I’m not in tech, but I really enjoy the All In podcast. A few episodes ago, one of the hosts, Chamath Palihapitiya, was lamenting that Blue Bottle Coffee automatically made his latte with oat milk, rather than cow’s milk, which is the traditional method for most folks.
Blue Bottle Coffee announced in May 2022 that oat milk was now the default pairing for their beverages as they work towards carbon neutrality by 2025. In their analysis, dairy was the largest source of emissions which contributes to climate change, across their operations.
At 10 Billion Strong, we train our environmental leaders about behavior change using Rare’s behavior change framework. Blue Bottle’s policy change is an example of choice architecture in action. In particular, they recommend the following:
Make desired behavior the default option and draw attention to desired behavior by making it salient.
By changing the defaults, big results are possible. As we think of minimizing the impact that business operations have on the environment, it’s possible to proactively design in pro-environmental behavior.
Of course, it’s important to bring customers along with the journey. Otherwise, they might complain about you to millions of people on their podcast.