Stuart Capstick

1
Stuart Capstick Alan Lewis Department of
Psychology
2
Carbon as a parallel currency

• Lessons from other parallel currencies
• Carbon as more than a simple unit of account
• Potential for a genuine carbon currency with
  financial and environmental/moral dimension

3
Introduction

• What is Personal Carbon Trading (PCT)?
• Carbon as a parallel currency
• Why Psychology?
• Visibility of carbon in PCT
• Social Psychological insights
• Behavioural economics
• Framing PCT
• Researching Psychology of PCT
• Where next?

4
Visibility of carbon

• The visibility of carbon information within PCT
  may underlie many of its likely effects
• Indirect evidential support that heightened
  visibility in PCT could have range of effects
• information provision
• goal-setting
• feedback
• learning about carbon impacts and self-efficacy
• operation in tandem with other measures

5
Social Psychology of PCT

• Changing habitual behaviours
• Opportunities to engender carbon norms?
• Crowding in vs. crowding out motivation
• Particular criticisms by Frey Stutzer (2006)?

6
Behavioural economics

• Mental accounting may lead to carbon as a
  resource being treated differently under PCT than
  in other scenarios
• Budgeting capability
• Endowment effects
• Reference price effects
• Windfall effects
• Possibility of contradictory and complementary
  ways of thinking about carbon

7
Framing PCT

• Rations vs. Entitlements
• Costs vs. Rewards
• Obligation vs. Self-efficacy
• Inconvenience vs. Simplification
• Proscription vs. Flexibility
• Restrictions vs. Collective effort
• Finance vs. morals

8
Wider issues

• Political and public acceptability of PCT
• Policy competition with taxation, upstream
  trading, etc.

9
Researching Psychology of PCT

• A massive societal overhaul, at present proposed
  despite almost no direct Psychological evidence
• Real-life trials proposed but difficult
• Virtual trading research underway
• Surveys useful but hypothetical
• Simulations could test some cognitive claims

10
Where next?

• Whether or not PCT ever appears...
• How can carbon literacy be developed, formalised,
  made visible and meaningful?
• How much can the individual achieve through
  carbon watching?
• If not PCT, then what other means to encourage
  individuals own efforts at carbon conservation?

11
References and further information

• Abrahamse et al. (2005). A review of intervention
  studies aimed at household energy conservation.
  Journal of Environmental Psychology, 25(3),
  273-291.
• Fawcett, T., Bottrill, C., Boardman, B. Lye, G.
  (2007). Trialling Personal Carbon Allowances.
  Oxford Environmental Change Institute.
• Frey, B. Stutzer, A. (2006). Environmental
  Morale and Motivation. Zurich Institute for
  Empirical Research in Economics
• Roberts, S. Thumim, J. (2006). A Rough Guide to
  Individual Carbon Trading The ideas, the issues
  and the next steps. Report to DEFRA from the
  Centre for Sustainable Energy.
• Seyfang, G. (2007). Personal Carbon Trading
  Lessons from Complementary Currencies. CSERGE
  Working Paper ECM 07-01.
• Starkey, R. Anderson, K. (2005). Domestic
  Tradable Quotas A policy instrument for reducing
  greenhouse gas emissions from energy use. Tyndall
  Centre for Climate Change Research, technical
  report 39.