Seven cognitive concepts for successful eco-design

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Seven cognitive concepts for successful eco-design
Erin F. MacDonald
a
,
*
, Jinjuan She
b
a
Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
b
INVIA Medical Imaging Solutions, USA
article info
Article history:
Received 19 November 2012
Received in revised form
27 October 2014
Accepted 29 December 2014
Available online xxx
Keywords:
Eco-design
Sustainable design
Conceptual design
Design method
Behavioral change
Pro-environmental behavior
abstract
This article is a review of research on encouraging pro-environmental behavior in a variety of fields and
applies the results to create recommendations for eco-design. Environmental psychology, behavioral
psychology, consumerism, business, environmental political science, and additional social science
research were used to define cognitive concepts that led to the purchase and use of eco-products. The
concepts and basic explanations are: (1) responsibility, a sense of personal control over actions and
outcomes; (2) complex decision-making skills, mental tools that structure complex decisions; (3) deci-
sion heuristics, mental shortcuts that simplify judgments and decisions; (4) the altruism-sacrifice link, an
assumption that doing good requires personal sacrifice; (5) trust, the degree to which a person believes
the information they are given; (6) cognitive dissonance/guilt, the mental processes that may occur when
a mismatch between intention and action is identified; and (7) motivation, intrinsic and extrinsic
satisfaction that drives behavior. Eco-product examples are provided to highlight the role of the cognitive
concepts design. Design recommendations and relevant design methods are discussed. The recom-
mendations require coordination between designers, manufacturers, marketers, and government policy-
makers to achieve positive changes in individuals' behavior.
Published by Elsevier Ltd.
1. Introduction
For the past forty years, researchers, mainly in the social sci-
ences, have studied how to encourage the adoption of recycling
programs, water conservation strategies, and other individual pro-
environmental efforts. This article presents a literature review as it
relates to the design of eco-products and technologies and first
defines the approach and method of the review. Then it gives an
overview of relevant terms such as “attitude”and “pro-environ-
mental behavior”(PEB). The rest of the article is devoted to
exploring the seven cognitive concepts, interspersed with recom-
mendations for designers and relevant emerging design methods.
Consider a continuum of eco-product success, shown in Fig. 1,as
defined by customer attitude: some individuals actively seek out
eco-products to buy and use (strong purchase criteria); some do not
seek them out, but a product's reduced environmental impact will
create a preference for the product over an otherwise identical
alternative (weak purchase criteria); some individuals are neutral
to eco-products (neutral); and, unfortunately, some individuals find
consideration of the environment in a product's design to be a
drawback (negative purchase criteria)dfor reasons to be explored
later. Metaphorically speaking, this article aims to create “positive
movement”along this continuum by inspiring engineers and de-
signers to design eco-products that encourage such movement.
Moving customers along this continuum towards the active pursuit
of eco-products is advantageous to the environment and the
company producing the product, and to policy-makers, as it may
reduce the expense of time and money required to institute a new
product-related policy. Increased demand, reduced environmental
impacts, and easier policy implementation will spur development
of eco-products.
There are many resources on the technological side of eco-
design: For integrated sustainable life cycle design see (Ramani
et al., 2010); for taxonomy of sustainable design tools and guid-
ance on selecting the tools see (Bovea and P
erez-Belis, 2012); for
initiatives and efforts taken by different stakeholders to promote
sustainable production and consumption see (Barber, 2007); for a
special issue on how to achieve eco-design see (Huisingh, 2006;
Karlsson and Luttropp, 2006).
*Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: erinmacd@stanford.edu (E.F. MacDonald), shejinjuan@gmail.
com (J. She).
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Cleaner Production
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2014.12.096
0959-6526/Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2015) 1e14
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1.1. Approach and method
The discussion here is centered on the design of mass-market
eco-products. The working definition of eco-product used
throughout this article is: a product that is intentionally and
methodically designed to decrease environmental impact versus the
status quo, be that a competing product or an otherwise-defined
baseline, using a scientifically-based environmental impact assess-
ment tool of the designer's choosing.
To narrow the discussion, this article assumes that individuals
are concerned about the negative impact they have on the envi-
ronment, rather than addressing the equally-important issues of
public awareness and environmental education. Guber provides an
excellent analysis of public opinion concerning the environment
and documents that the level of public concern for the environment
varies widely by date and by survey framing (Guber, 2003).
This article represents a synthesis of findings from literature in
the fields of environmental and behavioral psychology, consum-
erism, business and marketing, environmental political science,
and design for sustainable behavior. It focuses on research con-
ducted in the United States and Europe. Summary and review ar-
ticles are referenced wherever possible to aid the reader in
furthering their education. A brief introduction and relevant liter-
ature reviews for these fields are presented below.
Environmental psychology provides insight into a person's
relationship with their physical environment, and it increasingly
expands into public policy, concern with technology, and connec-
tion with other disciplines in recent years, as indicated by Gifford
(2007). For a review of environmental psychology as a discipline,
see (Gifford, 2007) and the corresponding special issue of the
Journal of Social Science, and a special issue of American Psychol-
ogist (McKenzie-Mohr, 2000; Winter, 2000). Gifford (2007) out-
lines emerging themes, growth, and challenges in environmental
psychology regarding contributing to sustainable development.
McKenzie-Mohr (2000) proposes a four-step framework to support
fostering sustainable behavior in a community, and identifies seven
cognitive concepts/“tools”as possible solutions to fulfill this
objective: commitment, social norms, social diffusion, prompts,
communication, incentives, and convenience. Winter (2000) dis-
cusses neoanalytical, behavioral, social, and cognitive approaches
and outlines how to address the psychology of sustainability from
these perspectives. For a review of the psychology of forming
preferences, see (Slovic, 1995), which also demonstrates that
different elicitation procedures produce different preferences.
Behavioral psychologists offer insight into the psychological
precursors to performing PEB. For a review of studies, see (Stern,
2000) whose Value-Belief-Norm theory provides a sympathetic
conclusion to the discussion below: the causes for PEB are not al-
ways clear and a combination of corrective approaches works best
when attempting to change behavior. Some researchers have found
that environmental attitude alone is not a good predictor of PEB
(McKenzie-Mohr, 2000; Roberts, 1996; Vining et al., 2002).
McKenzie-Mohr (2000) discusses factors that affect behavior:
commitment, social norms, social diffusion, prompts, communica-
tion, incentives, and convenience. Researchers have reported a
varying degree of connection between intentions formed directly
before performing a PEB and the behavior that follows (Koehn,
2006). As tested in the Comprehensive Action Determination
Model (Kl€
ockner and Bl€
obaum, 2010), PEB is affected not only by
intention, but also by habits, social and personal norms, and sub-
jective and objective situational constraints.
Business research requires a balance between profit growth and
pro-environmental implementations and thus poses new chal-
lenges for sustainability. Green marketing, as a sub-discipline of
business research, is the study of positioning eco-products in the
market for profitability. For a review of green marketing, see
(Peattie and Charteris, 2008), and note the special issue on sus-
tainability in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science
(JAMS) (Hult, 2011). Peattie and Charteris (2008) discuss the in-
fluence of “green challenge”on current marketing practice, and the
marketing strategies to promote pro-environmental behavior, as
well as practical challenges. The special issue in JAMS consists of a
set of 10 articles providing information for researchers and related
stakeholders on sustainability and marketing (Hult, 2011). Connelly
et al. (2011) developed a “theoretical toolbox”using nine organi-
zational theories (transaction cost economics, agency theory,
institutional theory, organizational ecology, resource dependence
theory, the resource-based viewof the firm, upper echelons theory,
social network theory, and signaling theory) and discussed their
implications on sustainability. Peloza and Shang (2011) addressed
sustainability from the perspective of corporate social re-
sponsibility (CSR) and stakeholders. They suggested that different
types of CSR activities have different effects on stakeholder per-
ceptions of value and even stakeholder behavior. Their review of
previous research identifies three broad categories of CSR: phi-
lanthropy, business practices, and product-related.
