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PSYCHOLOGY AND BEHAVIOUR
How can people save the planet?
How people respond to sustainability challenges is crucial. New findings suggest that when individuals adopt one
pro-environmental behaviour, this might affect whether or not they engage in other, related behaviours.
Wokje Abrahamse
S
cientists are more certain than ever that
environmental change is happening and
that people’s actions are contributing
to it. Profound lifestyle changes are needed
to avoid the severe impacts of current
environmental problems, including climate
change. People’s individual actions can make
a significant contribution1. Encouraging
people to adopt a range of sustainable
behaviours can form an integral part of
the solution to environmental challenges2.
One way is for people to adopt several pro-
environmental behaviours one after the
other, through a process called behavioural
spillover3. Writing in this issue, Maki
and co-authors examine the potential for
behavioural spillover to occur and they
analyse under which conditions spillover is
more or less likely to happen.
There has been a recent surge in research
on what has become known as behavioural
spillover. Positive behavioural spillover
refers to the notion that when people
change one behaviour (for example, they
start recycling), this can result in changes
in other, related behaviours (for example,
they also start reducing food waste). Several
theories can explain this phenomenon.
For example, when people engage in pro-
environmental actions, they may start
to see themselves as an environmentally
conscious person, which then informs other
behaviours. A related explanation is that
people strive for consistency in their actions.
In contrast, negative behavioural spillover
can occur when people refrain from further
pro-environmental behaviours because
they are already ‘doing their bit’. This can
be attributed to a process called moral
licensing: when we do something good, we
worry less about the consequences of doing
something harmful.
To date, much behavioural spillover
research is correlational, meaning that it
looks at bivariate associations between
factors, rather than at causality. This
264
approach makes it often difficult to
establish cause and effect (that is, did the
first behaviour cause people to do a second
behaviour, or is it the other way around?).
In turn, researchers who use experimental
designs can claim causation more
confidently — a small, but growing number
of authors in spillover research. Such designs
allow researchers to compare a group of
people who received an intervention (and
changed their behaviour) with a control
group of people who did not receive it.
The important contribution by Maki and
colleagues is that they use meta-analysis
to quantify the magnitude of behavioural
spillover. They examine several aspects:
whether or not engaging in one pro-
environmental behaviour results in stronger
support for environmental policies, in
stronger intentions to engage in a second
pro-environmental behaviour, and in the
adoption of a second pro-environmental
behaviour. The authors find that when
people adopt a first pro-environmental
behaviour, their intentions to adopt a
second pro-environmental behaviour
increases. However, the authors also find
some evidence for negative behavioural
spillover: when people engage in a first
pro-environmental behaviour, they
then seem less likely to adopt a second
pro-environmental behaviour. Here the
distinction between intention and actual
behaviour is important.
They also analyse whether behavioural
spillover depends on the type of intervention
to change behaviour. Interventions that
strengthen people’s intrinsic motivation
(doing a behaviour because it is inherently
important) are more likely to result in
positive behavioural spillover. Interventions
focused on extrinsic motivation (doing a
behaviour because of something external,
such as a reward) tend to produce negative
behavioural spillover. In other words,
encouraging people to make a commitment
Nature Sustainability | VOL 2 | APRIL 2019 | 264 | www.nature.com/natsustain
to protect the environment4 is more likely
to produce positive behavioural spillover
than using a financial reward. This is a
fascinating finding as it suggests that the use
of incentives — a commonly used policy
tool — may in fact backfire.
Future research on behavioural spillover
should build on this meta-analysis by
examining behavioural spillover in
longitudinal field studies. Longitudinal
research on spillover is currently relatively
rare. But if the aim is to achieve durable
behaviour change, monitoring the
dynamics of behavioural spillover over
time is important. It would be interesting
to examine whether some of the findings of
this meta-analysis are also evident or could
be replicated in longitudinal research.
We need urgent action to address current
environmental problems. The findings
of this meta-analysis will be of value to
a broad research community, and these
findings could and should be used to inform
policymaking. This meta-analysis by Maki
et al. advances our understanding of how to
more-effectively encourage a range of pro-
environmental behaviours. It simultaneously
addresses an issue of scholarly and societal
importance that promises to benefit people
and society in a shift towards a more
environmentally sustainable future. ❐
Wokje Abrahamse
School of Geography, Environment, and Earth
Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington,
Wellington, New Zealand.
e-mail: wokje.abrahamse@vuw.ac.nz
Published online: 9 April 2019
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-019-0273-7
References
1. Dietz, T. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 106, 18452–18456 (2009).
2. Clayton, S. et al. Nat. Clim. Change 5, 640–646 (2015).
3. Nash, N. et al. Wiley Interdisc. Rev. Clim. Change 8,
481 (2017).
4. Baca-Motes, K. et al. J. Consumer Res. 39, 1070–1084 (2012).
 COMMENT
ENVIRONMENT Conservationists
call for a global zoning
exercise for roads p.308
ILLUSTRATION BY PHIL DISLEY
HISTORY Ripping yarn of the EVOLUTION First biography of FUNDING Australia’s grant
ape-man of Victorian W. D. Hamilton, the gentle system wastes centuries of
England p.310 giant of genetics p.313 researchers’ time p.314

