Experiments and insights on climate-relevant behaviours

Climate change is strongly linked to human behaviour and socio-economic systems. The complexity and heterogeneity of contributing factors make each climate-relevant domain worthy of attention. This thesis focuses on understanding the incentives needed to discourage carbon-intensive behaviours and support more sustainable choices at the individual level. It explores drivers in three climate-relevant domains: food choices, greenwashing practices, and applications for green jobs. While the emphasis is on individual behaviour, the work also touches on systemic considerations and broader policy prescriptions. The research uses three different experimental methods — field, lab, and online — to explore: a) The role of social observability on food choices, through a field experiment at a large environmental and resource economics conference. Ultimately, do people care and change their food choices towards more climate-friendly options when they know that they are visible to others?; b) The impact of increased detection probability on greenwashing behaviour in a laboratory market setting, examining both sellers’ deceptive practices and buyers’ willingness to pay for potentially false green claims. Essentially, to what extent is green consumption affected when its authenticity is reasonably in doubt?; c) the existence of preferences for green jobs and how intertemporal preferences and peer pressure affect job applications through an online survey experiment. Fundamentally, what are the main determinants of preferences for green jobs, and how does social pressure affect that? Unexpected and confirmatory findings contribute to the literature on behavioural climate policy by offering novel experimental evidence that informs the design of interventions across distinct yet interrelated domains.