Consumerism studies people as the purchasers and consumers
of goods as a large-scale phenomenon, accounting for a large
portion of environmental issues. Environmental political science
studies how to affect or influence large-scale environmental
changes through governmental (or other organizational) efforts, for
example discouraging some behavior (e.g., littering) and encour-
aging others (e.g., purchase of alternate fuel vehicles). For a review
of motivating consumer behavioral change and environmental
policy implications (focused on the United Kingdom) see (Jackson,
2005). It reviews models of consumer behavior, motivating
behavioral change, and environmental policy implications. Dolan
et al. (2012) identify nine factors influencing human behavior and
its change: messenger, incentives, norms, defaults, salience, prim-
ing, affect, commitment, and ego (MINDSPACE). They discuss how
to apply these factors to policy making.
Design for Sustainable Behavior uses a multidisciplinary
perspective to proactively improve sustainability through design.
Boks (2006) identifies socio-psychological factors that play a role in
the successful implementation of eco-design, such as the devel-
opment of company-specific eco-design tools and the creation of
guidelines and roadmaps. Pettersen and Boks (2008) mention four
main strategies to promote behavior change: political measures,
education, community-based social marketing, and technology.
They emphasize user-centered strategies for eco-design, such as
eco-feedback, and emotional attachment. Lockton et al. (2010a)
present the Design with Intent Method for influencing behavior
through six approaches: architectural, error-proofing, persuasive,
visual, cognitive, and security.
Literature Review and Synthesis Method. In order to identify
relevant literature from seven-plus fields of rich academic research
our approach focuses on literature relevant to facilitating successful
eco-design to use social science research to help engineers design
Fig. 1. A continuum of customer preference for eco-products.
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eco-products with increased market success. The literature review
occurred in three stages: collection, presentation for feedback, and
refinement (Fig. 2). The collection stage was initiated by an
internet-based search for keywords, such as “product design”and
“eco-design”in combination with keywords related to the aca-
demic fields, such as “behavioral psychology”and “environmental
psychology.”A list of over 100 relevant references was composed as
a starting point. From this list, citations were searched both
forward-looking and backward-looking using citation trees within
the ISI Web of Knowledge. Simultaneous to the online reference
search, experts in the related fields were contacted to confirm the
approach and collect additional references. The quickly-growing
list of articles was then organized in two categories: type of infor-
mation (e.g., related observation of interest to designers, design
recommendation, design example, “what not to do,”etc.) and
cognitive concepts presented in the following. The second stage
(review process from peers) relied on the feedback from designers
in academia and industry, as well as the experience of the authors.
The beta-version of the material featured in this article was pre-
sented in large-format talks to research and development groups at
the Ford Motor Company, 3M, John Deere (Deere &Company), and
Whirlpool Corporation, followed by small group feedback and
discussion meetings. It was also presented to academic product
design research audiences at the 2012 American Society of Me-
chanical Engineers Design Theory and Methodology conference
and the 2011 INFORMS Annual Meeting on Operations Research in
the Green Innovation and Product Development section. Recom-
mended improvements from these interactions are incorporated in
the manuscript in the refinement stage.
1.2. Types of pro-environmental behavior (PEB)
Lofthouse et al. (1999) saw eco-design not only as a technical
issue regarding how to engineer a product, but also a focus on
product design interaction: how consumers use a product. Three
general categories of PEB are useful when conceptualizing the user
interaction with an eco-product: curtailing, efficiency, and political
behavior. Diminishing use of electricity by turning off lights when
not in use is a curtailing behavior (using less through behavior
modification); reducing the need for electricity by installing
compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) is an efficiency behavior
(using less through product modification); changing the source of
electricity by voting and campaigning for clean energy is a political
behavior. Curtailing, efficiency, and political behavior are influ-
encing and overlapping each other in Fig. 3.Stern (2000) uses four
categories: committed environmental activism (dedicated to PEB
from all aspects actively), public-sphere environmentalism (accept
or support public environmental policies), private-sphere envi-
ronmentalism (practice PEB personally), and others. We divide
private-sphere environmentalism into curtailing and efficiency
behavior, those that are most commonly affected by product
design. Committed environmental activism represents a synergy of
political, curtailing, and efficiency behavior. For a different classi-
fication system, see (Renstr€
om et al., 2013), where PEB are
categorized into five pathways: changed use, mediated use, regu-
lated artifact, maintenance and repair, and choice of artifact. People
acting on their environmental concerns often display preferences
in one kind of PEB to another, which correlate with demographic
information as reported in Barr et al. (2005). The discussion here-
after is tailored to encourage efficiency behavior through the design
of eco-products. However, some of the concepts are applicable to all
three categories of PEB.
2. The seven cognitive concepts
Seven cognitive concepts that influence PEB are particularly
relevant to improving the design of eco-products. These concepts
are: responsibility, complex decision-making skills, decision heu-
ristics, the altruism-sacrifice link, trust, cognitive dissonance/guilt,
and motivation, as presented in Fig. 4. This section provides ex-
planations and examples of these cognitive concepts, with rec-
ommendations for designers. We chose examples that are familiar
to engineers, particularly U.S. engineers, in any field. Because of the
significant influence of public policy on engineering design de-
cisions (Whitefoot, 2011), some recommendations also involve
coordination with policy makers. The concepts are presented in an
order that allows the logical flow of conclusions and recommen-
dations in the discussion; this order is not meant to suggest a
temporal or hierarchical relationship between the concepts. Ex-
amples and recommendation source are summarized in Table 1.
The recommendation source is classified by its field of research:
Design Research (DR), Technology Research (TR), Business Research
(BR), Social Science Research (SR), and Research from Other Fields
(OR).
2.1. Responsibility
The sense of responsibility for current environmental problems
can be separated into two parts: a sense of responsibility for
causing the problems, and a sense of responsibility for solving the
problems. The former, when felt as blame and/or guilt, can poten-
tially decrease PEB, as will be discussed in Section 2.6. The latter,
when properly guided, may increase PEB.
The environmental “tragedy of the commons”is famously
addressed in a parable by Hardin in Science (Hardin, 1968). There is
a common pasture that will deteriorate to uselessness if sheep
herders only act in their own short-term best interest. Both in this
parable and in the real world of communal resource sharing, it is
typically a community action that maintains communal resources,
rather than individual ones (De Young, 1999). The environmental
tragedy of the commons has been remarkably individualized. The
individualization began in the 1960s, when naturalists popularized
the environmental movement in books such as Silent Spring (Carson
Fig. 2. Literature review and synthesis approach.
Fig. 3. Categories of pro-environmental behavior (PEB).
