpected negative results.

Experimentation is essential to any attempt for social reform. Applying a new design to modify people’s behavior should be an open process that allows further adjustments or cancellation. Fixing or stopping what has been going wrong is easy, thanks to Recommendation 5. Only when the effect of a behavior-steering technology has been confirmed as positive, can it be applied to a larger population. However, such an application still needs to follow the spirit of piecemeal engineering, which means that the growth of targeted population should be gradual rather than rapid.

Due to epistemological limitations, we cannot be sure that being pro-environmental is ultimately good. But to identify which behaviors are problematic and should be reduced is easier. Accordingly, we need to design to remove, or at least decrease, such behavior rather than to create pro-environmental one. This is the main task of piecemeal- behavioral engineers. Furthermore, to reduce the worry about people’s freedom, we can make other options enjoyable, pleasant, or satisfying. In doing so, the whole contingency of reinforcement can be positive, and the avoidance of aversive control becomes possible.