Catalysing conservation: Testing behavioural spillover from wildlife‐friendly coffee in a zoo café

The biodiversity crisis demands effective strategies to shift human behaviour, rooted in understanding how people relate to nature and how those relationships may be cultivated to motivate conservation action. This study contributes to understanding of how conservation behaviour may catalyse the adoption of other conservation behaviours by examining whether engagement in a conservation behaviour (purchasing a cup of wildlife‐friendly coffee) in a real‐world setting (café) could influence engagement in additional conservation behaviours. In a café setting within a zoo, we conducted a between‐subjects field intervention involving 163 customers, using a combination of visual and verbal prompts across three conditions: Direct (explicit links were made to other behaviours), Indirect (prompted reflection about potential behaviours) and Control (neutral messaging with no links to other behaviours). Both Direct and Indirect approaches increased likelihood of engaging in similar conservation behaviours, relative to the Control. The Direct approach resulted in a higher likelihood to purchase a bag of wildlife‐friendly coffee and to engage in citizen science (a non‐targeted behaviour). Coffee bag sales at the zoo were also highest during this condition. Moderation analyses showed that the Indirect approach was more effective among participants with no zoo membership or with lower conservation identity (compared with zoo members or those with higher identity), whereas the Direct approach supported broader engagement across groups. While ‘warm glow’—the positive emotional experience that stems from doing something good—was associated with higher intentions overall, it did not moderate intervention effects. Our findings contribute to conceptual knowledge about how people–nature relationships interact with targeted messaging to catalyse conservation behaviours in real‐world settings, as well as practical knowledge about how to design a spillover‐informed intervention. Being one of the few real‐world investigations of a spillover intervention, these findings demonstrate that accessible conservation behaviours can be leveraged to promote broader engagement with biodiversity behaviours, with tailored messaging offering further benefits for behaviour change. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.