When people do not readily perceive the cause-effect relationship between anti-environmental behavior and environmental problems, this implies that the only way to motivate pro-environmental behaviours is to link such behaviour directly or indirectly to immediate and personally-relevant outcomes i.e. incentives.

 

Financial Rewards

Source: mediqfinancial.com.au

Consider bottle bills, which involve paying a deposit, averaging about five cents, on beverage containers covered under legislation at the time of purchase. When any individual returns an empty container to an appointed location, such as a drink store, he/she is rewarded for recycling efforts, reducing litter, and reducing the cost of trash pickup and disposal, by getting back the deposit. In contrast, people who fail to recycle these containers are made to pay for trash pickup and disposal costs. Therefore, bottle bills serve as an incentive to recycle and to reduce littering.

Consider also two strategies used by governments and utility companies: loan subsidies and partial rebates. Loan subsidies lend money below usual interest rates, for costs associated with energy efficiency, such as purchase and installation of energy-efficient equipment. Partial rebates help to offset costs of new energy-efficient equipment.

 

Convenience

Source: flamescorpion.com

Sometimes, the best way to change behavior is to make it easy and hassle-free for people to do so. Several studies have shown that when the number of recycling bins in a community was increased, and when people could mix their materials to be recycled instead of having to sort them out, recycling behaviors increased.

Interestingly, even when pro-environmental attitudes were not strong to begin with, people were likely to engage in pro-environmental behavior when it was convenient. In a study, when white-collared workers were provided with a box next to their tables to deposit papers for recycling, the amount of paper recycled increased drastically.

 

Principles

The basic principle behind incentives is to make parties that impose damaging costs upon the environment, absorb these costs. 

To do so, ensure that the incentive is…

1. Large but not too large. The incentive has to be large enough for people to take notice and to take it seriously, but not too large such that people’s internal motivation to conserve is undermined.

2. Suitable for overcoming specific barriers. Customise the incentive such that it helps people to overcome specific barriers that prevent them from taking pro-environmental action. For instance, if cost is a major barrier, create incentives that reduce costs. Keep in mind that different pro-environmental behaviours have different external barriers. Also, an incentive that works well for certain behaviours, people, or situations, may not work well for others.

3. Noticed. For incentives to take effect, people’s attention must be drawn to the incentives and their corresponding desired behaviour, such as through advertisements, community advisory groups, and so on.

4. Credible. To gain participants’ trust and commitment to partake in pro-environmental behaviour, get credible sponsors for environmental programs

5. Politically-acceptable. This implies not imposing additional costs or inconveniences to individuals and organizations where possible, such as price hikes, regulation and legislation.

6. Fair. If additional costs or inconveniences have to be imposed, ensure that fairness can be perceived, either by having costs borne evenly by all, or by having those that benefit the most bear greater costs.

7. Coincide with self-interests. By making the desired behaviour compatible with self-interests, people will be less likely to find ways to avoid, and instead be interested in and actively seek out the incentive.

8. Inclusive of target audience’s input. Involve people whose behaviour are targeted to be changed, in policy-making or program-design. This ensures that their perspectives are considered, and that they will develop more interest and commitment in making the program succeed.

9. Continually improved. Have the program continually reassessed to address problems that arise and improve its design.

 

Benefits

Incentives are useful in overcoming specific external barriers to action, such as costs, availability of cash, and convenience.

Incentives also promote short-term behavioural changes. For changes that require just a one-off investment, such an investment will result in significant long-lasting environmental benefits.

 

Cons

Incentives may not lead to permanent changes in behaviour. Studies have shown that when incentives are withdrawn, desired behaviours, especially those that require repeated behavioral change, tend to decrease over time.

Incentives may also be a costly long-term solution

Also, incentives may unwittingly undermine intrinsic and altruistic motivations and hence reduce the frequency of desired behaviours.