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Katie Patrick | 🌏🌱 Action Designer

@katiepatrickhello

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Env Engineer + Program Architect
Helping green leaders scale movements of change
@hello.world.labs 🌈
@ecopia.us 🌿
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School of Climate Action Design 2026 Starts September 17- don't miss out! The keys to unlock human motivation and scale the change you need across populations.

Comment ACTION and I'll DM you for the link to the waitlist (or find link in bio)

I put together everything I know to help you design the world's most effective climate program, campaign, or tool in six weeks using evidence-based gold standard behavior design systems.

Here's a week-by-week breakdown of the 2026 schedule

Week 1, Thursday, September 17: Behavior Mapping Bootcamp
The world's most advanced data-driven behavior design system with 97 evidence-based techniques to influence action.

Week 2, September 28: Storytelling Secrets for Climate Action
The 12-step formula you need to tell your non-fiction story in a proven way that ignites a movement.

Week 3, October 5: Everything is a Funnel
Build a proven system that grabs attention, fosters engagement, and converts people to take action.

Week 4, October 12: Choice Architecture
Essential principles for when you need to present people with multiple green options and maintain their follow-through to action.

Week 5, October 19: Gamifying Groups for Action
A simple, low-tech structure you can apply to any group of people to shift them from “talking” into action gets results.

Week 6: November 9 - 13: Project Presentations
Submit your finalized project, now optimized for engagement, behavior change, and real-world impact—and graduate with a Certificate in Climate Action Design, mailed to your door.

Live cohorts are only run once per year. Don't miss out! by @katiepatrickhello

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2 months ago

The neuroscience of why climate education usually fails to trigger people into action, even though they care. It's the sneakiest mistake that almost every climate + environmental change-maker makes. Once you know it, you'll never see climate education the same again.

This is Climate Action Design. by @katiepatrickhello

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3 months ago

What’s the most important thing to boost in people to get them to spread climate action and eco-behaviors?

Let my AmongUs figurines explain:

A lot of people don’t get motivated by facts and incentives.

Why?

Because we mostly do what people close to us are doing.

It’s called social diffusion.

29 studies were shown that a block leader programs where THE most effective way of spreading conservation action.

But what gets people to engage in social diffusion? And what holds people back? And how can we design for it?

Here are the seven things you need to do, shared by @aloe__vero on the podcast to get your group having the conversations that tipping points are made of:

1. Buddy: Match new members with a “buddy” who can mentor and provide accountability and support.

2. Goal: Get group members to commit to a goal of precisely how many people they will talk to, and exactly who these people are, and when they will do it.

3. Track progress: Get people to track the number of conversations they have each day on a chart.

4. Script: Write a script of what people will say and get them to practice it.

5. Hook: Brainstorm ideas for conversational topics or ice-breakers that can to hook people into new conventions. It might be giving a compliment, or “have you heard of . . . ?” “did you see that . . . ?” “What do you think of . . . ?”

6. Group: Get people to share their progress in a group of other social diffusers.

7. Follow up: Group leader follows up regularly with members to support them in making progress.

Are you implementing any of these 7 practices?

Which ones could you start doing right now?

🌈 Follow @katiepatrickhello for more eco-psychology design hacks.

🔗 in bio for:

👾 Gamify the Planet monthly masterclass in climate action design.

🎙️ Latest podcast episode with expert environmental psychologists.

#amongus
#ecofriendly #climatechange #climateaction #sustainability #designforgood #designthinking #psychology #gamification #gamedesign #impactdesign
#environment #environmentalpsychology #psychology #decarbonization #behaviordesign taken in Mountain View, California by @katiepatrickhello

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4 years ago

Are you hosting a conference or big event this year? You might love this Environmental Psychology Mega Ice-Breaker game I made.

Designed for groups of 50–200 people, it gets people mingling, matching, and pairing up quickly 🌳 while learning a new environmental psychology concept they can apply to their climate work.

The box contains 184 cards that split into 92 pairs: one card has the title of the concept, and the other has the description and an example.

Give the cards out randomly, and your attendees must hunt through the crowd to find the person with their matching card.

Ask a few pairs to shout out the names of their concepts to lift the energy in the room before you dive into your event.

Or keep it going for Round 2: get the pairs to group by color, then mastermind a new climate solution together.

The Environmental Psychology Game is essentially a comprehensive glossary of environmental psychology and social influence concepts that you play as a game.

You really can learn the things, change the world, and make it fun.

Please tag or share this with anyone you know who is organizing the annual sustainability or climate conference for your industry.

Genuinely educational and cringe-free.

Available on the Hello World labs store, ships to most countries. Get it at shop.helloworlde.com by @katiepatrickhello

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14 days ago

Let's show the world the future we want, big and unmistakable, in Times Square! 🗽

When people see an alternative image of a better world, it starts to feel real and possible. What was outlandish shifts to becoming a normal expectation.

Once a new standard or vision or expectation sets inside the public consciousness, it becomes a powerful self-perpetuating force of its own.

You may have seen the famous quote "Nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come" by Victor Hugo.

Hugo was writing about Napoléon's 1851 coup, which overthrew France’s democratic republic and established authoritarian rule. Hugo participated in resistance and was forced into exile.

The real translation from his book is actually "An invasion of armies can be resisted; an invasion of ideas cannot."

He writes that military power and repression may defeat people temporarily, but cannot permanently defeat the advancing ideas of democracy, republican government, justice and human rights.

A political future can look suppressed or impossible, yet become unstoppable once society is ready to imagine and demand it.

Our perception of the future drives the world. It drives the stock market, invesment, housing prices, relationships, and votes. It is intangible, but it is a currency in and of itself.

When people talk of hope, optimism, imagination and vision - it's far more of a radical political act than it's given credit for.