E.F. MacDonald, J. She / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2015) 1e14 3
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et al., 1962). These books used generalizations and shock value, a
“shame and blame”strategy, to make readers feel an individual
sense of responsibility for environmental problems. The environ-
mental movement was later commoditized (e.g., buy a “save the
planet”T-shirt) during the individualistic 1980s (Maniates et al.,
2002). The 1990s brought the publishing of best-selling books
such as Green Consumer Guide (Elkington et al., 1990; Madge, 1997).
In Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth book (Gore, 2006), out of thirty-
four recommendations for “what you personally can do to solve the
climate crisis,”only four were community or politically-focused,
and they were listed last.
This duality allows individuals to push the responsibility to the
“commons”and avoid difficult personal pro-environmental de-
cisions. The intersection of public policy and personal responsibility
causes confusion in resolve: people are concerned enough about
the environment to desire government to do something about it,
but they themselves would prefer to make only voluntary changes
as a result of this public policy (Guber, 2003). Individuals can
conveniently listen to the messages of hard-core environmentalists
who undermine a sense of individual responsibility for the prob-
lem, viewing individual PEB as ineffective (Maniates et al., 2002).
The majority of U.S. citizens assume that industry and government
are already taking responsibility for environmental problems
(Guber, 2003). This avoidance is unfortunate, because individual
responsibility and PEB are necessary to initiate wide-scale policy
changes efficiently and effectively. It is also unfortunate because an
individual's judgment of the extent to which they can personally
prevent environmental destruction is a significant indication of
their likelihood to purchase eco-goods (Roberts, 1996). People feel
they do not have individual control over solving environmental
problems (Allen and Ferrand, 1999; Van Birgelen et al., 2009).
Recommendation 1 details how design strategies help enhance
individual responsibility.
Recommendation 1: Instill a sense of personal control over
the solution, not responsibility for causing the problem, by
designing products with interactive curtailing features. When
eco-products offer features that not only increase efficiency
behavior, but also offer opportunities to perform curtailing
behavior on an elective and repetitive basis, customers will have
multiple options to expressing individual PEB. This approach is
included in current Design for Environment methods, summarized
by Telenko et al. as a single principle: “Incorporate features that
prevent waste of materials by the user”(Telenko et al., 2008). To
reinforce a sense of responsibility in the user, the findings from
social sciences suggest that an emphasis on features that are active
and require participation in waste reduction rather than passive
waste prevention will go further to promote PEB. The ideal design
would include waste-reduction features that the user interacts with
on a regular basis and feels a small reward for performing; thereby
feeling empowered to become part of the environmental problem
solution.
A simple example of a curtailing design modification is select-a-
size paper towels (Fig. 5); more perforations on paper towels at
smaller intervals offer a choice to tear off a smaller piece of towel
for smaller-sized jobs. An energy saving mode on a printer (Fig. 6)
lets customers lower their environmental impact by curtailing their
Fig. 4. Eco-design recommendations derived from the seven cognitive concepts.
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energy use. The towel/printer can be sustainably designed,
providing an efficiency behavior, and also offer the customer the
opportunity to perform a curtailing behavior.
A more complex example is the Eco-Flow spray shower nozzle
from Waterpik, shown in Fig. 7. Not only does this shower head
include an internal valve that increases water force and reduces
water usage (a preventative waste measure), it also includes a
switch to reduce water to a trickle when water is not needed during
the shower, for example while shampooing (Waterpik).
A recent marketing study (Sheth et al., 2011) implies that
careful design might trigger a mindset of caring for self, com-
munity, and nature, and thus have potential influence on
advancing PEB. Specifically, a product can be designed with at-
tributes that help reduce repetitive consumption, such as being
made easier to upgrade and repair, affording use by multiple
users, or with attributes that foster responsible consumption,
such as providing an option to save energy, and enable built-in
educational feedback.
Table 1
A summary of cognitive principles, recommendations, related examples and supporting evidence.
Cognitive concepts Recommendations Examples Recommendation source
a
Responsibility 1. Instill a sense of personal control of the
solution by designing products with
interactive curtailing features
Good example: Energy saving mode on
a printer
Better example: Select-a-size paper
towels
Best example: Shower head fingertip
shut-off for shampooing
(Roberts, 1996)SR, (Telenko et al., 2008)
DR
Complex Decision-making
Skills
2. Constrain customers' product decisions
with industry standards
Energy Star program (Levin, 1993)SR, (Maniates et al., 2002)
SR
3. Encourage tackling of complex decisions
through interaction incentives and
designed-in educational feedback
Chevrolet Volt panel encourages drivers
to achieve higher MPGs
Real-time feedback on home electronics
increases energy savings
(Ehrhardt-Martinez et al., 2010)TR/SR,
(Midden et al., 2007)SR,
Decision Heuristics 4. Address the customers' environmental
concerns as well as the crucial
environmental issues
Green Mountain biodegradable or
reusable K-Cups
Example of what not to do: Mercury in
CFLs
(Slimak and Dietz, 2006)SR, (Guber,
2003)SR
5. Identify useful heuristics and use
them to educate about the product's
environmental impact
1 CFL ¼10 incandescent light bulbs
Heuristics are needed to help users
quantify the dosage of laundry
detergent to use
(Winter, 2000)SR, (Sandahl et al., 2006)
TR, (J€
arvi and Paloviita, 2007)SR
6. Identify perceptual product cues that
communicate environmental impact
Vitra Vegetal chair looks like tree
branches
(Reid et al., 2009)DR, (She and
MacDonald, 2014)DR
Altruism-Sacrifice Link 7. Offer only “triumphs”and downplay
altruism in the product's design
Bamboo resin flooring is marketed as
modern
Cold-water detergent emphasizes
money savings
(Van Birgelen et al., 2009)SR, (Sandahl
et al., 2006)TR
8. Apply design for upgradability or
adaptability to work-horse products
that are known for reliability and are
not status symbols
Office Equipment/Copy machines can
be upgraded with additional features
Trust 9. Design trust into the product's form
using semantics and heuristics
Vitra Panton chair uses lines of
traditional chair to communicate
sturdiness
(Wang and Emurian, 2005)TR
10. Design trust into the product's
interactions using similarity
Bank web site resembles the visitors'
cognitive styles leading to increased
trust
(Hauser et al., 2009)SR, (Urban et al.,
2009)SR
Cog. Dissonance and Guilt 11. Avoid making customers feel guilty Example of what not to do: Home
electricity monitor showing penguin on
melting iceberg
(Lilley, 2009)DR (Flora, 2000)SR
Motivation 12. Change PEB motivation from extrinsic
to intrinsic with small, well-timed
incentives designed into product
interactions
Honda Insight gas tank is smaller to
emphasize money saved
Baby bird litterbin delights people as
they throw their trash away
(Guber, 2003)SR, (Geller et al., 2002)SR
13. Work with policy makers/marketers
to design eco-product purchase incentives
“Clean Air”cars drive toll-free in
carpool lanes
CFL incentive programs
(Guber, 2003)SR, (Geller et al., 2002)SR,
(Sloan, 2011) SR/TR
14. Design eco-products for ease of use Highlight simple steps to save energy in
a Home Energy Report
Reusable coffee mugs designed not to
spill
Sophisticated transmission system of
hybrid car
(Tanner, 1999)SR, (van Nes and Cramer,
2006)SR
15. Design product with social norms in mind Compare electricity usage amongst
neighbors
Hygienic automated faucets also
conserve water
(Nolan et al., 2008)SR, (Braverman,
2010)SR
a
Recommendation Source: Social Science Research (SR), Design Research (DR), Technology Research (TR).
