NEXT GENERATION EU
KEY ENABLING TECHNOLOGIES
01/09/2021

How to improve the effectiveness of social information programmes

Research published in JEEM investigates the impact of stimulating environmental self-identity on energy behaviour

How to improve the effectiveness of social information programs? Such a challenge has been tackled in the paper published on Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, to which contributed Prof. Massimo Tavoni and researcher Jacopo Bonan of the Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering.

Social information programmes are widely used by policymakers to nudge behavioural change. These are based on the comparison of individual behaviour with that of a reference group. Their effectiveness strongly depends on household and individual traits. The existing evidence in economics and psychology points to the role of environmental values and identity in determining pro-environmental behaviour and the impact of social information.

Researchers from Politecnico di Milano conducted a large field experiment on household energy conservation, to test whether the impact of a social information programme can be strengthened by leveraging environmental values and identity.

A communication that stimulates environmental self-identity, as well as comparing their energy behaviour with those of other users and with their own in the past, was attached to a certain number of customers’ bills of an electricity supplier. The results in terms of changing energy consumption habits of this group were then compared with those of the group for which neutral communication was maintained.

The results obtained seem to show that stimulating environmental identity does not, on average, strengthen the effectiveness of a social information programme, in terms of reducing energy consumption. However, there is evidence that stimulating environmental identity can lead to reductions in consumption for individuals who have in the past assumed virtuous behaviour from the point of view of energy saving.

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