On behalf of the Sustainability Community of Interest at Saïd Business School, we are delighted to welcome Stefania Innocenti (Smith School) and Matthew Amengual (Saïd Business School) in conversation with Oxford Said’s Mary Johnstone-Louise and Juliane Reinecke, discussing work on Societal Support for Sustainability Policies.
Summary: Policies are needed to create a context in which individuals and companies can make more sustainable choices. This session will discuss a set of papers on factors that augment or depress public support for sustainability policies. * One paper reports on a large pre-registered experiment in the United States testing how different communication strategies influence public acceptance of carbon taxation. The study shows that both providing clear economic explanations of the policy and highlighting broad social support for climate action can increase acceptance. * The follow-up survey included in the study further reveals that climate policy information is perceived as less politically biased once individuals have first been reminded of widespread societal support for climate action, underscoring how economic reasoning and social-psychological factors can work hand-in-hand to shift the boundaries of acceptable discourse. * The other papers investigate the relationship between corporate statements communicating their actions to address sustainability challenges in their supply chains and public support for policies. Specifically, these papers report the results of conjoint experiments in the United States and Germany with over 8,000 respondents. They reveal how statements from corporations and activists influence the public’s support for removing problematic products from their markets through import ban.