Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Article
  • Published:

Large but diminishing effects of climate action nudges under rising costs

Nature Human Behaviour volume 6, pages 1381–1385 (2022)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Behavioural public policy has received broad research attention, particularly in the domain of motivating pro-environmental behaviours. We investigate how far the efficacy of arguably one the most popular behavioural policy tools (green ‘default change’ nudges) depends on the associated cost. On the basis of a field study involving carbon offsets for over 30,000 flights booked by more than 11,000 airline customers, we show that green defaults have a large effect on voluntary climate action, even when several hundreds of Euros are at stake. The effect fully vanishes only as costs approach approximately €800.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: Decision screen for customers willing to offset their flight on the company’s platform.
Fig. 2: Behavioural ‘stickiness’ to the preselected default settings for each of six default values used in the field study.
Fig. 3: Probability of sticking to default (blue line) or within 2-yr range (yellow line) depending on the associated cost, relative to cheapest offsetting option.
Fig. 4: Proportion of customers moving towards a cheaper offsetting scheme among all customers deviating from the default compared to the available share of cheaper options.

Similar content being viewed by others

Data availability

Anonymized raw data are available on the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/rd7sy) in accordance with a data protection agreement with the airline partner (for example, passenger IDs replaced with other unique IDs).

Code availability

Results reported in the main text and Supplementary Information can be reproduced using the statistical code published via the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/rd7sy). All data have been analysed using the open-source software R.

References

  1. Jachimowicz, J. M., Duncan, S., Weber, E. U. & Johnson, E. J. When and why defaults influence decisions: a meta-analysis of default effects. Behav. Public Policy 3, 159–186 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Mertens, S., Herberz, M., Hahnel, U. J. J. & Brosch, T. The effectiveness of nudging: a meta-analysis of choice architecture interventions across behavioral domains. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 119, e2107346118 (2022).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Günther, S. A., Staake, T., Schöb, S. & Tiefenbeck, V. The behavioral response to a corporate carbon offset program: a field experiment on adverse effects and mitigation strategies. Glob. Environ. Change 64, 102123 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Johnson, E. J., Hershey, J., Meszaros, J. & Kunreuther, H. Framing, probability distortions, and insurance decisions. J. Risk Uncertain. 7, 35–51 (1993).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Thaler, R. H. & Benartzi, S. Save More TomorrowTM: using behavioral economics to increase employee saving. J. Polit. Econ. 112, S164–S187 (2004).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Chapman, G. B., Li, M., Colby, H. & Yoon, H. Opting in vs opting out of influenza vaccination. JAMA 304, 43 (2010).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Johnson, E. J. & Goldstein, D. Do defaults save lives? Science 302, 1338–1339 (2003).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Altmann, S., Falk, A., Heidhues, P., Jayaraman, R. & Teirlinck, M. Defaults and donations: evidence from a field experiment. Rev. Econ. Stat. 101, 808–826 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Ebeling, F. & Lotz, S. Domestic uptake of green energy promoted by opt-out tariffs. Nat. Clim. Change 5, 868–871 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Liebe, U., Gewinner, J. & Diekmann, A. Large and persistent effects of green energy defaults in the household and business sectors. Nat. Hum. Behav. 5, 576–585 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Tiefenbeck, V. et al. Overcoming salience bias: how real-time feedback fosters resource conservation. Manag. Sci. 64, 1458–1476 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Allcott, H. Social norms and energy conservation. J. Public Econ. 95, 1082–1095 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Hortaçsu, A., Madanizadeh, S. A. & Puller, S. L. Power to choose? An analysis of consumer inertia in the residential electricity market. Am. Econ. J. Econ. Policy 9, 192–226 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Camilleri, A. R., Larrick, R. P., Hossain, S. & Patino-Echeverri, D. Consumers underestimate the emissions associated with food but are aided by labels. Nat. Clim. Change 9, 53–58 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Sunstein, C. R. Green defaults can combat climate change. Nat. Hum. Behav. 5, 548–549 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Enke, B. et al. Cognitive Biases: Mistakes or Missing Stakes? NBER Working Paper No. 28650 (NBER, 2021). https://doi.org/10.3386/w28650

  17. Kaiser, M., Bernauer, M., Sunstein, C. R. & Reisch, L. A. The power of green defaults: the impact of regional variation of opt-out tariffs on green energy demand in Germany. Ecol. Econ. 174, 106685 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Cramton, P., MacKay, D. J. C., Ockenfels,A. & Stoft, S. (eds) Global Carbon Pricing: The Path to Climate Cooperation (MIT Press, 2017). https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/10914.001.0001

  19. Ghesla, C., Grieder, M. & Schubert, R. Nudging the poor and the rich—a field study on the distributional effects of green electricity defaults. Energy Econ. 86, 104616 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Smith, N. C., Goldstein, D. G. & Johnson, E. J. Choice without awareness: ethical and policy implications of defaults. J. Public Policy Mark. 32, 159–172 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Schubert, C. Green nudges: do they work? are they ethical? Ecol. Econ. 132, 329–342 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Ambuehl, S., Bernheim, B. D. & Ockenfels, A. What motivates paternalism? An experimental study. Am. Econ. Rev. 111, 787–830 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Mrkva, K., Posner, N. A., Reeck, C. & Johnson, E. J. Do nudges reduce disparities? Choice architecture compensates for low consumer knowledge. J. Mark. 85, 67–84 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the research assistance of A. Lange and V. Schneuwly. S.B. gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Swiss Federal Office of Energy through the ‘Energy, Economy, and Society’ programme (grant agreement no. SI/502093–01). A.O. gratefully acknowledges the support of the German Research Foundation (DFG) through the excellence strategy (grant agreement no. EXC 2126/1-390838866) and the European Research Council (ERC) (grant agreement no. EU Horizon 2020 741409). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    Sebastian Berger, Andreas Kilchenmann, Oliver Lenz, Francisco Schlöder & Annika M. Wyss

  2. University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany

    Axel Ockenfels

Authors
  1. Sebastian Berger
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Andreas Kilchenmann
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Oliver Lenz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Axel Ockenfels
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Francisco Schlöder
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Annika M. Wyss
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

S.B., O.L., A.K., F.S., A.O. and A.W. conceptualized the study. S.B., F.S., A.O. and A.W. determined the methodology. S.B., F.S. and A.W. analysed the data. O.L. and A.K. curated the data. S.B., F.S. and A.W. wrote the initial draft. S.B., O.L., A.K., F.S., A.O. and A.W. commented on and revised the drafts. S.B., F.S. and A.W. visualized the results. S.B. and A.O. supervised O.L., A.K. and F.S. S.B. administrated the project. S.B. and A.O. acquired funding.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sebastian Berger.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Peer review

Peer review information

Nature Human Behaviour thanks Manuel Grieder and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Additional information

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–10 and Tables 1–15 and references.

Reporting Summary

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Berger, S., Kilchenmann, A., Lenz, O. et al. Large but diminishing effects of climate action nudges under rising costs. Nat Hum Behav 6, 1381–1385 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-022-01379-7

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-022-01379-7

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing