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When a meat-based entrée is being served, and people are offered a vegetarian alternative, about 5 to 10% will request it.
But what if the choices were reversed? Organizers of the 2009 Behavior, Energy and Climate Change Conference, which began today in Washington, tried an experiment: They made a vegetarian lunch the default option, and gave meat eaters the choice of opting out.
Some 80% went for the veggies, not because there were lots of vegetarians in the crowd of about 700 people but because the choice was framed differently. We know that because, at a prior BECC conference, when meat was the default option, attendees chose the meat by an 83% to 17% margin.
”From a Nov 16 blog post by Marc Gunther.
People behave irrationally. We understand behavior better and better. Gunther suggests that we use it to the planet’s advantage.
Here’s a link to BECC 2009. Good to know that people are talking about the right things.
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