Food for Thought: How Choice Architecture Can Drive a Planet-Friendly Marketing Revolution

Brands need to use behavioural science, and strategies like choice architecture, to drive performance against sustainability goals. And January provides the perfect opportunity to learn how that can be put into practice.

2025 has begun, and so has the annual Veganuary movement.

But why do we struggle to stick to a meat-free routine, or at least a less meat-centric one once the month is over?

As noted in CarbonBrief, meat and dairy production accounts for around 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

We must significantly change our diets if we want to reduce our global warming impact.

But to do this, we must consciously overcome key barriers.

Habit, mindset and bias are all at play here.

As marketers, we can help to influence public perception of veganism and vegetarianism, promote plant based options and make a positive impact on the planet.

The aim is to make sustainable choices the norm, not entirely eradicate meat consumption.

This is where choice architecture comes in. The idea that we can be influenced by what we perceive as better for us, based on when and how we see it.

So, how might we implement choice architecture, not only to promote sustainable eating, but also to promote sustainability throughout all of our marketing campaigns across different industries?

Choice Architecture: Influencing Positive Change

We know that placing the important information (the information we really want to drill home) right at the top of our messaging is a key form of persuasion.

If our aim is to increase ticket sales, then we will place BUY NOW as front and center as we possibly can.

It makes sense, right?

Take a restaurant menu as example.

Right at the top you see a delicious, double cheese beef burger with rosemary fries, followed by crispy, battered fish and chips, a chicken and mushroom risotto with parmesan and truffle oil, ooh that sounds nice, lots of delightful looking desserts and oh…

Down at the very bottom of the menu in different, slightly less legible print you see the vegetarian option. With a big ‘V’ to remind us that it’s veggie.

Stuffed red peppers.

That’s it.

By placing the meat options at the top of the menu, in bold print, we as the consumer have already been subliminally influenced to choose one of them. Rather than the visually understimulating vegetarian alternative.

The point should be made that this trick won’t work on steadfast vegetarians and vegans. But it might deter them from going out to eat at a restaurant.

What it will do is present a barrier to anyone who may be thinking about choosing a meat-free option.

If you’re unsure of where you stand, and perhaps you don’t have much time, you might ask yourself:

‘Isn’t it just easier to eat meat?’

But while it may be easier to choose the meat option, it’s a lot worse for the planet.

So what’s standing in our way, and what key steps can we make, as marketers, to help change this unconscious bias?

The Power of Menu Design

Research from the University of Westminster and the World Resources Institute found that meat eaters are more likely to choose a vegetarian option on a menu if over 75% of the choices are veggie.

So, rather than having to actively persuade the consumer to go veggie, we can nudge them towards the desired path through the presentation of choice.

This application of choice architecture in our restaurant menus would help us to significantly reduce our GHG emissions.

Another deterrent is the labelling of vegetarian and vegan options.

When we signal to a meal being veggie or vegan with a large ‘V’, it triggers a sense that this option is different and therefore less appealing.

Studies have found that the same vegetarian option is more appealing to consumers when it’s not labelled as so.

Breaking the Habit

A key opponent in our quest towards sustainable futures is our tendency towards convenience, ease and familiarity.

Trying something new, and stepping out of our comfort zones, is often a challenge.

Especially when we’re presented with what we already know, e.g. meat options, at the top of the menu.

As Mark Hauser, our Behavioural Applied Scientist notes in a previous blog:

Our habitual behaviours are often deeply rooted, formed over years or even decades. And changing them requires conscious effort and, often, persistence too, which can be mentally taxing.

Mark‘s solution to our penchant for habit and comfort – make sustainable choices more convenient, more appealing and the default option.

This would mean vegan and vegetarian options are presented in abundance, and are more varied, enticing and nourishing.

And also, it would help reframe collective bias towards veganism and vegetarianism and bring sustainability to the forefront.

Brand Activation and Choice Architecture

Just as the food industry can make a significant sustainable change through choice architecture, we can apply this logic and solution to all industries through our marketing.

As noted in the marketing society’s article:

In reality, people spend a lot of their time avoiding making active choices. Instead they take the choice that is no choice at all – the default choice.

We have great scope to encourage and persuade our consumer base to choose the sustainable option.

Take for example Southeastern Railway’s Summer Leisure campaign, in which sustainable travel was promoted through choice drone footage of trains travelling through beautiful countryside and towns along the network.

This campaign simultaneously promotes ease and convenience and champions nature – subtly nudging us towards making sustainable choices.

Similarly, we worked on an internal, creative concept project called Moo Air.

As the ‘world’s first vegetarian airline’, Moo Air looks at the possibility of sustainability as the default. Flipping the norm, all food comes as vegetarian and if you want meat – you have to ask.

This is not a real airline. Instead, a concept to demonstrate the urgency and ease of pivoting towards sustainable living.

Final Thoughts

Marketers are in a unique position to make positive change by using strategies like choice architecture in our campaigns to guide consumers toward more sustainable choices.

Whether you’re selling food, encouraging greater use of public transport, or trying to get customers to pay more for that sustainable product, we can all think of ways in which to nudge customers towards the right choice.

Colour coding, using natural colours for danger over those that denote goodness can be used in price listings. In the west we naturally see red as bad and green as good. Use those colours when listing items that have a detrimental impact on the environment. That can apply whether you’re selling shoes, confectionery, or travel options.

As we head further into 2025, wouldn’t it be great to integrate the legacy of Veganuary into our daily lives?

If we begin by repositioning sustainable options as the norm, we could work towards a collective shift in mindset which would positively benefit us and the planet.