Environmental nudging seems to offer a solution to obstacles of cumulative individual behaviour: if the norm is green, there will be more green behaviour and reduced carbon footprints - ideal! But, as some of you commented on my previous post, nudging has its limitations:
Effectiveness
I wonder whether nudging is radical enough to mitigate climate change: since many types of nudging address sustainable consumption subconsciously, consumption habits are not directly questioned. For instance, nudges addressing energy efficiency (e.g. altering roads to reduce driving speeds and patterns), do not question energy consumption, which would arguably generate greater environmental gains.
Other forms of nudging can be more effective in my opinion as they encourage energy diversification, such as opt-out only energy tariffs, which led to 95-99 percent of people staying with the green energy default. This could be very effective for the UK when a third of UK emissions come from heating homes and businesses.
Legitimacy
Nudging has generated marked criticism over its threat to democracy, specifically issues over power; citizen autonomy is weakened through subconsciously manipulating individuals to engage in behaviour that was designed by a behaviour-management elite. The government must ensure there is an open societal dialogue about the types of nudging to increase transparency and prevent these power struggles.
Importantly, is nudging a decentralised approach to climate change mitigation, undermining the government's involvement, putting more emphasis on individuals to sub-consciously generate meaningful reductions, or is it part of a more holistic approach? If the latter, I think it could be quite effective: nudges should be used with policy. Using the green energy example, if governments further implemented fiscal incentives and subsidies for green technology/energy with energy providers also offering opt-out green energy deals, the result would be maximised.
The Link to Make Me Green
Importantly, is nudging a decentralised approach to climate change mitigation, undermining the government's involvement, putting more emphasis on individuals to sub-consciously generate meaningful reductions, or is it part of a more holistic approach? If the latter, I think it could be quite effective: nudges should be used with policy. Using the green energy example, if governments further implemented fiscal incentives and subsidies for green technology/energy with energy providers also offering opt-out green energy deals, the result would be maximised.
The Link to Make Me Green
We are in between a rock and a hard place: climate change mitigation needs to occur imminently to prevent dangerous levels of warming by 2100. Nudging, when used in a holistic approach to climate change mitigation in a democratic and transparent way, can help generate this meaningful change, mainly since it helps overcome the value-action gap. Nudging can supplement individual action, fundamentally validating environmentalists' green behaviour! In my opinion, nudging could be really important for the future of this planet. I hope we see it develop in the nearby future!
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| My thoughts too Barney. |
Hi Ruth,
ReplyDeleteThis is maybe quite a radical suggestion, but arguably maybe democratic openness isn't always the best option, given that:
a) A lot of people often make choices which are damaging to themselves due to plain ol' human error. This is how the book "nudge" is introduced- people's judgements are skewed by over-optimism, lack of foresight, erroneous perceptions and "shooting off the hip". Nudge therefore helps people make better decisions, as opposed to forcing them to do so.
b) Nudge does still leave the option to change from default, IF you care enough to make the effort to do so. In not being overtly obvious, it acts as a filter- those who switch from the default are more likely to be those who care enough to sniff around, do their research and thus make a better informed choice
Or maybe this just makes me sound like a mad dictator. Maybe it makes it too dangerously exploitable for more nefarious ends in manipulating behaviour. What do you think?
Hello! Okay so really interesting that you said this because these points passed through my mind when writing this post; personally, I think maybe we do need a dictator who imposes such radical changes - if we're think purely about the likelihood of preventing dangerous levels of warming...
DeleteHowever, I think that nudging needs to be transparent. Unfortunately I've forgotten the paper, but the author explained when nudging was done in a closed manner and if people found out, they were less likely to engage in that behaviour - i.e a lack of transparency, when discovered, essentially undermined such environmental successes. The state is deemed to be too controlling. I think this is very relevant to our society as present, when issues such as Brexit have arguably spurred questions over Western democracy. I suppose no one wants to risk implementing such nudging in a manner that further critiques those four pillars!