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2.2. Complex decision-making skills
The average American citizen has limited understanding of
environmental problems and risks (Koehn, 2006; Sterman, 2008)
and of the tools engineers use to convey relevant information,
including eco-labels and life cycle analyses (D'Souza, 2004; Erskine
and Collins, 1997). The “Reasonable Person Model”suggested by
Kaplan (2000) asserts that the sensation of being overwhelmed by
complexity is a central problem in environmental decisions. It as-
serts that, because of the way humans evolved, we gravitate to-
wards situations where we are capable of processing information,
and avoid situations which challenge this capability. Levin (1993)
found that too much environmental information led to anxiety
and confusion. The research agrees with other findings on cognitive
complexity, such as the rule of seven (Miller, 1956) and discussions
of simplicity (Maeda, 2006). Simplifying environmental-related
decisions and equipping people with the tools required to
address them, such as education, are beneficial for promoting PEB,
as will be addressed in Recommendations 2 and 3.
Recommendation 2: Constrain customers' product decisions
with industry standards or regulations. Product-category-wide
environmental impact constraints remove some complexity of
the individual customer's product decision. The Energy Star pro-
gram is a good example of such a standard that has helped cus-
tomers to simplify product decisions (Energy Star Program, 2013).
This follows the commons/individual duality, in that people are
willing to make choices that are environmentally beneficial, but
that they prefer if these choices be constrained through political
action (Maniates et al., 2002). However, an industry-wide standard,
such as Energy Star, will not help differentiate products if all
available products comply, unless the standard is of a graduated
type such as the-less-the-better.
Recommendation 3: Encourage tackling of complex de-
cisions through interaction incentives and educational feed-
back. Incentives can be provided to motivate an individual to tackle
a complex decision. Designing small incentives into a product to
increase motivation to perform PEB is discussed in Section 2.7.In
addition, monetary incentives may encourage potential customers
to increase the complexity of their usual product purchase decision
to include environmental considerations.
Real-time feedback on resources consumed by a product during
use is such a type of interaction, and it can be designed as a
customer reward. A comprehensive review of residential sector
feedback studies on household electricity use suggests that real-
time feedback generates at least 9% energy savings per household
in the past decades (Ehrhardt-Martinez et al., 2010). This feedback
can help the customer to understand the impact of small behavior
changes and implications of specific end uses and thus promote
PEB. The feedback also can improve the user's trust of the product
claims, increase their motivation to continue performing PEBs, and
strengthen their sense of responsibility and resolve for performing
PEBs (Fogg, 2003; Midden et al., 2007). Wilson et al. (2013)
designed an electronic sensor device that uses light and sound
feedback to discourage the waste of household radiator heat, using
input from user focus groups. The work offers a useful and detailed
set of evaluation questions associated with the design process. A
good example of rewarding incentives combined with feedback is
found in the Chevrolet Volt dashboard display, which makes fuel
savings a game via a balancing-ball interface, shown in Fig. 8. The
ball communicates the complexities of driving efficiently in a fun
and non-intrusive manner. During driving, the Volt encourages
drivers to beat their previous efficiencies and provides a small
incentive in the form of a feeling of reward, indicating decreases in
miles-per-gallon-equivalent.
2.3. Decision heuristics
Decision heuristics are “shortcuts”that exist in one's mind in
order to simplify judgments and decisions (Tversky and Kahneman,
1974). They are simple, general, efficient rules that develop through
experiences, and are hard-coded via evolution. Heuristics help
people make “fast and frugal”decisions (Gigerenzer et al., 2004)
and usually lead to good decision outcomes, but they can also lead
to irrational and/or erroneous judgments and decisions.
For environmental impact, heuristics are not well-calibrated.
Several established heuristics have negative implications for eco-
product purchase decisions. For example, consider the popularity
of bottled water because it is “healthier”rather than addressing the
larger problem related to the waste created by the bottles. The
Fig. 5. Select-a-size paper towel.
Fig. 6. Energy saving mode on a printer.
Fig. 7. Waterpik low-flow shower head (Waterpik, 2013).
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(2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2014.12.096

public's concern for specific environmental threats is not aligned
with their actual risk (Slimak and Dietz, 2006). One explanation is
the availability bias and heuristic: people assess the likelihood of
the occurrence of a given event based on the ease of recollection of
similar events. Oil spills, nuclear plant accidents, and poisoned
drinking water have received much media attention over the past
two decades. This attention makes these environmental disasters
easier to recall. Thus, people assess the resultant threat to the
environment as more likely and possibly more severe than less-
exposed environmental problems. Guber reports that poll re-
spondents are much more likely to be worried about air and water
pollutiondperceptible forms of pollutiondthan about global
warming, ozone depletion, and deforestation (Guber, 2003). Log-
ging companies specifically keep strips of trees intact next to
highways (Winter, 2000), in order to prevent travelers from using
the availability heuristic to judge the level and impact of
deforestation.
The affect heuristic causes a person to judge the likelihood of a
specific decision outcome based on the explanation of the out-
comeda positively-described outcome is assigned a higher likeli-
hood of occurring than a negative one (Slovic et al., 2004). Much
information on eco-products is framed negatively, in terms of the
product's degrading effects on the environment (e.g., carbon foot-
print of a product), and therefore people may think that purchasing
the product is unlikely to make a difference. “Fast and frugal”
heuristics help to quickly assess the environmental impact of
products. For small purchases, customers may rely on them
entirely. For expensive eco-product purchases, customers will use
heuristics to confirm their decisions. For example, if a hybrid car is
shaped like a Hummer, claims of low environmental impact will
come under suspicion. Some eco-products take advantage of
nascent eco-product heuristics, such as rough unprocessed-looking
fabrics, brown paper, the “recycled”symbol on packaging, matte
finishes, and neutral colors. Eco-labels can serve as a heuristic to
some extent, but they are not well recognized, trusted, or under-
stood (Thøgersen, 2005).
Recommendation 4: Address the customers' environmental
concerns as well as the crucial environmental issues. Although
customers' environmental concerns do not always align with the
most urgent environmental problems, it is important that engi-
neers and designers not ignore them. If a design solution addresses
a fundamental environmental problem but worsens or ignores a
less-pressing environmental problem that has media presence or
perceptual availability, the low environmental impact of the
product will be questioned.
An excellent example of this problem is carbon fluorescent light
bulbs (CFL). All CFLs contain a small amount of mercury. When a
CFL breaks, the mercury is released. Triggered by the availability
heuristic, people consider the environmental and health concerns
associated with mercury and conclude that CFLs cannot be as good
for the environment as they claim. The Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) has a website devoted to debunking this myth
(Environmental Protection Agency, 2011), explaining that the real
concern with mercury is when it is released by the burning of coal
in power plants. However, educational discussion is not enough to
counteract the strong availability effect. Wider spread imple-
mentation of CFLs could be achieved by addressing customers' fear
of mercury by either excluding it altogether or including a
containment mechanism if the bulb happens to break. Consider-
ations of both environmental concerns and customer perceptions
are critical to successful eco-product design. Designers should co-
ordinate complex trade-offs by design, rather than assume that
education can retrain previously formed heuristics.
Another example is the single-serve coffee market, made pop-
ular by the K-Cups offered by Green Mountain coffee and the Keurig
line of related coffee-makers. There are environmental advantages
to this approach to coffee brewing, such as the reduced use of
electricity (do not need to keep a pot of coffee warm all day, brew
only what will be consumed), but the waste created is noticeable.