Sustainable development
goals for people and planet
Planetary stability must be integrated with United Nations targets to fight
poverty and secure human well-being, argue David Griggs and colleagues.

T
he United Nations Rio+20 summit
in Brazil in 2012 committed govern-
ments to create a set of sustainable
development goals (SDGs) that would be
integrated into the follow-up to the Millen-
nium Development Goals (MDGs) after
their 2015 deadline. Discussions on how to
formulate these continue this week at UN
headquarters in New York.
We argue that the protection of Earth’s
life-support system and poverty reduction
must be the twin priorities for SDGs. It is not
enough simply to extend MDGs, as some are
suggesting, because humans are transform-
ing the planet in ways that could undermine
development gains.
As mounting research shows, the stable
functioning of Earth systems — including
the atmosphere, oceans, forests, waterways,
biodiversity and biogeochemical cycles — is
a prerequisite for a thriving global society.
With the human population set to rise to
9 billion by 2050, definitions of sustainable
development must be revised to include the
security of people and the planet.
Defining a unified set of SDGs is challeng-
ing, especially when there can be conflict
between individual goals, such as energy
provision and climate-change prevention.
But we show here that it is possible. By

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© 2013 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved
 COMMENT

A UNIFIED FRAMEWORK
A set of six sustainable development goals (SDGs) follow from combining the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) with conditions necessary to assure the stability of Earth's systems.

NEW PARADIGM
Earth’s life-
support system NEW DEFINITION
Sustainable development in the
Anthropocene: “Development that meets
Society the needs of the present while
safeguarding Earth’s life-support
Economy system, on which the welfare of current
and future generations depends.”

People Planet
UPDATED MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS + PLANETARY MUST-HAVES = SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS
End poverty and hunger Materials use Thriving lives and livelihoods
Universal education Clean air Sustainable food security
Gender equality Nutrient (N and P) cycles Sustainable water security
Health Hydrological cycles Universal clean energy
Environmental sustainability Ecosystem services Healthy and productive ecosystems
Global partnership Biodiversity Governance for sustainable societies
Climate stability

