Explain’d by Colectivo: Behaviour Change
From intention to action
At Colectivo, we believe sustainability must be actionable to be effective. Explain’d is our series focused on clarifying the concepts that shape how organisations operate and evolve. Today, we explore one of the most critical and often misunderstood drivers of impact: Behaviour Change.
What is Behaviour Change?
At its core, behaviour change refers to a shift in the actions that individuals or groups take over time. These shifts are not random. They are shaped by a combination of internal and external factors, including people’s skills, their environment, and what motivates them to act.
In an organisational context, behaviour change is what allows strategies to come to life. It is the difference between knowing what needs to be done and actually doing it, consistently, across teams and over time. Because ultimately, organisations do not change on their own. People within them do.
Where Does It Come From?
Behaviour change as a field draws from multiple disciplines, including psychology, public health, economics, and sociology. Over time, these areas have contributed to a more structured understanding of how and why people act the way they do.
One of the most widely used frameworks today is the COM-B model, developed by Susan Michie and her colleagues in 2011. This model proposes that behaviour occurs when three conditions are present.
People must have the capability to act, meaning the necessary knowledge and skills.
They must have the opportunity, meaning the environment supports and enables the behaviour.
And they must have the motivation, whether conscious or automatic, to actually follow through.
When any one of these elements is missing, behaviour change becomes significantly less likely.
Why It Matters for Sustainability
Many organisations assume that once a sustainability strategy is defined, communicated, and understood, change will naturally follow. In practice, this is rarely the case.
There is often a clear gap between what people intend to do and what they actually do in their day-to-day work. This is commonly referred to as the Intention-Action Gap, and it has been widely studied within behavioural science.
Research from organisations such as the Behavioural Insights Team shows that simply providing information or raising awareness is rarely enough to drive sustained change. Instead, behaviour is influenced by a range of factors that operate below the surface. Habits, social norms, system constraints, and even small frictions in processes can all determine whether a desired action is taken or avoided. This is why many sustainability initiatives struggle. The issue is not a lack of ambition or understanding, but a lack of alignment between intention and the systems people operate within.
Behaviour Change in Practice
In practice, behaviour change is less about telling people what to do and more about shaping the environment in which decisions are made. When organisations approach behaviour change effectively, they focus on making the desired action easier, clearer, and more natural to adopt. This might involve simplifying processes, removing unnecessary steps, or making certain behaviours more visible and socially reinforced. It can also mean embedding prompts, defaults, or feedback mechanisms into everyday workflows, so that the right action becomes the path of least resistance. In this sense, behaviour change is not primarily a communication challenge. It is a design challenge.
From Awareness to Infrastructure
A common misconception is that behaviour change can be achieved through campaigns alone. A message is launched, training is delivered, and the expectation is that people will adapt accordingly. However, without changes to the underlying system, behaviour often reverts back to previous patterns.
Real, sustained change happens when organisations move beyond awareness and begin to embed new behaviours into how work is structured and executed. This includes aligning processes, incentives, and decision-making frameworks with the behaviours they want to see. Over time, these behaviours become part of the organisation’s operating model rather than something that needs to be constantly reinforced.
This is what it means for behaviour to become infrastructure.
Why This Matters Now
As organisations navigate the Green Transition, the challenge is not simply defining goals or setting targets. It is ensuring that those ambitions translate into consistent, everyday actions. Whether the objective is reducing emissions, improving circularity, or increasing employee engagement, success ultimately depends on behaviour. Without behaviour change, even the most well-designed strategies remain theoretical. Behaviour change is what bridges the gap between intention and impact.
From Concept to Application
At Colectivo, we apply behavioural science to help organisations move from intention to implementation. By combining structured frameworks with design-led approaches, we support teams in creating environments where change is not only possible, but sustainable.
Because the real question is not: “What should we do?” it is: “How do we make it happen?”
Learn More
If you’re looking to go deeper into how behavioural science can be applied in practice, you can explore our Behaviour Change for Sustainability course on Udemy.
The course is designed to help individuals and organisations understand how to move from intention to action, using practical frameworks and real-world examples.
