The importance of attitudes in support for different policy measures

The role of public policies is critical in driving households towards sustainable environmental decisions and reaching the environmental goals set by governments and international agreements. The introduction of policy instruments such as taxes, subsidies and regulatory standards are central to this effort, and understanding what drives support for these policies is essential for introducing measures that align with people’s preferences and expectations and promote sustainable choices. By analysing these drivers, policymakers can design comprehensive strategies that foster both environmental responsibility and social endorsement, advancing global sustainability goals and facilitating the transition to a low-emissions economy.

The OECD Survey on Environmental Policies and Individual Behaviour Change (EPIC) explores households’ environmental attitudes and actions in the areas of energy, transport, waste and food across nine OECD countries (Belgium, Canada, France, Israel, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States). The survey includes more than 17 000 responses (of which, over 8 000 on energy use) and collects information on reported environmental attitudes and behaviours, the socioeconomic characteristics of respondents and households, as well as the characteristics of their residence and residential location. As such, the survey provides information on a wide range of factors that can influence environmentally-relevant household decisions.

A descriptive overview of findings from the 2022 EPIC survey (OECD, 2023) and an in-depth analysis of the energy-related data (Hassett, 2024) have generated a number of insights regarding how governments can support households in making more sustainable choices regarding their energy use. Further analysis of the data on policy support provides additional insights regarding how environmental attitudes may influence support for energy-related policies.

Environmental policies are often assessed across three dimensions: economic efficiency, environmental effectiveness and political and social acceptability. While the first two dimensions have been broadly studied in the literature (OECD, 2021, Assessing the Economic Impacts of Environmental Policies: Evidence from a Decade of OECD Research; IPCC, 2014, Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change), the question of acceptability remains less explored, especially in the case of subsidy- and standard- based policies. Evidence from the 2022 OECD EPIC Survey indicate that public preferences lean more toward subsidies and regulatory standards than tax-based measures.

Carbon taxes, despite their demonstrated economic efficiency and environmental effectiveness in reducing harmful emissions (Andersson 2019; Metcalf 2021), frequently encounter public resistance (Fabre 2022; Kallbekken et al. 2011). This resistance stems from two related factors: i) perceptions that such measures will have unacceptably onerous financial impacts; and ii) concerns about fairness and that such measures will have particularly disproportionate financial impacts on lower-income groups. Importantly, such resistance can be mitigated when tax revenues are transparently recycled into socially beneficial uses, such as direct rebates or investments in public goods (Dechezleprêtre et al. 2022).

Subsidies, which offer household incentives for adopting environmentally-friendly behaviours, are generally more popular as they align with positive reinforcement strategies. Their political acceptability is likely to stem from the perception that they impose no financial burden like taxes, however, an assessment of the overall distributional impacts of subsidies requires an analysis of the broader impacts on public finance (e.g. the means by which revenue used to finance subsidies are raised).

Finally, standards-based approaches, such as energy efficiency regulations, are also well supported due to their perceived fairness and effectiveness. The financial impacts of such measures on households are not always apparent since they may be more indirect in nature, arising for example from the effects of such policies on the price of goods and services directly or indirectly affected by the measure (Sutherland, 2006).

Significant differences in support for tax policies can be observed across countries. While households in Switzerland and the Netherlands appear to be relatively more supportive of tax-based policies, households in Belgium, France, and the United States are less supportive. It is nevertheless important to note that households in Belgium and the United States are least supportive of the three policy instruments overall.

Furthermore, ordered logit regressions on the survey results indicate that economic and socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents (e.g. age, gender, income) are not necessarily the most important determinants of policy support in general, and of the differences between policy measures. More specifically, there is little variation in support for the three types of policies mentioned above across levels of educational attainment, genders or even income. For all three measures, policy support appears to increase slightly with age, but not significantly.

However, as emphasised in Kotchen et al. (2012), other attitudes could play a significant role in the level of support towards environmental policies. Drawing upon the EPIC survey data we explore this issue in the following section.

Policy support is correlated to households’ perceived effectiveness of the policy. Surveyed households were asked to what extent they would expect higher energy prices, better performing energy-efficient appliances, or less expensive energy-efficient technologies and renovation to encourage them to reduce their energy consumption. Responses to this question can be considered to reflect the direct effect of one of the three types of policy measures analysed (i.e. higher prices from taxes, lower costs from subsidies and better performing appliances due to standards).

When households expect a certain type of measure to be effective in encouraging them to reduce their energy consumption (e.g. higher prices), they also tend to express support for such policies (e.g. tax-related policies). Indeed, households indicating that a given measure would strongly impact their energy consumption tend to support corresponding policy measures between 32% and 56% more (for taxes and subsidies, respectively) than households indicating that the measure would “not at all” encourage them to do so. These findings indicate that households tend not to be supportive of policies that they do not expect to be effective. It is however worth noting that survey responses are sometimes subject to biases. Depending on what respondents think the survey results will be used for, respondents might answer differently to some questions such as their perceived effectiveness of policies.

Moreover, Rinscheid et al. (2021) found that one of the main drivers of policy support is the level of trust in the government. In the EPIC survey, households were asked if they trust their national or federal government, and this level of trust appears to be correlated with support for policies, especially taxes. Average support for tax-based policies is 18% higher among households that report having trust in their government, compared to households that report not having trust in their government.

As noted above, public support for policies also depends on their perceived impacts on well-being, which can be measured in terms of financial impacts as well as broader impacts on welfare.

With respect to financial impacts, the EPIC survey highlights visible differences in the relationship between households’ electricity expenditures and expressed support for certain policy measures. While subsidy- and standard-based policies are supported to a similar extent by households with low and high electricity bills, tax-based policies are less well supported by households with higher electricity expenditures. The proportion of households supporting tax-based policies is almost five percentage points higher among households with the lowest energy expenditures than among those with the highest expenditures.

In line with results reported in OECD (2023), household support for all types of energy-related policies is also correlated with their relative level of environmental concern. When measuring the extent to which households are concerned about the environment relative to other topics (public health, societal inequality, economic conditions, personal safety), it appears that the more environmentally concerned households are relative to other issues, the more support they express for energy-related environmental policies. This is particularly the case for standard-based policies, as households supportive of such policies are almost 50% more concerned about the environment than those that are not supportive. Households supportive of subsidy-based and tax-based policies are 39% and 27% more environmentally concerned than those that are not supportive, respectively.

Public acceptance of policies can have significant impacts on: i) the likelihood of a policy being implemented; and ii) the costs of policy implementation should it be introduced. In line with findings regarding climate policies more generally (Dechezleprêtre et al., 2022), the OECD EPIC survey suggests that public support for energy-related environmental policies is correlated with factors such as trust in government, perceived effectiveness, financial impacts at the level of the individual household, as well as perceived broader distributional impacts.