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Sustainability policy as if people mattered: developing a framework for environmentally significant behavioral change

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Journal of Bioeconomics Aims and scope

Abstract

International climate accords like the Paris agreement set the broad agenda for climate action. To realize their potential however, it is vital to ‘get the context right’ so that environmentally significant behaviors can be repeated over time. This paper reviews the extant interdisciplinary literature to outline how a richer understanding of the interrelationships between individual and contextual factors is required to cultivate behavioral change. In this manner, 18 distinct behavioral determinants are identified. We argue that the likelihood of behavioral change and overall environmental impact are thereby reliant on the complex interaction between individual behavior and the multiple distinct layers of context that frame its expression. Our behavior-informed approach thus helps to explain processes of behavioral change more fully, establish the types of obstacles that exist, and delineate a fuller and more substantial role for individual-driven behavioral change that is able to build on the initial impetus of global-level frameworks.

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Notes

  1. Note that the question of whether heuristics lead to behavioral biases and hence bad decisions is the subject of much debate (see e.g. Gigerenzer 2015).

  2. See, e.g., Vandenbergh and Steinemann’s (2007) discussion of the potential use of legal reforms to activate and promote norms that encourage carbon-neutral lifestyles.

  3. Our thanks to an anonymous reviewer for bringing this point to our attention.

  4. The discussion of meta-preferences (or second-order preferences) does however signal the potential for greater correspondence that exists between attitudes and preferences (Frankfurt 1971; Hirschman 1985). Decisions over what to consume are argued to consider not only preferences but also preferences about the types of preferences one wishes to have. For instance, while an individual might ‘prefer’ to take the car when in a rush, this does not rule out the possibility of having a meta-preference for driving less in general to reduce environmental impact.

  5. A further distinction is made regarding the kind of information that is provided. Specifically, descriptive norms communicate how others tend to act in a given context, while injunctive (or prescriptive) norms attach a sense of approval or disapproval when expressing what ought to be done (Aronson et al. 2012).

  6. From another perspective, this effect therefore represents the net result of the income and substitution effects of this behavioral change for all the other goods and services purchased by the household (Chitnis et al. 2013).

  7. According to Ostrom (1999, p. 57), a polycentric system is “one where many elements are capable of making mutual adjustments for ordering their relationships with one another within a general system of rules where each element acts with independence of other elements.” Initially emerging in the context of metropolitan governance and police performance, such systems contrasted with the growing reliance on a consolidated, ‘monopoly’ form of governance seen to be more efficient and able to overcome the ‘chaotic’ overlap between small-, medium-, and large-scale governmental units operating in the same jurisdiction (cf. Ostrom et al. 1961).

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Lucy O’Shea and Paolo Zeppini for helpful comments. In addition, we are very grateful for the detailed and insightful comments from three anonymous reviewers. Christian Gross acknowledges funding from the 7th Framework Programme of Research and Innovation, (Area: Environment) of the European Commission—Period 2011–2013, within the project “Green Lifestyles, Alternative Models, and Upscaling Regional Sustainability” (GLAMURS). Participants: University of A Coruña (coordinator), University of Bath, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, The Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Delft University of Technology, Otto von Guericke Universität, University of Roma Tre, The James Hutton Institute, University of Tilburg, West University of Timişoara, Sustainable Europe Research Institute (Grant Agreement No 265155). Chad M. Baum is grateful for support provided by the Federal Programme “ProExzellenz” of the Free State of Thuringia. He is also very thankful to James S. Cutsinger for inviting him to consider a different path. Finally, we wish to thank Judith Hillen for her help formatting the document.

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  1. Institute for Food and Resource Economics, University of Bonn, Meckenheimer Allee 174, 53115, Bonn, Germany

    Chad M. Baum

  2. Secretariat of the Advisory Council for Consumer Affairs, Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection, Mohrenstrasse 37, 10117, Berlin, Germany

    Christian Gross

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Baum, C.M., Gross, C. Sustainability policy as if people mattered: developing a framework for environmentally significant behavioral change. J Bioecon 19, 53–95 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10818-016-9238-3

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