Realizing that their customers care about the waste created by
using single-serving coffee cartridges, Green Mountain is working
to use more biodegradable packaging, recycle the cartridges, or
make them reusable (Carpenter, 2010).
Recommendation 5: Identify useful heuristics and use them
to educate about the product's environmental impact. The
Fig. 8. The Chevrolet Volt guides driving habits via a game: balancing a green/yellow ball. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to
the web version of this article.)
Fig. 9. Vitra Vegetal chair (AllModern, 2013a,b Vitra Veretal Chair).
E.F. MacDonald, J. She / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2015) 1e14 7
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energy-saving aspects of CFLs were most effectively communicated
in American marketing campaigns when the energy usage was
compared directly to the status quo, incandescent bulbs (1 CLF ¼10
incandescent, CFL bulbs last about 10 times longer than incandes-
cent bulbs) (Sandahl et al., 2006). The EPA website mentioned
above uses a similar approach to put the mercury threat into
perspective (Environmental Protection Agency, 2011): “On average,
CFLs contain about four milligrams of mercury sealed within the
glass tubing. By comparison, older thermometers contain about
500 mg of mercury ean amount equal to the mercury in over 100
CFLs.”Similarly, an effective home energy audit describes the en-
ergy lost through poor insulation as “the equivalent of a hole the
size of a football in your living room”(Winter, 2000).
For some products, use phase is an important component of
overall life-cycle impact, and proper use requires educating the
consumer. A study of laundry detergent impact (J€
arvi and Paloviita,
2007) showed that customers have difficulty calculating and
measuring the correct amount of detergent for their laundry based
on criteria such as water hardness, and liquid volume metrics (such
as 42 mL). The results of this study indicated that providing effec-
tive education heuristics is helpful for changing use phase impact.
Recommendation 6: Identify and use perceptual product
cues that communicate environmental impact. Environmental
impact can be expressed through the way the product is perceived.
For example, the form of the Vegetal chair by Vitra emphasizes
Vitra's commitment to eco-friendliness with a branch-like design,
as shown in Fig. 9. Its plant-like structure evokes nature and
environmental concern (Vitra, 2011). Once a person has made a
decision to purchase an eco-product, they will be more observant of
perceptual information that confirms their decision, and less
observant of information that goes against their decision, an artifact
of confirmation bias (Mynatt et al., 1977). This bias serves to rein-
force pro-environmental cues in products and is one explanation
for the fact that the Prius' silhouette is now identified with “envi-
ronmental friendliness”(Reid et al., 2009).
Creating designs that communicate lower environmental im-
pacts requires the development of new research methods. Related
fields of study include emotional design (MacDonald et al., 2009b;
Norman, 1998), product semantics (Krippendorff, 2006), and are
covered in books such as Norman's The Design of Everyday Things
(Norman, 1998). MacDonald has previously identified the crux/
sentinel (i.e., hidden/perceivable) product attribute relationship
(MacDonald et al., 2009a). The related design method presented
can be used to identify other product attribute relationships, such
as eco-product cues.
One design approach creates features that trigger consumers to
think about the environment in their product decisions (She and
MacDonald, 2014). These “superficial”visible features encouraged
customers to seek more information on a product's environmental
impact (She and MacDonald, 2013). Forthcoming results further
indicate that these features cause customers to change their pur-
chases in favor of products with lower environmental impacts (She,
2013). Engineering design methods that identify preferences and
sentiments associated with a product's form (Kelly and
Papalambros, 2007; Orsborn et al., 2009; Reid et al., 2009) can be
modified to identify product forms that communicate lower envi-
ronmental impact. Also, shape-search design methods (i.e., Iyer
et al., 2005) can be modified to search existing design forms to
identify forms associated with lower environmental impact.
2.4. Altruism-sacrifice link
Researchers have found a relationship between willingness-to-
pay for sustainability and altruism (Stern et al., 1993). Altruism is
associated with an implicit message of self-sacrifice for the sake of
others. Kaplan (2000) postulates that “[t]he focus on altruism [in
PEB] brings with it the implicit message that living with less will
result in an impoverished and joyless future,”and wonders how an
eco-product purchase can be seen to serve both a self-interested
and an altruistic purpose. Some people perceive a link, a heuris-
tic, between higher levels of consumption and greater happiness
(Geller et al., 2002). An eco-product reduces consumption: people
may believe this implies a reduction in product performance. It has
been shown that customers are unwilling to make sacrifices with
regard to crucial performance metrics of the product in order to
improve sustainability (Van Birgelen et al., 2009). Early products
advertised as eco-friendly or green did offer inferior performance at
increased prices, only strengthening this unfortunate heuristic. For
example early CFL light bulbs were only a niche residential product
until their design specifications regarding light color and quality
approached or exceeded those of incandescent light bulbs
(Martinot and Borg, 1998; Menanteau and Lefebvre, 2000). One of
the lessons learned from the American CFL programs was to delay
launching products rather than ask customers to sacrifice on core
design requirements, as first impressions become strong heuristics
and are difficult to overcome (Sandahl et al., 2006). Additional
benefits of the bulbs, such as reduced heat and fire hazard, are now
highlighted in educational and marketing campaigns. Modern eco-
products must overcome the stigma created by their predecessors
by consistently offering as-good or better performance than the
competition. Another example, Norwood and Lusk (2011) found
that, on average, people are willing to pay $0.55 extra for cage-free
eggs in US. But in reality, cage-free eggs are typically sold at a
premium of $1.50 or more, requiring a budget sacrifice that out-
weighs concerns for the hens' welfare, thus leading to poor sales. It
indicates that even though customers care about the impact of their
behavior, large sacrifices in personal benefit hinder good intentions.
Recommendation 7: Offer only “triumphs”and downplay
altruism in the product's design. Use extreme caution when
including a message of altruism in the product's design or mar-
keting campaign, as the customer could infer that the product is
inferior to the competition. Including luxurious finishes or indul-
gent design features (while minding product perception) may
negate feelings of altruism and sacrifice associated with buying an
eco-product. An example of an eco-product that has transcended
the altruism-sacrifice heuristic is bamboo resin flooring. The
flooring has been positioned in the market as modern, durable, and
affordable. One brand, Eco-timber, was rated the best in the cate-
gory of prefinished floors, against standards such as oak and maple
(Anonymous, 2009). The pro-environmental features (VOC-free
non-toxic adhesive and renewable bamboo resources) are posi-
tioned as bonuses, second to the price, durability, and modern
appearance. When customers have the feeling of performance
Fig. 10. Coldwater detergent bottles.
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sacrifice for “green”products, it is necessary to downplay this
attribute in the product's packaging. Coldwater laundry detergents,
which can reduce energy use by three-quarters (Martin and
Rosenthal, 2011), was a hard sell for several years. Manufacturers
increases its sell by downplaying altruism-sacrifice link, e.g., rele-
gate energy saving as attendant benefits, and emphasize other at-
tributes (Martin and Rosenthal, 2011). This effort is also evident in
Tide's detergent bottle. Fig. 10 shows an old Tide Coldwater deter-
gent bottle (on the left) and a current bottle (on the right).
An eco-product should create demand through design benefits
to the customerdit should be a triumph, offering performance
equal to or better than competing products and extra features.
