Multiple strategies can be used to influence individual decisions. A common assumption is that a lack of information, an information deficit, leads to poor decisions. While that is sometimes true, since decisions are shaped by both facts and values, providing information is often insufficient to change decision-making. The rational actor model suggests that changing incentives, and in particular changing prices, will shift decisions. Incentives matter, but they are only one factor in decisions and shifting incentives can be inequitable. Values are difficult to change but have broad and long-lasting influence on decisions. Norms are relatively easy to change and can have substantial influence. Design principles, generalizations from research on decision-making, can help shape effective efforts to influence decisions. Policies and programs should be designed with the consent of and in collaboration with those who may be impacted by the decision.

Conflicts around sustainability decisions are driven by at least eight forces. The distribution of risks and benefits is uneven, creating winners and losers. Facts and values, while logically distinct, are often confused. Facts are uncertain. The value implications of emerging issues are not clear. Decisions bring about permanent, concrete changes making compromise difficult. Those disadvantaged by a decision often have little say in it and did not generate the problem, raising concerns about harm to innocents. The boundaries between what is public and what is private are often confused and contested. Competence about some aspects of decision-making, such as assessing facts, can be confused with competence about other aspects of decision-making, such as assessing values. In addition, major long-standing controversies about transforming political economies and ecosystems are part of the background to most sustainability decisions.