Realizing the full potential of behavioural science for climate change mitigation

Behavioural science has yielded insights about the actions of individuals, particularly as consumers, that affect climate change. Behaviours in other spheres of life remain understudied. In this Perspective, we propose a collaborative research agenda that integrates behavioural science insights across multiple disciplines. To this end, we offer six recommendations for optimizing the quality and impact of research on individual climate behaviour. The recommendations are united by a shift towards more solutions-focused research that is directly useful to citizens, policymakers and other change agents. Achieving this vision will require overcoming challenges such as the limited funding for behavioural and social sciences and structural barriers within and beyond the academic system that impede collaborations across disciplines. Behavioural science offers valuable insights for mitigating climate change, but existing work focuses mostly on consumption and lacks coordination across disciplines. In this Perspective, the authors make six recommendations for improving the quality and impact of behavioural research on mitigation.