Some eco-design tools try to consider environmental as well as
traditional quality requirements, such as House of Ecology (Halog,
2001), Quality Function Deployment for Environment (Masui
et al., 2003) and Function Impact Matrix (Bernstein et al., 2010;
Devanathan et al., 2010). They confirm that environmental im-
provements can be made without affecting functional performance.
Fitzgerald et al. (2010) offer a conceptual design tool that helps
designers to resolve functionality-environmental contradictions in
the product design, and provide products that are desired by cus-
tomers and also excel from an environmental standpoint.
Recommendation 8: Apply design for upgradability or
adaptability to work-horse products that are known for reli-
ability and are not status symbols. Adopting End of Life strategies,
such as remanufacturing and upgradability, to recover the value of a
used product is an effective and promising eco-design method. It is
suggested that constraints imposed by these strategies should be
integrated into the early phases of design (Gehin et al., 2008). There
are a number of eco-design methods that allow products to be
upgraded or adapted to include new features, such as design for
upgradability (Xing and Belusko, 2008) and design for adaptability
(Kasarda et al., 2007). Xerox makes upgradable office equipment,
such as allowing lower version digital copiers to upgrade to a fully
networked system. Copiers are an excellent example of a winning
upgradeability approach eit is a product category where cus-
tomers are looking to save money and maximize the useful lifetime
of a single product purchase. However, products that are associated
with status, such as cell phones or automobiles, and brands with
negative reliability stereotypes, such as some printer and auto-
mobile brands, must proceed with caution in refurbishment or
reuse design strategies.
2.5. Trust
To navigate the above cognitive concepts while actively
searching for an eco-product, the consumer has to overcome a
number of trust issues. For example, a person must trust (a) the
science that identifies the environmental problems, (b) his or her
ability to personally affect the problems with PEB; (c) the pro-
environmental claims made by the product; and (d) the up-to-par
performance of the product. It may seem reasonable for a person
to seek expert advice to aid their search; however, experts from the
environmental movement are not fully trusted by the public. In her
analysis of the results of a number of polls, Guber (2003) came to
the conclusion that “[b]y downplaying environmental progress and
using exaggerated doomsday warnings to motivate public aware-
ness and concern, the environmental movement has sacrificed its
own credibility by giving into the politics of Chicken Little.”
Eco-labels and environmental marketing messages are also
often not trusted by customers (D'Souza, 2004; Lampe and Gazda,
1995; Shrum et al., 1995). Eco-labels on products or product pack-
aging are a form of “direct persuasion”advertising, with informa-
tion provided by the products' manufacturer. Direct persuasion
advertising may also shift responsibility for the behavior, leading
customers to think that ultimate blame for consequences of their
environmental decisions rests on another party, namely the
persuader (Geller et al., 2002). This is not to say that all eco-labels
are useless and do more harm than good, but it is important for
designers to note that eco-labels may have drawbacks and are
ineffective as the sole conveyers of a product's environmental
impact.
It is often difficult for customers, and other stakeholders, to
ascertain the extent to which a firm's products and processes are
sustainable. The firm may have an incentive to deceive in market-
ing messages, otherwise known as “green washing”, if they wish to
appear more committed to sustainable practices than they actually
are. Therefore, costly mechanisms such as ISO 14000 certification
(International Organization for Standardization, 2013) and invest-
ment in eco-technologies are all examples of signals that can
communicate a commitment to sustainability to various stake-
holders (Connelly et al., 2011). For example, considerable invest-
ment in a grass roof for a manufacturing plant may make more
sense than an eco-labeling program as it is highly observable and
costly to imitate (Connelly et al., 2011). Green Mountain Coffee
installed a “huge solar array on the roof of its distribution center”in
2009 (Carpenter, 2010).
Recommendation 9: Design trust into the product's form
using semantics and heuristics. Industrial designers have been
taught to evoke trust in an object's form. They utilize the theory and
analysis of design semantics (Krippendorff, 2006) to create a
perceptible sense of trust in the visual lines of the product. Estab-
lishing “trustworthy”heuristics, for example using the above-
mentioned crux/sentinel attribute identification method
(MacDonald et al., 2009a), will help customers identify eco-
products and reinforce their decision-making approach such that
specific forms will become heuristics in future product purchases.
The Vitra Panton chair (Fig. 11) distributes load and stress through
one single cohesive form. Although the form is unusual, the robust
cantilever base reassures customers that they will not tip over. The
strong silhouette of the side of a chair also evokes trust through the
recognizable chair-shape. Wang and Emurian (Wang and Emurian,
2005) discuss fourteen trust-inducing interface design features that
may influence a user's perception of the trustworthiness of an
online merchant's web site. These features are highly correlated
with the heuristics people often use to judge credibility, such as
well-chosen, professional photographs and relevant domain
names; however, extending this approach to product design will
require more research.
Recommendation 10: Design trust into the product's in-
teractions using similarity. If a product has a computer interface, a
Fig. 11. Vitra Panton Chair (AllModern, 2013a,b Vitra Panton Chair).
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number of studies suggest that the product is considered more
trustworthy and persuasive if the interface resembles the user
(Fogg, 2003). “Resembles”can refer to the cognitive style in which
the information is presented, i.e., visual or verbal (Hauser et al.,
2009), or other personality traits, physical traits, or affiliations
that resemble the customer (Fogg, 2003). Urban et al. (2009)
studied websites selling credit card loans and showed that people
are more likely to trust a website when it resembles the visitors'
cognitive style (analytical vs. impulsive, for example). With further
research it may be possible to use these findings for product design.
Cognitive-style dimensions related to design could include, for
example, flexible vs. inflexible, innovator vs. traditionalist.
2.6. Cognitive dissonance and guilt
When an individual performs a behavior with the intent of
reducing environmental impact, but later realizes that the behavior
is detrimental to the environment, they will experience cognitive
dissonance, a mismatch between cognition and action, or value and
behavior. They will have a strong need to resolve the mismatch
(Festinger and Carlsmith, 1959). Changing behavior to match their
values resolves the dissonance, so triggering cognitive dissonance
can motivate the performance of PEB.
However, people can also resolve cognitive dissonance by
changing cognition to match behavior (Immerwahr, 1999; Vining
et al., 2002). People can change their values, attitudes, or beliefs
about the environment to a position of less concern. Note that
resolving cognitive dissonance in this manner for one behavior will
affect all other behaviordthe person may fundamentally decrease
the importance they place on environmental problems, or their
belief that environmental problems exist. A customer may change
their decisions about the eco-products they currently buy. There-
fore, attempting to motivate PEB by intentionally triggering
cognitive dissonance is not advised.
People can experience feelings of guilt about negative envi-
ronmental impacts if they have formed an individualized sense of
responsibility, listened to the “shame and blame”tactics of the early
environmental movement, or experienced unresolved cognitive
dissonance regarding the products they buy. In motivating PEB,
researchers stressed that inducing feelings of guilt should be
avoided, as guilt can cause a change in behavior, but it can also
cause a disguise or denial of the target behavior (Levin, 1993).
Recommendation 11: Avoid making customers feel guilty.Be
cautious of product interactions that trigger guilt or cognitive
dissonance. Work with marketers to remove these concepts from
marketing campaigns. Before introducing a new eco-product, it is
important to study the customers' impressions of the environ-
mental impact of current product offerings. If customers believe
that the available products are conscientious of environmental
concerns, introducing a new eco-product by the same company
may cause cognitive dissonance regarding the product they
currently purchase. The designer/business can avoid this situation
by positioning the two products so they are not directly compared,
using features, pricing, and branding.
