Communications enhance sustainable intentions despite other ongoing crises

There is an ongoing trend towards more frequent and multiple crises. Whilst there is a clear need for behaviors to become more sustainable to address the climate crisis, how to achieve this against the backdrop of other crises is unknown. Using a sample of 18,805 participants from the UK, we performed a survey experiment to investigate if communication messages provide a useful tool in nudging intentions towards improved sustainability in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. We found that, despite the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, media messaging resulted in increases in sustainability-related intentions for all our communication messaging conditions. Specifically, after our communication was presented, i) almost 80% of people who were not currently recycling their surgical masks reported their intention to do so; there was a >70% increase in both ii) the number of people likely to pick up face mask litter and iii) the number of people willing to disinfected and reuse FFP masks 4-6 times; whilst iv) there was an increase by 165% in those who would wash cloth masks at 600C. Our results highlight that communication messaging can play a useful role in minimizing the trade-offs between multiple crises, as well as maximizing any synergies. To support this, decision-makers and practitioners should encourage the delivery of sustainability advice via multiple sources and across different types of media, while taking steps to address potential misinformation.