Abstract:Although it is often assumed that default rules affect change without awareness, this paper suggests that contrast with the default and transition into conscious adoption of the default design may be the starting point to establish long-term changes in consumer behavior. Despite the rooting of default rules in subconscious decision-making, this research finds that, ultimately, awareness drives the demand necessary for the creation of sustainable consumption. Whereas direct appeal to individuals has a disappointing level of influence on sustainability choices, it is understood that green consumers do come from somewhere. Green default rules offer interesting prospects for sidestepping the drawbacks of direct marketing to individuals. Under green default rules, behavior is guided by a default, such as utilities automatically sending customers renewables-sourced instead of fossil-fuel-based energy. To act otherwise requires additional effort and is less likely. Motivated by a need to understand how defaults might bridge standards and sustainable consumption, I investigate how organizational processes potentially lead from standardized green default rules to individual awareness that can spread and facilitate sustainable consumption. This paper examines the Active House sustainable building demonstrations in Europe in order to understand how (1) communications and market creation and (2) responsible, user-centered experimentation are organized to move from defaults to sustainable consumption.

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This paper looks at how the building industry can use the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 3 (SDG3) - to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages. The research investigates SDG3-driven business model innovation for healthy buildings and the role of smart technology innovation in realizing the goal’s implementation. It is based on an organizational ethnography of the VELUX Group and interviews from four business model innovation cases to illustrate how the industry can use SDG3 to create more sustainable and healthy buildings. The research finds that whereas SDG3 highlights the significance of human factors in the building industry, smart technologies support value creation based on formerly unmeasurable qualitative aspects like indoor health. Further, challenges to SDG3-based business model innovation underscore the need for expanded cross-sector collaboration in order to establish markets for the resultant smart, healthy building solutions. Public-private partnership for the smart and healthy renovation of public schools is identified as a promising way to stimulate wider market adoption.

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