Sustainability Projects with a Community Partner, a social norm nudging effort

Singapore students from two inter-disciplinary courses worked with stakeholders of a local business association community partner on a series of sustainability topics to learn about climate change, its effects, and actions to mitigate them. They empathized with the association stakeholders, proposed a digital technology solution, tested their prototypes, and presented the final action plans. After the projects were completed, we found climate proficient (83%), motivated (83%), engaged (97%), and satisfied (70%) students; and two influencing predictors: interest/enjoyment and emotional engagement. The study results suggest that getting students interested and emotionally engaged in sustainability projects is an important first step towards the adoption of more sustainable habits. Rather than suggesting that students commit to behavioral change in support of climate action qua moral persuasion or rules, our inter-disciplinary project outcomes suggest that a more effective approach is to nudge them towards eco-friendly behavior through the sustainability needs of community partnerships via social norm.