2011 report for JRF by Tim Horton and Natan Doron, Fabian Society

This research, through a series of focus groups, explores ways that people's sense of fairness around sustainable consumption and climate change could be used to build public support for behaviour change and sustainability policies.

Summary

• Current behaviour-change strategies tend to focus on the choices individuals make in isolation and often seek to appeal solely to financial self-interest. This could be a missed opportunity to appeal to other motives that could be more effective in changing behaviour.
• Most project participants had an intuitive notion of excessive consumption – for example, drawing distinctions between 'necessary' and 'wasteful' behaviours, or between 'necessary' and 'luxury' behaviours.
• The most important factor in triggering people's sense of fairness was the notion of resource scarcity – in this case, limitations in the earth’s capacity to absorb carbon dioxide (CO₂) while avoiding dangerous climate change. Most participants tended to feel excessive consumption and unequal consumption were problems in the context of resource scarcity, but not otherwise.
• It was often a focus on the behaviour of others that brought this fairness dimension to life. In particular, participants wanted to prevent unfair free-riding – where some people would avoid reducing their CO₂ emissions to sustainable levels whilst others were dutifully trying to do so.
• While no-one especially liked the idea of regulation in itself, there was a strong feeling that if households were going to make efforts or sacrifices to reduce consumption then everyone should be required to do so.
• This has implications for policy: while 'nudging' techniques might influence individual behaviour it can be hard to sustain cooperation when others are seen to be free-riding. Encouraging behaviour change or building support for sustainable consumption measures could be more effective if people understand the broader social issues and see the behavioural requirements as necessary and legitimate.