Everyday we hear news about how climate change is causing tremendous distress to the Earth and simultaneously impacting human security. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in one of their reports, mentioned that in order to mitigate climate change, human behaviour and lifestyle needs to be severely altered. Yet, climate-related behavior has been largely neglected or simplified as rational decision making in the climate debate, both in analyzing and predicting the situation and in the design of policy solutions. We scroll past a climate story, continue driving cars even though cycling is better for the environment, and refuse to ditch plastic bags for groceries etc. This does not necessarily mean that people don’t care, rather because it might cause anxiety and, when repeated daily, it can accumulate and contribute significantly to, what researchers call, eco-fatigue.
The term “Eco-fatigue” was first introduced by a marketing firm TrendWatching in 2007 as part of a marketing trend to describe decrease in consumer interest in eco-labelled products. Following this, eco-fatigue has become increasingly common in public discussion of sustainability. It has also been used in several academic papers but with no clear definition. A recent review of the literature found only 6 studies, from 2002 to 2025, used the term “eco-fatigue” but with a lack of empirical investigation into the concept. Pol and Marchand define eco-fatigue as “a feeling of being overwhelmed and believing that action will not achieve the desired results”. All papers agree that eco-fatigue is a result of poor sustainability communication.
While academic literature loosely defines eco-fatigue and its link to poor sustainability communication, it does not fully explain why individuals switch off/disengage. To understand this we will have to delve into Behavioural Economics and Psychological concepts. In this blog I will be focusing on 4 key concepts : Present Bias, Moral Licensing, Choice Overload and Status Quo Bias.
Present Bias
Elke U. Weber, a psychology professor, has stated in her paper that humans prioritise immediate survival and that is why they give greater attention to people and objectives that are close in terms of time and social distance that the more distant ones. This makes it hard for the decision makers to fully and accurately consider the future benefits of actions that might be costlier in the short term or does not give immediate benefits. They choose an immediate smaller reward than larger reward at a later stage. This is called Present Bias. A consequence of this bias is they tend to overvalue the immediate cost of climate mitigation and undervalue the future benefits like reduction in greenhouse gas emission. A very good example of this bias is people delaying installing solar panels due to higher upfront costs but not considering how much it will help in saving energy in the future. Because of this bias, individuals tend to postpone purchasing energy efficient appliances because they are costlier at the time of purchase even though they will help create future energy savings.
Status Quo Bias
A related decision bias, Status Quo Bias was first used by researchers Willaim Samuelson and Richard Zeckhauser in 1988. It is the tendency to stick to old habits rather than choosing a new option that minimises effort and uncertainty associated with the change. In terms of climate action, humans prefer the familiar ways of doing things rather than opting for better and greener available alternatives. For example, due to the ease of carrying, one still continues to buy single-use bottled water instead of using reusable bottles. This bias has been described under many different names in behavioral economics and psychology therefore a recent paper categorised 20 such mechanisms from different domains into 5 clusters showing how habits, loss aversion or comfort makes people resist change. Each cluster consists of mechanisms that have a similar influence on climate relevant behavior. Through this the authors show that they don’t just shape individual choices but also lead to slow overall transformation towards climate action. The study also states that climate mitigation policies don’t take irrational human behaviour into account.
Moral Licensing
Another reason people might disengage, especially after having engaged previously, is due to moral licensing. Moral licensing refers to the phenomenon that “[p]ast good deeds can liberate individuals to engage in behaviors that are immoral, unethical, or otherwise problematic, behaviors that they would otherwise avoid for fear of feeling or appearing immoral”. Deriving from the example in the above bias, some people might end up installing solar panels but increase the overall energy use. Research has seen this effect in climate change as well. An experimental study conducted by researchers from Germany showed that people who had previously engaged in climate friendly actions felt less discomfort when asked to engage in an unsustainable choice. This is a clear case of moral licensing where doing something climate friendly should essentially build them to continuously engage in green choices but instead it backfires and results in completely opposite, unintended consequences.
Choice Overload
Individuals tend to assume that the more choices we are provided with the better but research has shown otherwise. Especially when it comes to climate-friendly options, more options are not always better. This phenomenon is called Choice Overload and it describes how people become overwhelmed when they are presented with many options. A recent study conducted by University of British Columbia tested how students reacted to the Climate Action Plan when faced with either 4 or 10 climate-friendly options. The result clearly showed that students with fewer options selected a significantly greater proportion of actions than those with more options. This indicates that more options will reduce engagement in climate action.
All the above mentioned biases don’t work on their own -- when people are eco-fatigued, tired of hearing about climate change, people indirectly end up defaulting to the status quo, justify bad habits and are overwhelmed with the choices. In the end, they do nothing. One area of application for this is to include irrational behavioral patterns in climate models. But this alone is not going to solve the problem. Even more important that this is for people to actually behave in a way that can reduce emissions. The nation does not need to surrender to eco-fatigue; instead policies need to be created keeping in mind various behavioral economics and psychological biases to achieve the envisioned results.
Netra Damani
