Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
5048843 Ecological Economics 2017 14 Pages PDF
Abstract

Environmental policies are increasingly informed by behavioral economics insights. 'Green nudges' in particular have been suggested as a promising new tool to encourage consumers to act in an environmentally benign way, such as choosing renewable energy sources or saving energy. While there is an emerging literature on the instrumental effectiveness of behavioral policy tools such as these, their ethical assessment has largely been neglected. This paper attempts to fill this gap by, first, providing a structured overview of the most important contributions to the literature on pro-environmental nudges and, second, offering some critical considerations that may help the practitioner come to an ethically informed assessment of nudges.

Related Topics
Life Sciences Agricultural and Biological Sciences Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
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