As a business, you can design to enable better outcomes by changing how small things are shown - yes, you have that power!
That is why it is important to evaluate things like unintended consequences when we develop products and services, so we think harder about what happens when we default choices.
Most of us have used food delivery apps - I used to live in Dubai and I probably used to order almost daily at work.
This ordering has seen an increase in single-use cutlery, leading to the spillover effect of increased plastic pollution
Behavior change requires a holistic approach - where sometimes we enable people to do their own change, and sometimes we leverage the system for the change.
This paper by Guojun He et al (2023) talks about how online food delivery has escalated the usage of single-use cutlery, aggravating plastic pollution.
It examines how "green nudges" in China, especially through Alibaba’s food-delivery platform Eleme, impact the consumption of disposable cutlery.
China is the primary consumer and producer of single-use cutlery, which offers a unique study backdrop.
The design
Regulations in Beijing, Shanghai, and Tianjin now necessitate customers to specify if they need SUC with their orders. Eleme's app set the default option to “no cutlery.”
Results: The intervention led to an increase in an individual’s share of no-cutlery orders by 20.1 percentage points, which was a 648% increase relative to the baseline group.
A diverse group, especially women, older individuals, regular food-delivery users, and affluent individuals, responded more positively to interventions.
Good to note, was that Alibaba's business metrics were unaffected, suggesting these interventions are a cost-effective SUC reduction strategy.
While small wins like these are great, we need to note that it takes many interventions both on the system and with people to truly enable behavior and that both individual, system, and environment matter.
What default changes could you suggest would help your favorite apps be better and do better?