Reducing consumption of resources is one of the most impactful ways to curtail human-induced environmental impact. Many consumption behaviors may be driven by situational factors (ie. defaults) rather than thoughtful choice. Careful choosing of when and where to implement “no-action” default options can have huge environmental benefits, without spending money or limiting individual choice. For example, switching the default of office printers to double-sided printing could reduce paper consumption more effectively than encouragement or economic incentives. It is estimated that a ten percent tax on all paper products would only decrease paper consumption by two percent.

Over 15 weeks, researchers monitored the paper consumption of 25 printers at a large Swedish University. The fifteen-week period was broken down into three five-week phases:

Phase 1: All printers had a single-side printing default.

Phase 2: Department printer defaults were switched from single-sided printing to double-sided printing during either the first or last week of the five-week period. Departments were informed of the new default by their Heads the day prior to the switch (notice email template below). Some of the late switching departments also received a message from the university environmental coordinator four weeks prior to the switch, encouraging them to print double-sided as much as possible (encouragement template email below).

Phase 3: All printers had double-sided printing as their default.

In both default print settings, single and double-sided, the option remained to print in the opposite way. To switch the default, users had to check a box in a popup window that occurred before every printing assignment.

Encouragement Email:

Dear Colleague,

At X we strive to reduce our impact on the environment, and as an employee you can be part of

this process. An easy way to save resources is to keep paper consumption low. You can contribute by choosing to print on both sides of a sheet. Duplex printing is available on most of the printers at X, and you can also make this printing mode the default option on your computer. Thank you for your cooperation!

Best regards

X X, Environmental coordinator, Faculty

X X, Environmental coordinator, The Environmental council

Default Switch Notice:

Dear Colleague,

In order to save the environment and resources, we have decided to change the default setting from simplex to duplex printing on printer X. The change enters into force tomorrow, x/x-2012.

The possibility to print simplex remains, and if you absolutely want one-sided print jobs as a preselection, you can change your personal default to simplex. This is done under “Printer Settings” on your particular computer. If you have any problems in the transition or if you want help with your own printer settings, you can contact the IT media helpdesk by phone: XX-XXXXXX.

Best regards

X X, Head of Department

Simplex default

Duplex default

A randomized evaluation found that changing the printing default from single-sided to double-sided reduced daily paper consumption by 15% on average, an effect that persisted when measured six months after the intervention. There was no effect on paper consumption from the encouraging emails alone, and there was no change in printing demand (number of pages printed) during the intervention period. The chart below compares the total consumption of paper during the 25 days before the default switch to the 25 days after.

Paper consumption was significantly different (p<0.05) after the default switch.

Inspired to implement this design in your own work? Here are some things to think about before you get started:

• Are the behavioral drivers to the problem you are trying to solve similar to the ones described in the challenge section of this project?
• Is it feasible to adapt the design to address your problem?
• Could there be structural barriers at play that might keep the design from having the desired effect?
• Finally, we encourage you to make sure you monitor, test and take steps to iterate on designs often when either adapting them to a new context or scaling up to make sure they’re effective.

Additionally, consider the following insights from the design’s researchers:

Would this work elsewhere?

• For replication, staff must be able to print for free. Defaults are most powerful when there are weak incentives for someone to make the change on their own. The societal benefit of environmental friendly behaviors is often weak motivation for individuals. In this study the department email encouraging paper conservation from the university environmental coordinators had no effect on paper consumption. It is unknown whether there would be any additional benefit of switching defaults when individuals are already assigned a quota or required to pay for printing.

Advice for Implementers:

• Ensure that the default switch be communicated within the department by heads of the staff and not by researchers. Doing so allowed for members of the staff to participate without being informed about the study.
• Have the email encouraging double-sided printing come from someone of authority to mimic a real-world environmental advocacy.
• Allow for an easy opt out from the default so that individual choice is not constrained.
• Ensure that the printers being used allow for a change in default settings and identify a way to record printing data. In this study university IT-support had access to online statistics for each of the participating printers.
• If implementing in a university setting, best practice would be to avoid exam season or summer when printing could be more erratic.