The Role of Nudges in the Conservation of Natural Resources: A Behavioral Economics Approach

IntroductionConsidering the current process of destruction of natural resources in the country and the problems faced by the present and future generations, the measures taken in the field of conservation and restoration and development of natural resources do not seem to be enough. Although, to solve these problems, the role of the government as a planner and supporter of natural resources projects is clear and important (Arayesh & Farajilah Hosseini, 2010). However, the projects designed to conserve natural resources are implemented based on people's participation. In general, people's participation in projects in the field of natural resources protection can take place in various fields. The most important of these issues have been considered in the behavioral examples of the Helpers of Nature project which can be including planting seedlings, people's participation in times of crisis such as fire, protection of forests, contributing to environmental protection associations, joining environmental associations, waste management in terms of separation and volume, joining the natural resources projects through the organization's systems, introducing people to the natural resources organization in the form of nature's helper, paying the green tax and etc (Natural resources & watershed management organization-I.R of IRAN, 2023). However it is the question as how to attract people's participation in the mentioned issues requires tools that can influence human behavior. Behavioral economics, as a new scientific field of economic sciences, can measure and analyze the impact of intentions, beliefs, and motivations on human behavior and decisions, and based on this, it can also provide policy tools (Asgari et al., 2021). For this reason, it can influence people's behavior to participate in the conservation of natural resources using behavioral economics approach. Therefore, to realize the goal of attracting people's participation, the current study considers to examine nudges and the effectiveness of nudges on people's behavior using behavioral economics approach Materials and MethodsThe sampling method of the research is convenience sampling. The number of samples is 213 people using the online questionnaire in two separate groups. This study is a quasi-experimental design and its type is a comparison between two groups. The number of the control group includes 108 people and the number of the treatment group includes 105 people. The control and treatment groups were independent. Each of the groups had completely common questions and response criteria. In this study, the control and treatment groups did not receive any training, but only the treatment group was given additional information about cognitive errors along with related questions. First, the Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon test is used to check and compare the ratings regarding supplementary information as well as the answers of people in the two groups. The ordered probit regression is used to analyze the relationship between ordinal or ranked dependent variables related to natural resource protection behavior and independent treatment (nudge) variables and other variables. For the relative dependent variables (the time of registration of cooperation request and the number of people introduced as a nature helper), the ordinary least square regression is used to analyze the effect of the treatment binary variable on the people's behavior in the field of natural resources conservation Results and DiscussionThis study results showed that out of 19 nudges, 14 nudges includes; Normative default, time limit, anchor and exemplify, carrot and stick, personalization, decoy effect, authority confirmation bias, bandwagon effect, present bias, automatic recommendation, halo effect and ownership effect (1) and (2) and (3) had a significant impact on these people's behavior, respectively, the number of seedlings, the time of registering a request for cooperation, participation in firefighting, waste production, the number of members introduced as a nature’s helper, choosing tasks, membership in associations, membership in a special association, recycling, people's action preferences for forest protection, the percentage of perceived success for projects, willingness to spend taxes to beautify one's neighborhood, willingness to spend taxes to protect forests in one's area, and applying zoning to protect forests. The direction of influence in all nudges (except for the normative default and time limit) on people's behavior has been positive and significant. The marginal effects also showed that all nudges had the positive effect (with ordinal or ranked dependent variable) on the selection of the target option(s) in the treatment group compared to the control group. The carrot and stick policy had no significant effect on the ordinal variable of waste production, but the effect of this nudge on dummy variable of waste production was significant, This means that this nudge has had a positive and significant effect on maintaining the existing situation (garbage collection every day of the week) and reducing the amount of garbage (choosing 20 kg of garbage and less per week). The normative default and the time limit had a negative and significant effect (respectively) on the number of seedlings and the registration time of cooperation requests for planting seedlings. These negative effects have also confirmed the positive effect of nudging on people's behavior. Although the normative default resulted in fewer seedlings being planted by individuals, this occurred because the default was set at a minimal level and individuals were significantly more inclined to follow the default. The nudge of the time limit also led to a reduction in the time to register cooperation requests by individuals, so that people tended to register their request faster. ConclusionAccording to the results of this research, to attract the people's participation in the conservation of natural resources, these following should be considered: defaults, low-cost anchors, clear examples, incentives and punishments, highlight individual performance through personalization, using existing privileges for more cooperation, confirming people's sovereignty, presenting reports during performance, immediate rewards, making SMS and telephone systems available to compensate for people's lack of action, considering time limits for registering people in programs and projects, providing success reports to join people in an action, applying people's ownership of the green tax to further encourage them to pay taxes, allocating each zone to an environmental association for forests protection.