MDGs start SDGs begin

2000 2015 2030

combining the MDGs with global envi-
ronmental targets drawn from science and
from existing international agreements, we
propose six SDGs with provisional targets
for 2030.
ENTER THE ANTHROPOCENE
Since 2000, the MDGs have focused on reduc-
ing extreme poverty in developing countries.
But pursuing a post-2015 agenda focused
only on poverty alleviation could undermine
the agenda’s purpose. Growing evidence and
real-world changes convincingly show that
humanity is driving global environmental
change and has pushed us into a new geologi-
cal epoch — the Anthropocene1.
Further human pressure risks causing
widespread, abrupt and possibly irrevers-
ible changes to basic Earth-system pro-
cesses. Water shortages, extreme weather,
deteriorating conditions for food produc-
tion, ecosystem loss, ocean acidification
and sea-level rise are real dangers that
could threaten development and trig-
ger humanitarian crises across the globe.
Growing affluence and the right to develop-
ment among the world’s poor demand that
people of all nations make the transition to
sustainable lifestyles.
By coordinating actions internationally,
SDGs can address these risks. The MDGs
have shown that a goal-setting approach
raises both public and policy support and
channels funds effectively towards urgent
global problems2. However, the political
reluctance to go beyond merely extending
the MDGs is a concern.
The targets for the SDGs must be measur-
able, based on the latest research and should
apply to developed and developing coun-
tries. First, however, we need to reframe the
UN paradigm of three pillars of sustainable
development — economic, social and envi-
ronmental — and instead view it as a nested
concept. The global economy services soci-
ety, which lies within Earth’s life-support
system. The definition of sustainable devel-
opment, as laid out in the 1987 report from
the UN World Commission on Environ-
ment and Development (the Brundtland
Commission), should therefore be rede-
fined to “development that meets the needs
of the present while safeguarding Earth’s
life-support system, on which the welfare
of current and future generations depends”.
To set appropriate goals and targets,
environmental conditions have to be
identified that enable prosperous human
development and set tolerable ranges for
the biosphere to remain in that state. The
extraordinarily stable Holocene epoch that
allowed our ancestors to develop agricul-
ture and modern societies during the past
10,000 years provides a scientific reference
point. Indeed, these are the only conditions
we know that can support modern life.
Building on decades of research, a 2009
analysis defined planetary boundaries
which would be unsafe to transgress for
nine Earth-system processes 3: climate
change; rate of biodiversity loss (terrestrial
and marine); interference with the nitrogen
and phosphorus cycles; stratospheric ozone
depletion; ocean acidification; global fresh-
water use; change in land use; chemical pol-
lution; and atmospheric aerosol loading.
Adapting this planetary boundaries work,
and using recent credible scientific studies
and existing international processes — such
as the United Nations Framework Conven-
tion on Climate Change — we extracted a

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© 2013 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved

S I X S U STA I NAB L E D E V E LOP M E N T G OAL S
Some provisional targets for 2030
●●Goal 1: Thriving lives and livelihoods. End
poverty and improve well-being through
access to education, employment and
information, better health and housing, and
reduced inequality while moving towards
sustainable consumption and production.
This extends many targets of the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on
poverty, health and urban environments
and applies them to developed nations. It
should include targets on clean air that build
on World Health Organization guidelines for
pollutants such as black carbon6; reductions
in emissions of stratospheric ozone-depleting
substances in line with projections from the
Montreal Protocol; critical loads for man-made
chemical compounds and toxic materials; and
sustainable practices for extraction, use and
recycling of scarce minerals and metals and
other natural resources.
●●Goal 2: Sustainable food security.
End hunger and achieve long-term food
security — including better nutrition —
through sustainable systems of production,
distribution and consumption.
The MDG hunger target should be extended
and targets added to limit nitrogen and
phosphorus use in agriculture3,7,8. Nutrient-
use efficiency should improve by 20% by
2020; no more than 35 million tonnes of
nitrogen per year should be extracted from the
list of sustainability ‘must-haves’ for human
prosperity (see ‘A unified framework’).
We combined these with the MDG
targets, updated and extended for 2030,
to produce six SDGs: thriving lives and
livelihoods, sustainable food security,
sustainable water security, universal clean
energy, healthy and productive ecosystems,
and governance for sustainable societies
(see ‘Some provisional targets for 2030’).
The driving principles remain: reduc-
ing poverty and hunger, improving health
and well-being and creating sustainable
production and consumption patterns. A
goal of improving lives and livelihoods, for
example, would promote sustainable access
to food, water and energy while protecting
biodiversity and ecosystem services.
None of this is possible without changes
to the economic playing field4. National
policies should, like carbon pricing, place a
value on natural capital and a cost on unsus-
tainable actions. International governance
of the global commons should be strength-
ened, for example through binding agree-
ments on climate change, by halting the loss
of biodiversity and ecosystem services and
© 2013 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved
atmosphere; phosphorus flow to the oceans
should not exceed 10 million tonnes a year;
and phosphorus runoff to lakes and rivers
should halve by 2030.
●●Goal 3: Sustainable water security.
Achieve universal access to clean water
and basic sanitation, and ensure efficient
allocation through integrated water-
resource management.
This would contribute to MDG health
targets, restrict global water runoff to less
than 4000 cubic kilometres a year and limit
volumes withdrawn from river basins to no
more than 50–80% of mean annual flow3,9.
●●Goal 4: Universal clean energy. Improve
universal, affordable access to clean energy
that minimizes local pollution and health
impacts and mitigates global warming.
This contributes to the UN commitment
to sustainable energy for all, and addresses
MDG targets on education, gender equity and
health. To ensure at least a 50% probability of
staying within 2 °C warming10, sustainability
targets should aim for global greenhouse-
gas emissions to peak in 2015–20, drop by
3–5% a year until 2030, and fall by 50–80%
by 2050.
●●Goal 5: Healthy and productive
ecosystems. Sustain biodiversity and
by addressing other sustainability concerns.
The SDG framework manages trade-offs
and maximizes synergies between targets,
and can be implemented from international
to city scales. It integrates social, economic
and environmental dimensions and pro-
vides guidance for humanity to pros-
per in the long term. A small number of
goals is essential for
“None of this focus; others could
is possible be added but should
without build on the core six.
changes to There are many
the economic gaps and uncertain-
playing field.” ties in our knowledge
of global environ-
mental risks and how to enable societies to
become resource-efficient, sustainable and
wealthy. Research initiatives such as Future
Earth, a ten-year programme coordinated
by the International Council for Science5,
are needed to refine targets and provide
sustainable solutions for human well-being.
But the first step is for policy-makers to
embrace a unified environmental and social
framework for the SDGs, so that today’s
advances in development are not lost as our
2 1 M A RC H 2 0 1 3 | VO L 4 9 5 | NAT U R E | 3 0 7
COMMENT
ecosystem services through better
management, valuation, measurement,
conservation and restoration.
This combines the MDG environmental
targets with 2030 projections of the Aichi
Targets adopted by the Convention on
Biological Diversity (see www.cbd.int/sp/
targets). Extinctions should not exceed ten
times the natural background rate. At least
70% of species in any ecosystem and 70%
of forests should be retained. Aquatic and
marine ecosystems should be managed
to safeguard areas crucial for biodiversity,
ecosystem services and fisheries.
●●Goal 6: Governance for sustainable
societies. Transform governance and
institutions at all levels to address the other
five sustainable development goals.
This would build on MDG partnerships
and incorporate environmental and social
targets into global trade, investment and
finance4. Subsidies on fossil fuels and policies
that support unsustainable agricultural and
fisheries practices should be eliminated by
2020; product prices should incorporate
social and environmental impacts. National
monitoring, reporting and verification
systems must be established for sustainable-
development targets; and open access to
information and decision-making processes
should be secured at all levels.
planet ceases to function for the benefit of a
global population. ■
David Griggs is professor and director of
the Monash Sustainability Institute, Monash
University, Victoria 3800, Australia. Mark
Stafford-Smith, Owen Gaffney, Johan
Rockström, Marcus C. Öhman, Priya
Shyamsundar, Will Steffen, Gisbert
Glaser, Norichika Kanie, Ian Noble.
e-mail: dave.griggs@monash.edu
1. Steffen, W. et al. Ambio 40, 739–761 (2011).
2. United Nations. The Millennium Development
Goals Report 2012 (UN, 2012).
3. Rockström, J. et al. Nature 461, 472–475 (2009).
4. Biermann, F. et al. Science 335, 1306–1307
(2012).
5. Glaser, G. Nature 491, 35 (2012).
6. Shindell, D. et al. Science 335, 183–189 (2012).
7. Sutton, M. A. et al. Our Nutrient World (Centre for
Ecology and Hydrology, 2013).
8. Carpenter, S. R. & Bennett, E. M. Environ. Res.
Lett. 6, 014009 (2011).
9. Smakhtin, V. U. & Batchelor, A. L. Hydrol. Process.
19, 1293–1305 (2005).
10. Huntingford, C. et al. Environ. Res. Lett. 7, 014039
(2012).
Supplementary information and full author
affiliations accompany this article online at
go.nature.com/zowqiw.