At a recent eco-design workshop, an electronics company dis-
played a prototype interface for monitoring home electricity usage
that showed a penguin on an iceberg. The iceberg melted and
eventually disappeared if the homeowner used too much elec-
tricity. This type of interface should be avoided because it will
trigger guilt and may result in customers changing their level of
concern for the environment. Monitoring interfaces should high-
light accomplishments, not shortcomings. This is consistent with
Lilley's (2009) recommendation for the design of eco-devices. Lilley
explored the design strategies for changing mobile phone users'
behavior in public spaces and investigated the acceptability and
effectiveness of potential strategies with design professionals. The
interviewed design professionals agreed that “in order to be
accepted, the product would need to support, not contradict, user's
values”. This led to her recommendation to “Use predominately
positive, rather than negative reinforcements”when trying to
change user behavior (Lilley, 2009). Flora discusses behavior
change in general, not just related to environmental concerns, and
concludes that positive reinforcement is more effective than criti-
cism overall (Flora, 2000). Praising PEB will better facilitate
learning and positive motivation than criticism of behavior that has
damaging environmental impacts (Geller et al., 2002). A mobile
phone application developed by Froehlich (2011) motivates users to
make greener transportation choices (e.g., walk, bicycle, carpool) by
using a tree design. The tree is almost bare at the start of each week,
then leaves, blossoms, and apples are progressively added to the
tree after each use of green transportation. But the tree does not
lose growth when a car is driven, instead it only resets each week.
The tree growth rewards greener behavior, and the positive-only
growth sequence avoids making users feel guilty.
2.7. Motivation
Applied behavior analysis is a sub-field of psychology that re-
searches how to motivate change in behavior. Vining et al. (2002)
review the three types of behavior motivation: (1) intrinsic moti-
vation, in which a person derives satisfaction from performing the
behavior; (2) extrinsic motivation, in which person derives satis-
faction from a reward given when the behavior is performed; and
(3) a motivation, in which a person receives no satisfaction from the
behavior, and is unsure why they are performing the behavior. One
would expect that a personal norm or feeling of moral obligation
provides a strong intrinsic motivation for PEB, but this is not always
the case (Tanner and W€
olfing Kast, 2003). People are most likely to
participate in PEB through extrinsic motivation: when there is a
tangible incentive and personal sacrifice is minimal (Guber, 2003).
Financial incentives as well as guilt and/or cognitive dissonance are
examples of extrinsic motivatorsdcorrecting behavior gives the
reward of the removal of an unpleasant cognitive state, but as
discussed, they can lead to unwanted consequences.
Applied behavior analysis shows that PEB can be promoted by
specific extrinsic motivators that must be tailored to the desired
behavior change. Eco-product purchase decisions are best moti-
vated by incentives that are short-term, repetitive, and small in
size: “[r]eward schedules that are just sufficient to initiate behavior
change are more likely to produce longer-term behavior change
than more powerful rewards”(Geller et al., 2002). This can be
explained by the fact that people attribute the reason for behavioral
change to the relevant circumstances and the size of the reward. A
large, one-time incentive to motivate PEB causes a person to
attribute the change to the efforts of the one providing the incen-
tive. Small, repetitive incentives cause a person to eventually
attribute the change to their own volition, thus shifting from
extrinsic to intrinsically-motivated PEB (Geller et al., 2002). This
transition is important to achieving repeat eco-product purchases
and effective use.
Recommendation 12: Change PEB motivation from extrinsic
to intrinsic with small, well-timed incentives designed into
product interactions. Eco-products that aim at long-term reduc-
tion of environmental impacts can be designed to include features
that provide near-term benefits, such as including fair trade or
locally-produced materials (Tanner and W€
olfing Kast, 2003).
Delight in product features can also be considered a short-term
incentive. Features that can provide such incentives can be inves-
tigated by design methods that discover delighting product attri-
butes (Kano et al., 1984; MacDonald et al., 2006). The proper
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spacing of incentives to achieve the transition from extrinsic to
intrinsic motivation requires design creativity. Next paragraph
shows some examples.
Smaller and more fuel-efficient hybrid cars, such as the Honda
Insight, are fitted with smaller gas tanks. Because of the car's high
mile per gallon (MPG) capacity, the driver may fill the tank as
often as with a conventional car, but he will buy less gasoline.
Needing to pay less for gas and driving the same distance will
convey a feeling of delight, an incentive that is received every time
the tank is filled. If Honda had designed the Insight with a tank
similar in size to non-hybrid cars, would have allowed customers
to drive further between fill-ups instead of cheaper fill-ups. In this
case, the driver would not receive the same repeated feeling of
delight. It is likely the customer would not notice the change in
fill-up frequency as vividly as the change in the cost per tank of
gas, and would not feel the same sense of reward. A nightclub in
Netherlands uses a new type of dance floor that harvests the en-
ergy generated by jumps and gyrations and transforms it into
electricity to supply the energy required for the whole club. The
dance floor, which functions through piezoelectricity technology,
motivates customers' PEB by providing enjoyment (Rosenthal,
2010). The open beak of a “baby bird”litterbin encourages chil-
dren to feed the hungry bird by putting the garbage into its beak,
rewarding them with a feeling of delight with each use (Lockton
et al., 2010b).
Recommendation 13: Work with policy makers and mar-
keters to design thoughtfully-structured eco-product purchase
incentives. An example of a good incentive for transitioning from
extrinsically to intrinsically motivated PEB is California's “Clean Air
Sticker”program (California Department of Motor Vehicles, 2013).
California issued 85,000 clean air stickers to hybrid and low-
emission vehicles that allowed the driver to use carpool lanes
with only one passenger in the vehicle. Every time the owner drives
the vehicle, they receive a small incentive in the form of a faster
commute time and savings of $2.00 to $4.00 when using a toll road.
The vehicles with stickers also retained a higher resale value. A
large, one-time financial incentive in the form of a rebate on a new
car purchase (i.e., the U.S. “Cash for Clunkers”program) is unlikely
to spur future PEB (Wald, 2009). Sloan (2011) examined a variety of
potential policies for influencing firms to adopt cleaner
manufacturing technologies, drawing examples from the automo-
bile and refrigerator industries.
Public policy has played a crucial role in developing CFLs from a
niche lighting product into a mass product in the residential market
(Menanteau and Lefebvre, 2000; Sandahl et al., 2006). A variety of
incentive and educational programs have been used in different
countries to encourage their adoption (Martinot and Borg, 1998).
However, no country made the transition to CFLs by passing a law
that mandated CFLs for all residential applications. On the other
hand, no country made the transition to CFLs by putting the bulbs
on the shelves in retail stores and waiting for customers to pur-
chase them based on economic merits alone. Governments and
manufacturers introduced CFLs through policies that encouraged
their use on an elective basis by individuals. When CFLs are widely
adopted, stricter use laws can be instated, such as California's Title
24 Residential Lighting Building Code that imposes strict efficiency
requirements on built-in lighting fixtures (The California Energy
Commission, 2008).
Policy-makers benefit from motivating individuals to perform
PEB (Jackson, 2005). Eco-technologies are more cost-effective and
implemented faster when individuals are willing to accept the
technologies or even demand them. The coordination of per-
spectives is recognized as importantdthere is now a bill under
consideration in the U.S. Senate to add a social and behavioral
science office to the Department of Energy (Baird, 2009). The
impact of policy on design decisions has been explored in the
literature, see (Shiau et al., 2009; Struben and Sterman, 2008).
