Workshop ‘Nudging and Voluntary Agreements in the Private Sector’

The project ‘Nudging SMEs’ uses behavioural experiments to study business decisions and to test how nudging can be applied to steer company behaviour. Preliminary results show that nudges in the form of pro-environmental arguments and financial appeals seem to change SMEs behaviour in similar ways.

Private sector self-regulation is frequently regarded as the preferred option by companies to decrease environmental and social negative impacts. The project ‘Voluntary corporate environmental initiatives’ investigates the interplay between voluntary business initiatives and state intervention from a public opinion perspective.

The participants of this workshop are of the opinion that public authorities need a stronger mandate to develop and implement sectoral agreements.

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