ABSTRACT
Habit is significant in the context of approaching sustainability, as many environmentally-relevant behaviours are habits which are recurrent, stable and persistent. A better understanding of the process of habits formation and change is considered vital when designing interventions to change behaviour. This chapter explores how design alters or interjects change in habits to encourage more sustainable consumption. It begins by introducing the role of habit in the context of approaching sustainability and two different conceptualisations of habit, coming from both social psychology and sociology. Then it outlines two sub-categories of design, Design for Sustainable Behaviour and Practice-oriented Design, which draw on the theories from psychology and sociology respectively for bringing about habit change resulted in environmental improvements. This is followed by a number of design opportunities, strategies and their application that elucidate the two theoretical propositions. Implications are finally drawn out for designers to address habits on multiple levels and create interventions that can bring about pro-environmental habits on multiple levels.
