Toward Digital Interventions to Overcome Intergenerational Discounting: A Design Science Approach

This study aims to address a key obstacle to climate action: intergenerational discounting, a phenomenon that explains the tendency for people to prefer smaller benefits for themselves now, rather than larger benefits for future generations. Intergenerational discounting becomes even more problematic due to a growing global population and increasingly intensive use of natural resources. In this research-in-progress paper, we follow the design science approach and outline how we aim to establish design principles necessary for digital interventions to overcome intergenerational discounting and achieve genuine and lasting behavior change toward sustainable consumer choices. The expected outcome of this study is to create digital interventions that transform the way consumers engage in sustainable behaviors