Yesterday, June 3, the Climate Nudge project (2020-2026) published its final report and policy brief. The multidisciplinary project, funded by The Academy of Finland Strategic Research Council, studied the role of behavioural insights in climate policy, with a particular focus on the transport and land use sectors.
The final report (in Finnish) concludes that while nudges are widely acceptable in Finland, their impact is limited and highly context-dependent. Behavioural interventions function best when choice barriers are low and when they are explicitly designed to complement existing regulations and economic incentives.
Because nudges cannot generate massive emission reductions on their own, it’s essential to advance structural societal changes. Instead of applying them on their own, behavioural insights should be integrated directly into the initial planning, execution, and long-term assessment of climate policies.
A complementing policy brief (in Finnish) distils the project’s main policy recommendations on how to identify when nudges are – and aren’t – applicable, and urges early deployment, co-creation, and assessment of long-term effects.
Polaris Koi 