How Green Behaviour in One Area Influences Others

Research has shown that engaging in one green initiative, such as recycling or switching to an electric vehicle (EV), can lead to positive spillovers or negative spillovers:

• Positive Spillover: Taking a green action can reinforce an environmental self-identity, motivating individuals to adopt additional sustainable practices. For example, someone who regularly recycles might be inspired to compost or reduce food waste.
• Negative Spillover: Conversely, engaging in one green action can lead to moral licensing, where individuals feel they’ve “done their part” and reduce efforts in other areas. A person who buys an EV, for instance, might justify less sustainable actions like taking frequent long-haul flights.

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What This Means for Governments, Utilities, and Companies

For organizations promoting sustainability, understanding spillover dynamics is crucial. While individual willingness and small-scale actions are important, they alone are insufficient to drive the large-scale changes needed to tackle environmental challenges. Regulatory measures must play a central role in constraining unsustainable actions and creating systemic accountability.

Key Strategies for Systemic Change:

1. Set Comprehensive Regulatory Standards: Establish strict policies that mandate sustainable practices across sectors, such as energy efficiency standards, waste management protocols, and recycling requirements. These regulations ensure individual actions contribute meaningfully to broader goals.
2. Integrate Accountability Mechanisms: Develop frameworks to enforce compliance with environmental policies, holding individuals and industries responsible for their impact. Examples include penalties for non-compliance with composting or bans on single-use plastics.
3. Support Systemic Accessibility: Implement measures that make sustainable choices the default, such as mandatory curbside composting and producer responsibility for waste. Subsidies and incentives should be tied to measurable environmental outcomes.
4. Leverage Social Norms and Pride: Build on community pride and collective identity by setting ambitious and enforceable targets for waste diversion and energy conservation. Showcase local leadership while ensuring adherence through structural support.

By emphasizing systemic change through regulation, governments, utilities, and companies can overcome the limitations of small-scale actions and individual efforts, driving significant progress toward sustainability.

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Québec’s Unique Position: Opportunities and Challenges

Hydro-Québec’s green electricity grid, powered predominantly by hydroelectricity, places it among the global leaders in clean energy. However, this success comes with its own behavioural challenges, including potential negative spillovers in areas like recycling and composting.

Here are tailored lessons for Québec:

1. Frame Hydro as a Starting Point, Not the Endpoint: Campaigns should emphasize that clean electricity is just the beginning of sustainability. For example, messages like “Hydropower helps fight climate change—now let’s tackle waste and protect biodiversity” can inspire complementary actions.
2. Prevent Overconsumption and Waste Through Regulation: Clean energy abundance can lead to wasteful behaviours. Policies that enforce energy efficiency (e.g. building retrofits) and limit unnecessary consumption can counteract this tendency.
3. Promote Complementary Actions Through Mandates: Enforce mandatory composting, advanced recycling, and plastic reduction programs to ensure that all residents contribute to broader sustainability goals.
4. Leverage Local Pride with Policy Support: Québecers take pride in their environmental leadership. Regulations that reinforce this leadership, such as stringent waste diversion targets, can turn pride into action.

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For Further Reading

1. Positive and Negative Spillovers in Pro-Environmental Behaviours
   • Nature Sustainability: Meta-analysis of spillover effects in pro-environmental behaviours.
     Read here
2. Moral Licensing and the Risks of Monetary Incentives
   • Frontiers in Psychology: How financial framing of green actions can weaken environmental identity.
     Read here
3. Behavioural Consistency in Green Lifestyle and Investment
   • Examines how sustainable habits align with financial behaviours.
     Read here