Behaviour Science

The upcoming seventh edition of UNEP’s Global Environment Outlook (GEO-7) is an up-to-date, action-oriented, policy-relevant report for decision-makers.  

The Scoping Document emphasises the need for the upcoming GEO-7 report to describe not just “the what” (the systems transformations required to meet politically agreed environmental targets) but also “the how” (the means to achieve these targets). For this reason, the Scoping Document requested that the GEO-7 report highlights behavioural, cultural, and social opportunities and barriers (“the how”) to transformative change.  

To address this request, the new GEO-7 Behavioural, Social and Cultural (BSC) Task Group was formed. The BSC Task Group, made up of 17 GEO-7 authors and fellows from across all UN regions and two MESAG advisors, was designed to ensure the integration of two main thematic areas into the GEO-7 report: 

• Social and behavioural change 

• Equity and fairness  

The BSC Task Group is supporting the GEO-7 process by writing relevant content, advising authors and fellows on BSC topics, and reviewing the draft chapters. The BSC Task Group works closely with the GEO-7 Indigenous Knowledge and Local Knowledge (IK and LK) Task Force and the GEO-7 Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) Task Group.  

Prior to the formation of the BSC Task Group, UNEP engaged with the Busara Center for Behavioral Economics, Alisa Zomer (Associate Director at MIT) and Ed Carr (Professor at Clark University and GEF-STAP) in a series of workshops to assess how behavioural science concepts could be applied to the GEO-7 report. Outcomes from these workshops were instrumental in the formation of the BSC Task Group.  

For any questions on the GEO-7 BSC Task Group, contact Martha Stokes (martha.stokes@un.org).