Sustainable lifestyle change

Addressing sustainability issues, such as climate change, requires profound lifestyle change. This will include changing our diets, how we travel, what we buy, and how we use resources like water and energy. Many social science theories exist to explain and predict sustainable lifestyle change; these theories emphasize different drivers of and barriers to behavior change, including psychological, social, economic, and physical factors. We outline this theoretical literature before discussing the dynamic processes of both intentional and habitual behavior change, and the prospects for changing multiple behaviors through behavioral spillover. We review different interventions to foster sustainable lifestyle change and suggest that multiple interventions, targeted to audience change readiness and times when habits are disrupted, are most likely to be effective. We conclude by pointing out that lifestyle change is essential but not sufficient to achieve sustainability goals, and that behavior change in other contexts besides consumption (e.g., in workplaces and communities) is also required.