Public acceptability and political feasability of regulating consumption

The Oeko-Institut's own-funded project pursues the following research questions:

• Which factors influence public acceptability and thus political feasibility of proposals for consumption-related regulatory law ("command & control" instruments)?
• (How) can the factors be weighted in terms of their importance?
• In which constellations do proposed measures meet with relatively strong public support?
• (How) can public acceptability and political feasibility be increased?

The project starts by reviewing and summarising existing research literature on the factors influencing the acceptability of consumer-related regulatory policy measures. While the focus is on environmental and climate policy, lessons from related fields, especially public health, are taken into account. Moreover, two exploratory case studies will be conducted on concrete regulatory measures in the fields of building energy and mobility. In the end, the project aims to come up with case-specific but also general recommendations for increasing public acceptability of ecologically reasonable regulatory measures.