I was sitting quietly in the audience at a sustainability forum last night (the SA DENR’s Stirring the Possum series) when my name was mentioned by a member of the panel. “If Tim Jarvis were here he would be the best person to answer that”. The panellist was responding to a question from the audience about how to get the average person to act more sustainably and her initial response had been that we needed to change paradigms and that setting some new defaults would need to be part of this.
As I was in fact there, the microphone made its way to me and I offered a description of a tool that I strongly believe represents a key element of getting mass uptake of sustainable practices – not a silver bullet but certainly a major part of the solution.
In both Austria and Germany donating ones organs after death requires ticking a box on the back of your driving license. There is a 30% difference in sign up rates (Austria has 21 donors per million to Germany’s 16). It has nothing to do with demographic, linguistic, cultural or racial differences; it is far more subtle than that. It is the way the question is framed: in Austria they operate a system of presumed consent whereas in Germany they do not. In other words in Austria you have to opt yourself out of donating an organ after death whereas in Germany you still have to opt-in if you wish to. The Austrian scheme in no way changes an individuals’ right to choose, it simply reframes the question. In essence it succeeds basically because many people do not feel strongly enough either way, even about such an emotive issue as organ donation, to not go with the default.
This thinking can and should be applied to sustainability issues. Carbon offsets should be automatically included in flights UNLESS people tick a box to say they do not wish to have this happen, domestic electricity could have a small amount of additional renewable power included in ones mix unless you chose NOT to receive it. This should be done transparently and honestly but it should be done. It places the moral onus on people to choose the less sustainable option. No more free moral ride. In the scenario I propose you will have to choose to contribute to the environmental problem, whereas being part of the solution requires you to do nothing.