Recommendation 14: Design eco-products for ease of use.
The rationale most frequently provided for not performing PEB is
that requires effort (Koehn, 2006). One study demonstrated that
perceived behavior barriers to transportation (e.g., low frequency of
public transport, transfers necessary with public transport) are
closely associated with increased automobile driving frequency
(Tanner, 1999). At a recent webcast offered by the Department of
Energy, Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRU) reported their success
of a Home Energy Reporting Program, where simple steps to save
energy are always highlighted (Crawford and Fischer, 2011), e.g.,
weatherization and sealing and using CFL bulbs. These tips are easy
to follow and thus prompt people to be more likely engaged in
energy-saving activities. Eco-products should be easy to use and
understand. Product heuristics, or emotional design, that read as
“easy”or “simple”can be built into design features to provide
further encouragement. Some examples include: perforations on
select-a-size paper towels (Fig. 3), and sophisticated hybrid trans-
mission systems that simplify the process of shifting and sharing
power among the engine, electric motors and wheels without
requiring special driving techniques. Designing a product to be
simple to repair or upgrade is a related goal, especially in products
for which early replacement is environmentally desirable (van Nes
and Cramer, 2006).
Recommendation 15: Design product with social norms in
mind. Normative social influence has a powerful effect on behavior,
especially in defining what constitutes correct behaviord“We view
a behavior as correct in a given situation to the degree that we see
others performing it”(Cialdini, 1993). That explains why in-
fomercials always demonstrate people from various walks of life
happily buying and using the advertised products. Nolan et al.
(2008) studied what motivated people to save energy by placing
door-hangers containing different persuasive appeals around a
mid-size Californian community. The appeals emphasized to resi-
dents that turning off an air conditioner and turning on fan: (1)
saves money, (2) helps the environment, (3) benefits society, or (4)
is a common practice in their neighborhood (appealing to social
norms). Actual energy usage indicated that the social-norms appeal
had significantly higher impact on reducing energy consumption
(Nolan et al., 2008). Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRU) also
employed social norms when comparing residential utility cus-
tomers' electricity use to that of their neighbors in their innovative
home energy reports (Allcott, 2011). One of the 101 strategies for
influencing user behavior developed by Lockton et al. (2010b)
suggests influencing behavior by showing people what their
peers are doing in a similar situation and which choices are most
popular, such as Amazon's recommending system. In eco-product
design, designers are challenged to take social norms into consid-
eration and encouraged to go out and watch people in their normal
environment to determine what they believe and do (Norman,
1999). Automated faucets provide the convenience of hands-free
on/off activation and help conserving water. The normative value
embedded into the automation, as an automated faucet is also more
hygienic, motivates customers to use the product, and repeated use
shapes their behavior (Braverman, 2010).
3. Discussion of implementing recommendations within
design methods
The concepts have implications when used in conjunction with
concept-generation design methods that focus on understanding
customers. For example, an application of these concepts during
conceptual design would work well in conjunction with an
empathic design approach (Leonard and Rayport, 1997), as it is
E.F. MacDonald, J. She / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2015) 1e14 11
Please cite this article in press as: MacDonald, E.F., She, J., Seven cognitive concepts for successful eco-design, Journal of Cleaner Production
(2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2014.12.096

important to feel and experience as the target customer does with
respect to the application of the seven concepts. Eco-design paired
with a lead user approach (Vonhippel, 1986) may yield dissatis-
factory results. Lead users are at the forefront of the market de-
mand, and, for eco-products, lead users are likely to be well-versed
in environmental impact evaluation and willing to sacrifice func-
tionality for the benefit of the environment. A better approach
might be to target “lag users,”for example, someone particularly
frustrated with understanding information about eco-products, or
someone who has had negative experiences with eco-products in
the past and stopped using them.
Jelsma (2006) provides an eight-step design method to solve
discrepancies between designers' and users' understanding of a
product's interaction by involving users in the design process. The
recommendations provided here can help to identify mis-
understandings. Tang (2010) highlights that including detailed user
studies, such as ethnographical observations, in the design process
can help designers generate innovative design concepts, provide
better and more efficient user experience via design, and improve
the user acceptance of behavior-changing concepts. The cognitive
concept categories presented in this article may offer specific
guidelines for what to be sure to address during observation.
Designers need to be careful when implementing design-led
approaches to influence user behavior emaintaining a balance
between influencing and coercing will allow users to accept the
design implementation (Lilley, 2007). As many of the recommen-
dations are geared at influencing behavior, using them in combi-
nation may be either more effective, or they may negate each other.
A user-oriented design process should be able to identify particular
implementations that work well.
Consumption behavior is driven by a complex set of forces
originating from different psychological, social, economic, and po-
litical settings (Mont and Plepys, 2008); therefore, design for PEB
requires a multidisciplinary approach with input from different
stakeholders: government, businesses, customers, and non-
governmental organizations. Design decision literature offers
many methods to address this multi-pronged, multi-perspective
design problem (Frischknetch et al., 2009; Lewis et al., 2006;
Linton, 2002). The literature recommends a system and interdis-
ciplinary perspective for both addressing and teaching eco-
friendliness, and the findings in Anastas and Zimmerman (2003);
Harper and Thurston, 2008; McAloone, 2007) further emphasize
the importance of this approach.
4. Conclusion
Compiling diverse research findings from a broad disciplinary
scope, we converge on seven cognitive concepts that are important
to consider in consumer-driven design. They are useful in bringing
different perspectives together in the eco-design process, particu-
larly during early stage design, such as during problem definition
and concept generation.
Note that existing research in other fields, such as policy making
(Dolan et al., 2012) and social community (McKenzie-Mohr, 2011),
indicated that users' behavior play a key role in sustainability, and
identified relevant cognitive variables and guidelines to promote
sustainable behavior. Although there is some overlap between the
existing work and our work on the high-level cognitive concepts,
the extended recommendations presented here are tailored to
product design. They are presented in a format widely-accepted in
engineering design field, providing general design principles and
demonstrating their application with related design methods or
design examples.
Lack of direct validation of the recommendations is a limitation
for this research. The specific design examples and relevant design
methods given should be treated as illustrations of how a designer
can approach these concepts, rather than as a test of their efficacy.
They bridge the gap between the abstract cognitive concepts and
their applications in eco-design, and highlight the need for new
design methods that treat customers as dynamic and interactive
members of a larger social system rather than as a static source of
design criteria. Future eco-design studies must focus on achieving
positive change in individuals' behavior using a combination of
approaches. Synthesizing the above recommendations and per-
spectives requires coordination between designers, manufacturers,
marketers, and government policy-makers. The success of eco-
products depends on the success of this coordination.
Acknowledgments
This work was partially supported by a National Science Foun-
dation Graduate Research Fellowship, the Donald C. Graham Chair
Endowment at the University of Michigan, the University of
Michigan Rackham Graduate School, and the 2050 Mack Challenge
Scholar program at Iowa State University. A previously version of
this work appeared in the proceedings of the 2012 ASME Interna-
tional Design Technical Conference, under the title “Seven Cogni-
tive Concepts for Successful Sustainable Design.”
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Please cite this article in press as: MacDonald, E.F., She, J., Seven cognitive concepts for successful eco-design, Journal of Cleaner Production
(2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2014.12.096