Should the global population reach 9.6 billion by 2050, the equivalent of almost three planets could be required to provide the natural resources needed to sustain current lifestyles”
As the majority of today’s environmental challenges can be traced back to consumption (Perera et al., 2020; Merz, et al., 2023), consumer choice and behavior emerges as a key factor in pursuing sustainability. “Responsible consumption and production,” is identified as Goal 12 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) agenda and it highlights rethinking consumer wants and needs to reflect a heightened consciousness of the societal and ecological effects of individual actions (Jacob-John et al., 2021).
Reversing consumer behavior towards a more sustainable direction has become a pressing call for individuals, companies and governments. The necessity to accelerate measures against climate change was also highlighted during the 28th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP 28) where it was agreed that by 2030, global greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced by 43%, below 1990 levels, to limit global warming to 1.5°C (European Parliament, 2023).
AI is poised to exert transformative effects on markets around the world. The market for artificial intelligence (AI) is expected to grow tremendously in the coming decade from a value of 200 billion U.S. dollars in 2023 up to nearly two trillion U.S. dollars in 2030 (Thormundsson, 2023). This accelerating development of AI is estimated to contribute to a 14% increase in global GDP until 2030, an equivalent of 15.7 trillion U.S. dollars of additional GDP (PwC, 2017). The necessity to integrate AI systems in the global effort to mitigate the negative effects of climate change is highlighted both in the European Green Deal (Gailhofer et al., 2021) and the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP, n.d.). With AI integration becoming more prevalent, the use of nudging mechanisms within AI applications as a means to reverse consumer behavior towards a more sustainable direction provides a promising avenue for addressing the environmental challenges.
The SustAIn project provides a novel effort to investigate AI-enabled nudges in the context of promoting sustainable choice and behavior. The findings are expected to have important theoretical implications in this under-researched area by assessing the effectiveness of different types of AI-enabled nudges, unveiling the underlying psychological mechanisms and identifying moderating factors and boundary conditions. Moreover, the findings are expected to provide significant practical implications for the use of AI-mediated nudges for marketing executives, companies and policy makers by identifying optimal usage of nudging in different contexts, including social and individual factors.