Nudging and Other Behaviourally Based Policies as Enablers for Environmental Sustainability

Marta Santos Silva
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Marta Santos Silva: Research Centre for Justice and Governance (JusGov), School of Law, University of Minho, 4710-057 Braga, Portugal

Laws, 2022, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-13

Abstract: Recent years have shown that traditional regulatory techniques alone are not effective in achieving behaviour change in important fields such as environmental sustainability. Governments all over the world have been progressively including behaviourally informed considerations in policy and law making with the aim of improving the acceptance and impact of sustainability-oriented measures. This led to the arrival of alternative regulatory tools, such as nudges. The effectiveness of nudges for environmental sustainability ( green nudges ) has been widely reported, but the practical and ethical implications are still largely neglected by academic research. In this contribution, “nudges” are conceptually distinguished from “boosts” and their ethics are briefly explained. The analysis is made in light of European and US American academic literature.

Keywords: consumer behaviour; green nudges; boosts; sustainability; libertarian paternalism; sustainable consumption; human bias; ethics; proportionality; autonomy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D78 E61 E62 F13 F42 F68 K0 K1 K2 K3 K4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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