By Sophie Attwood, PhD
The IPCC suggest that a further 40-70% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions could be achieved with more extensive sustainable behaviour change. Yet, when this change impinges on our daily lives, some initial pushback is inevitable. This article explores how trust, fairness, and transparency create conditions in which people feel confident to embrace lifestyle changes to benefit their own health and the future of the planet.
The Last Cigarette
On the evening of July 31, 2007, people across the UK took their final legal cigarette puffs inside the nation’s pubs. The next morning, the country became entirely smoke-free indoors.
Today, people can enjoy bars, restaurants, and clubs without the lingering smell of stale smoke on their clothes. More importantly, lung cancer deaths in the UK and globally have fallen significantly. In the US, lung cancer deaths in men have dropped by more than 50% since their peak in 1990.
The international smoking ban is not the only example of a behaviour change success story. Many shifts towards healthier and safer communities—such as reducing single-use plastics or increasing access to healthier foods—have been shaped not only by government intervention, but also by increased public awareness and a backdrop of changing attitudes. Other initiatives, such as seatbelt laws or limits on lead in petrol led to some initial resistance but were subsequently widely accepted as people began to see clear benefits.
In the UK, for example, the smoking ban followed decades of health campaigning and growing public understanding of the harms of smoking. By the time the ban came into effect in 2007, smoking rates had already fallen significantly – from 46% of adults in 1974 to just 21% in 2007, a reduction of more than half over three decades. Rather than imposing an abrupt shift, the ban built on change that was already well underway.
Creating Conditions for Public Confidence
As with the smoking ban, people are most likely to support new health and sustainability initiatives when these align with pre-existing shifts in attitudes and are introduced at the right time.
By contrast, in areas where public understanding is nascent or still evolving, as is the case for many sustainable lifestyle changes, it may some take time for people to feel confident in new behaviour changes being proposed. For example, research shows that while most people support clean air, they may not yet connect specific policies – such as clean air zones – with direct health benefits. In these cases, targeted communication that highlights visible and local benefits – such as cleaner air, safer streets, and healthier communities – can accelerate acceptance.
Yet, climate action cannot afford decades of gradual change. The urgency of reducing emissions means that building public confidence and scaling up solutions must happen in parallel.
Understanding Public Resistance: A Matter of Trust
Even when there is broad public support for change, some initiatives for a more sustainable future will still inevitably meet with resistance. This isn’t necessarily because people don’t want change, but it’s often because they may be unsure whether these changes will be fair, practical, or effective.
This response, sometimes called reactance, happens when people feel their choices are being taken away rather than expanded. For example, Denmark’s 2011 ‘Fat Tax’ was meant to encourage healthier eating, but was met with resistance because people saw it as a punitive rather than supportive policy. Similarly, clean air zones have sometimes faced pushback – not because people oppose cleaner air, but because they worry about the distribution of costs and benefits.
What these cases highlight is that trust is central to public acceptance of behaviour change initiatives. Three key principles shape this trust: Benevolence, or ensuring that sustainability initiatives reflect public interests and benefit the communities that they reach; integrity, that is, being transparent about the rationale for changes and listening to public concerns; and finally, competence, which involves demonstrating that new initiatives are effective and workable in practice.
When people feel they are part of the decision-making process, their needs are taken into account and they can see clear benefits – known as a people-centered approach – they are far more likely to embrace change.
Support People
For widespread acceptance, initiatives to promote sustainable behavior must feel fair and practical. For example, the smoking ban gained broad support because it clearly benefited hospitality workers, children, and people affected by second-hand smoke. The lesson here is to ensure that changes do not lead to a disproportionate negative impact on specific groups.
It is also essential to make better choices far easier for the public. Encouraging the uptake of electric vehicles, for example, is not just about restricting petrol cars, but also involves providing people with access to charging points and financial incentives that work with their daily routines and lifestyles. Similarly, encouraging more sustainable diets is not about restricting access to high-impact meat and dairy products, but more about crafting a food environment that maximizes availability and access to a variety of delicious and healthy plant-based options that people want to buy.
Clear and Honest Communication
How an initiative is communicated to the public also matters as much as the contents of the initiative itself. The success of the smoking ban was partly due to its framing as a transition to a ‘smoke-free’ environment, rather than a crackdown on smokers. Similarly, clean air measures gain more support when framed around health improvements and better quality of life, rather than focusing on restrictions to vehicle movement.
People also respond well to neutral, transparent messaging that respects their ability to make their own decisions. Successful strategies often use ‘two-sided messages’ that acknowledge both the pros and cons of a policy and ensure transparency rather than appearing as doctrinarian. This allows people to feel they have retained their freedom of choice and are making informed choices rather than being persuaded or pressured into a particular outcome.
Sustainability initiatives are also more likely to be accepted if communications come from a trusted expert or authority, and, even better, if these are backed by expert consensus, such as by the scientific community. Less reactance is also likely when mass public acceptance of a given change is communicated – a form of the ‘bandwagon effect’. In all cases, this consensus must be legitimate and not seen as manipulation tactic, as any dishonest attempt to persuade people will create far more pushback than no attempts to justify the introduction of a new initiative.
Conclusion: Supporting Public-Led Change
People already make choices every day that contribute to a more sustainable future. The challenge is ensuring that these choices are supported, not hindered, and that solutions are developed in a way that feels fair, transparent, and beneficial to everyone. Understanding and anticipating the psychology of reactance by focusing on trust, integrity, and clear communication, can support the public to enact their intentions to live more sustainable lifestyles.
Dr. Sophie Attwood is a Cambridge University-trained behavioral scientist who launched Behavior Global in 2023 to help companies, governments, and the third sector to use insights and methods from behavioral science to tackle some of the biggest challenges facing human health, wellbeing, and the future of our planet. Sophie is an affiliate researcher at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and a certified member of the British Psychological Society (CPsych).
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