There was a good turn out for Andy Dobson last night and his talk stimulated wide-ranging comment and questions. He compared (dis)incentives and nudges with what he has called sustainability citizenship in his recent Green House paper. The former are all around us, of course, and are not just government inspired; business is also adept at bending our behaviours to their ends — too much so, many would say. Charities equally so, but they tend to get a better press. Andy brought out the perversity of unforeseen outcomes that can arise when these are put in place.
It is hard to see any of this ending, in the medium term at least, and there seems a case for their having a role to play in our shift to more sustainable ways of living with each other and on the planet — more likely through less unsustainable ways in the short term, I'd guess.
A point that did not come out forcibly enough, for me, was the essential external nature of these nudges and (dis)incentives: they tend to be things that are done or offered to you. It is hard to see how you can really nudge yourself. The point, however, is that we are positioned as reacting, rather than taking responsibility ourselves.
It's different with sustainability citizenship, however. Here, the agency is internal, though it might be community, group or family-based as much as in the individual. Things get done because we want them to. In a way, having a well-tuned citizenly sense is essential if we are to identity and select those nudges and (dis)incentives that are the right actions to take.
But this is also, essentially, reactive. So, is there anything more positive to be taken from all this? Well, this notion of right actions, and how you select them, seems an important element in all this. Andy stressed the importance of social justice issues, and that seems crucial in our deliberations, but for many of us, that seems an external element as well. How much better, perhaps, to focus on helping people (us) do what is right — given the circumstances. This is an issue that John Foster focuses on in his Sustainability Mirage, arguing that it offers more hope than a focus on some sort of sustainability orthodoxy – and other people's nudgings.
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