‘For the vast majority of people positive labelling has very little effect,’ explains Van Dam. ‘It can even be counterproductive because it sets a standard which most people can’t live up to, and that is demotivating.’ So instead of singing the praises of sustainable items, it is much more effective to point out the least sustainable option. ‘Naming and shaming. If you do that, the least sustainable products soon disappear from the shelves. I am a great believer in cleaning up from the bottom up.’
The yawning gap between sustainable theory and sustainable action comes about, thinks Van Dam, because we think about sustainability on different levels. On the one hand, sustainability is an abstract concept, a goal to strive for which lies somewhere far into the future. On another level, though, sustainability is a tangible choice here and now. And it’s not easy to make that choice.
The underlying psychological mechanism at work is described in the construal level theory of psychological distance, which Van Dam translates as the ‘yes of course, oh no effect’. Everyone is in favour of sustainability – ‘yes of course’ – but when it comes to specific behaviour, it’s another matter – ‘oh no’.
But something can be done about this. Tangible sustainable behaviour is a product of intrinsic motives, says Van Dam. By appealing to those motives you can promote sustainable behaviour. Van Dam studied the role of self-esteem and self-image in this context. ‘If people see themselves as acting sustainably and ethically, they behave accordingly and sustainable behaviour becomes a form of self-affirmation.’
And negative labelling can help with this too. Negative labelling makes use of the fact that when we make decisions we are most strongly influenced by outcomes we want to avoid. We avoid a product labelled ‘not sustainable’ more readily than we buy something labelled ‘sustainable’. Van Dam’s experiments demonstrate this.
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