Abstract
This chapter focuses on private ancillary benefits from climate protection activities and their potential to work as motivating factors for individuals and their climate-friendly activities and support of climate policies. In contrast to the primary benefits on the climate, private ancillary benefits appear to be more attractive to the individual as they directly increase their utility in the short run and are associated with less uncertainty. We discuss existing empirical literature on financial advantages, internal satisfaction, health benefits, and fairness as secondary benefits. We do not come to a clear conclusion and recommendation whether actors from the public and private sector should lay more emphasis on the secondary private benefits when promoting climate protection measures. Empirical evidence is either scarce or mixed or both, such that the chapter points out future research needs in this respect.
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- 1.
Examples include carbon-neutral certified goods, green energy programs, vehicles with alternative propulsion technologies, and energy-efficient appliances.
- 2.
By ancillary benefits we understand positive externalities from climate protection measures, i.e., secondary or co-benefits such as financial, economic, or health benefits.
- 3.
The internet search engine Ecosia, the campaign “tree pate” by the online retailer OTTO or the Crombacher campaign to protect one square meter of the rainforest per case of beer sold are well-known examples in Germany.
- 4.
This means that we extend the model with additional private characteristics and all three channels contribute to the generation of each private characteristic (e.g., health, internal satisfaction) depending on the respective production technology.
- 5.
That is, buying energy-efficient appliances, saving energy at home, reducing meat or dairy products, using energy from renewable sources, buying a car with lower fuel consumption, reducing car use, and reducing flights.
- 6.
This makes sense, since consumers in Germany usually pay a price premium for green energy tariffs.
- 7.
However, there is also evidence that individual choose burden-sharing rules in a more self-serving manner, i.e. favoring the rule that is least costly for their country (e.g., Carlsson et al. 2013).
- 8.
Descriptive norm refers to the perception or belief of how much others actually contribute to climate protection. Injunctive norm refer to the perception or belief of how much oneself or others ought to contribute.
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Schwirplies, C. (2020). Private Ancillary Benefits in a Joint Production Framework. In: Buchholz, W., Markandya, A., Rübbelke, D., Vögele, S. (eds) Ancillary Benefits of Climate Policy. Springer Climate. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30978-7_7
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