Climate and environment, Social and Behavioural Inclusive Leadership Insight for Workplaces

Inclusive LeadershipOrganisational Culture
Written By Sile Walsh

Climate conspiracists can still be nudged into eco-friendliness

Social influences pack a punch when it comes to encouraging climate-conscious behaviour from non-believers, says a new study. For HR and leaders, this is a pragmatic route to progress that focuses on behaviour, not belief a good fit for inclusive, high-performance cultures (Reynolds, 2025).

According to a 2020 YouGov poll, an average of 17% of people across 22 countries believed in the idea that climate change is a hoax. Recent analyses suggest the proportion remains material (often 17–22%, depending on the country and measure), indicating that most workplaces will include a mix of perspectives. Designing for that reality is part of inclusive leadership (YouGov, 2021; Chan, 2025).

You might think that believing that climate change is a hoax would reduce someone's likelihood to engage in environmentally conscious behaviour. After all, why bother, if it's all a con? Surprisingly, this might not always be the case. A new study by Kevin Winter and colleagues in the British Journal of Psychology suggests a more nuanced pattern that leaders could use. People who think those around them care about the environment are more likely to act in eco-friendly ways even if they also believe in conspiracy theories (Winter, Pummerer, & Sassenberg, 2025).

What the research found (three samples)

  1. Study 1 (United States; N = 242). Participants reported how much people in society and those close to them approved of, expected, or engaged in actions like using public transport, eating less meat, or flying less. They also reported their own behaviour and their agreement with conspiracy statements (e.g., “climate change is a hoax”).

  2. Finding: Perceived social approval predicted more eco-friendly behaviour — and this effect was stronger among participants with higher conspiracy beliefs. Expectations from close friends and family carried particular weight. Seeing others behave in eco-friendly ways encouraged action across the board. For leaders: the “near-peer” norm matters.

  3. Study 2 (Germany; N = 261). The design was repeated.

  4. Finding: Here, conspiracy beliefs were linked to lower pro-environmental behaviour regardless of others’ views. Context matters — norms can vary in potency across settings.

  5. Study 3 (United Kingdom; N = 534, two-wave). Participants first reported how much close others expected them to act eco-friendly and their conspiracy beliefs; a week later they reported 15 everyday behaviours (e.g., saving energy, eating seasonally, recycling).


Finding: Two moving parts: conspiracy endorsement correlated with less sustainable action; higher social expectations from close others correlated with more sustainable action. Crucially, the positive effect of norms was similar for believers and non-believers. In practice: visible, local norms could help without forcing ideological alignment. The authors note the studies were correlational in parts and self-report based; future experiments could test causality. That said, the pattern aligns with well-established social-norms research showing that “what people like me do” can drive behaviour change (Goldstein, Cialdini, & Griskevicius, 2008).

Why this matters for inclusive leadership and HR

High performance requires everyone’s needs to be included. These findings invite leaders to focus on behaviour-first design: make sustainable behaviours easy, visible and socially endorsed while respecting different beliefs. That’s compassionate accountability in action.

What HR and leaders could do:

  1. Make norms local and authentic. Share team-level snapshots such as “Most of our Sales Ops team chose rail for under-5-hour trips last quarter.”

  2. Pair descriptive norms (what people do) with gentle injunctive cues (what’s valued). This could reduce rebound effects and keep tone supportive (Goldstein et al., 2008).

  3. Use opt-in defaults that respect choice. Surface lower-carbon options first (travel, catering, facilities), with clear alternatives.

  4. Model through peers. Invite respected colleagues to highlight simple, repeatable behaviours (e.g., device sleep settings, hybrid-first meetings).

  5. Measure what’s malleable. Track booking mixes, building energy behaviours, and recycling participation at the team level and share progress with those teams.

How this research can help sustainability efforts in organisations

For many organisations, sustainability goals are ambitious, urgent and complex. Yet progress often depends less on big technical shifts and more on consistent daily behaviours how people travel, consume, switch off, recycle, and make small operational decisions. This research offers a strengths-focused insight: belief diversity does not have to block behavioural progress. Social norms can bridge divides.

When leaders and HR professionals use visible, local norms of what colleagues do, expect, and approve of, sustainability becomes a collective practice, not an ideological contest. Employees who may be sceptical about climate change can still act sustainably if those behaviours are embedded in the culture around them. This means the task for organisations is not to convert beliefs, but to design systems, defaults, and relationships that make sustainability the easy, socially reinforced option (Winter, Pummerer, & Sassenberg, 2025).

In practice, this can strengthen organisational sustainability efforts by:

  1. Accelerating behaviour change through peer influence. People copy what peers they respect actually do. Making pro-environmental behaviour visible, such as reporting team-level progress or peer recognition, magnifies participation without confrontation.

  2. Reducing resistance through inclusion. When sustainability messages focus on shared goals (e.g., efficiency, wellbeing, stewardship) rather than ideology, people feel included rather than corrected. This inclusive framing lowers defensiveness and increases uptake.

  3. Embedding sustainability in everyday systems. Policies and processes that quietly support greener defaults, travel booking systems, office layouts, and catering choices normalise sustainability. People follow the path of least resistance, and when that path is sustainable, change endures.

  4. Strengthening alignment between ESG and culture.

  5. Visible social norms make sustainability tangible within teams. This alignment between environmental targets and social culture builds authenticity and trust in ESG reporting.

  6. Supporting performance and engagement. Inclusive sustainability signals fairness and shared responsibility key drivers of engagement and performance. People are more motivated when they see that everyone is part of the solution.


In short, sustainability becomes less about persuading and more about practising. Leaders can model the desired behaviours, HR can reinforce them through systems, and teams can spread them through relationships. This creates an organisational climate where sustainable behaviour feels natural, inclusive and high performing.

Practical tips leaders could pilot this quarter

  1. Travel: Set booking tools to present lower-emission routes by default for short-haul and display “X% of teams like yours chose this option last month.”

  2. Energy: Enable auto-sleep on laptops/monitors and share a monthly “quiet kudos” when a floor improves its baseline.

  3. Food: Label seasonal items as “most chosen this week” in onsite catering to signal the norm without preaching.

  4. Recognition: Spotlight “eco-helpfulness” in peer-to-peer shout-outs (ridesharing, smart scheduling) as collaboration, not virtue signalling.


Reflective questions for leaders and HR

  1. Where in our employee journey could local norms be made visible without pressuring beliefs?

  2. Which teams already model easy, eco-friendly behaviours , and how could those stories travel?

  3. What small defaults could remove friction while keeping autonomy?

  4. How could we frame sustainability as part of “how we work together” rather than “who is right”?


Key caveats:

Context varies. The German sample showed a stronger belief–behaviour link that norms didn’t offset. Your culture could differ too. Self-report limitations exist. When possible, use real booking or usage data to assess impact. Norms work best when close and credible. Team-level signals tend to outperform company-wide averages (Goldstein et al., 2008).


References

Sile Walsh
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