#ecocity #climateaction taken in Times Square by @katiepatrickhello

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19 days ago

🎧 New podcast out with Dr Maiken Maier on how a simple food label may help unlock the political support needed to transform our food system.

When you see a climate food label, you probably wonder whether it encourages people to buy lower-emission products.

But beneath the label lies something much bigger. Can food labels help create the political conditions required for large-scale systems change?

We investigate her recent research paper, "Increasing the Uptake of Plant-Based Diets: An Analysis of the Impact of a CO₂ Food Label."

But what changed substantially more was their support of government climate policies, including broader carbon labeling.

The label was changing what they believed governments should do.

Look up "How to Save the World" on your podcast app or comment PODCAST for a link to the episode. by @katiepatrickhello

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a month ago

I made a 4-story worm condo with a frog-head lid as an experiment to teach composting behavior. 🐸🪱♻️

Would you like to try this out with your classroom or team?

I made it because I've had a lot of sustainability managers come to me with the same problem - they are trying to get to zero waste, but people keep throwing food scraps in the regular trash.

I thought of creating a "Compost Week" intensive - shower the campus with pro-compost info and activities for 7 days to make it salient enough to tip the behavior.

This is one of my ideas as part of that.

Let me know if you want one! by @katiepatrickhello

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a month ago

Save this post, there’s a lot in here! Open it when you can time on a big screen and absorb each of the principles. This stuff goes deep.

These are the 12 things you need to get right to build a movement of change. Drawn from systems theory, social science, game design, cybernetics, Silicon Valley startups, information theory, and my 20 years of designing sustainability campaigns - this is the best I got.

Perhaps too ambitious for an IG carousel, I have put each concept into a new masterclass with case studies and project examples that make sense. I am excited to share it . . . soon!

I’ll be hosting the session as soon as I have it ready in the @hello.world.labs community. Join the waitlist if you’d like an invitation. by @katiepatrickhello

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a month ago

Would you like to master the next big necessary skill in climate action?

This is "Climate Action Design" - the art, science, and systems of getting humans to take the action you need them to, at scale.

Here are a few of our amazing graduates from 2025: Eric Benson Angela Vincent Sam Auden and Harry Castle who each developed their campaigns in zero waste, compost outreach, circular economy, and fishing - and kind enough to send in a selfie!

Starting September 17, I'll be teaching and co-designing my "Action System," along with our expert mentors, to our next group.

Everyone who completes the work gets a printed graduation "Certificate of Climate Action Design" in the mail.

If you need to get your climate action plan or sustainability mission plan actually taken up and implemented by thousands of people in your community, this 6-week co-design sprint will be the unlock you're looking for.

Comment ACTION for the link to apply (or see the link in bio).

P.S. This is advanced stuff for those serious about scaling a movement. As @ericbenson247 says, VERY CHALLENGING. by @katiepatrickhello

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a month ago

It's wild to think how often you don't actually have to "convince" anyone to go green. You can get huge adoption across populations just by changing the way things are arranged.

It's a powerful paradigm shift to consider: conscious persuasion vs. unconscious behavior.

In this study, they switched around what psychologists call the "default" – the most automatic, no-effort choice.

Changing the default meal displayed halved beef orders. HALF!

No vegan rules. No meat-free Monday or Plant-power Tuesday. No shaming or even telling anyone what to do. No animal ag stats or getting people to a documentary screening.

A default switch like this can swiftly pull vast quantities of a high-emissions product like beef out of the system.

Compared to educating, convincing, and habit-changing, which is slow and laborious - often only getting to 1 - 3% of the market who are receptive to this kind of thing.

Honestly, there is almost no way a conscious habit-shift campaign could come close to what a default change like this one in the study can do in terms of total beef reduced.

Doesn't mean we should give up on education and asking people to make a conscious choice. Knowledge is powerful - but it needs to be combined with behavior techniques so it's not fighting an uphill battle against the way the world is designed.

Defaults are decided for us everywhere, in every choice we make.

Let's find ways to make them greener. by @katiepatrickhello

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2 months ago

New podcast out!🎙️ Today we are learning about the astonishing power of defaults for changing behavior on mass - without any convincing, persuading, or education at all.

I spoke with environmental psychologist Dr. Joel Ginn about his recently published research paper titled "Can you default to vegan? Plant-based defaults to change dining practices on college campuses."

It's a paradigm shift on how to shift change from niche enthusiasts to mass populations.

Swipe to see the images of the alteration Dr Ginn made that halved meat orders and doubled vegan orders across thousands of students.

Its so easy it's kind of crazy this isn't done more.

I love to find a silver bullet like this to share with y'all!

Look up "How to Save the World" podcast on Spotify or see link in bio.

#choicearchitecture #climateaction ##vegan #vegetarian by @katiepatrickhello

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2 months ago

Recognize this? Fun music-design-science trivia 👇

The image is a visualization of radio pulses from a pulsar, CP 1919 (now PSR B1919+21) — the first pulsar ever discovered.

A pulsar is the dense, rapidly spinning remnant of a massive star that has exploded.

Some neutron stars spin extremely rapidly and have powerful magnetic fields. They emit beams of electromagnetic radiation from around their magnetic poles.

That particular pulsar was historically important because in 1967 it became the first pulsar discovered, by graduate student Jocelyn Bell Burnell.

The diagram consists of successive measurements of the pulsar’s radio signal stacked on top of one another.

The band had found the graphic in The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Astronomy.

The major design decision was essentially to invert it: the source diagram was black lines on white; he rendered it as white lines on a stark black field, with no band name or album title on the front.

That one decision turned a scientific data visualization into one of the most recognizable album covers ever made. by @katiepatrickhello

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2 months ago