Dr Gabel and Dr Krefeld-Schwab are the two principal investigators of ongoing sustainable behaviour research at RSM, which focuses on greening the Erasmus University campus.
“The accelerating climate change requires behavioural change to collectively reduce CO2 emissions. We often observe that interventions do not yield the desired responses. Our research studies why this is the case and how differences across individuals might contribute to the lack of interventions’ effectiveness,” says Dr Gabel.
Intervention algorithm
Dr Gabel and Dr Krefeld-Schwalb’s research aims to understand why people react differently to interventions. Based on these new insights, they will design an algorithm that chooses the best intervention for everyone. They developed a web application on which Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) members can report sustainable behaviour and collect rewards for saved CO2 emissions.
The app sends interventions and incentivizes to become more sustainable. The collected data will help the researchers understand how people react to the interventions and choose the right intervention for everyone using cutting-edge AI.
Behavioural change
“We study why and when staff and students behave sustainably and how they can be motivated to improve their behaviour. We’ll also build a targeting algorithm based on this systematic understanding of behavioural change that will help policymakers in the Netherlands and beyond develop more effective behavioural interventions,” says Dr Krefeld-Schwalb.
Ultimately, this project will generate scientific and societal impact. In addition to generating insights into the sustainable behaviour of students and staff on campus, it develops AI models for targeting behavioural interventions that are useful in applications beyond the researchers’ field experiment. In their research, they collaborate with sustainable business and policy-makers to increase the societal impact of their research.
Erasmus Trustfonds
The Erasmus Trustfonds was founded in 1913 to make an impact through scientific research and to foster young talent at Erasmus University Rotterdam and Erasmus MC so they can continue to excel as a top university. The Erasmus Trustfonds contributes to addressing societal issues in the areas of healthcare, sustainable prosperity and living together in urban areas.
About Dr Sebastian Gabel
Dr Sebastian Gabel earned a PhD in marketing in 2019 from Humboldt University of Berlin, School of Business and Economics. His research focuses on the intersection of quantitative marketing, machine learning and econometrics. Furthermore, Sebastian collaborates with leading marketing solution providers and grocery retailers to design and implement advanced machine learning systems for scalable and automated marketing personalisation. These marketing solutions have helped retailers to increase their revenue, return on advertising spend, and conversion rates.
About Dr Krefeld-Schwalb
Dr Antonia Krefeld-Schwalb’s research lies at the intersection of cognitive science and marketing. She uses methods from cognitive science, such as process measurements (mouse and eye tracking) and computational models to gain an understanding of consumer behaviour and managerial decision-making. She optimises methods to predict behaviour outside of the experimental laboratory. She’s particularly interested in improving preference measurement.
