WC/WDM
‘Behavioural nudges’ towards conservation Growing water demand in a water-scarce country like South Africa necessitates behaviour changes among users towards conservation and efficient use. Danielle Petterson speaks to Jay Bhagwan, executive manager: Water Use and Waste Management, Water Research Commission (WRC), about how ‘behavioural nudges’ can successfully influence water use behaviour change.
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ater in South Africa has historically been relatively cheap and readily available, making prompting households to save water a challenge. Bhagwan notes that this can largely be attributed to the fact that water is cheap enough that the economic impacts on middle- and
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high-income households are negligible, even if their consumption is high. Enter behavioural nudges. Bhagwan describes behavioural nudges as interventions that preserve freedom of choice while influencing people’s decisions. These are non-price-based behavioural interventions that are inexpensive, scalable and don’t feel punitive. Behavioural nudges form part of the emerging field of behavioural economics, which shows greater and more sustained success than typical strategies to promote water conservation, such as demand-side management, punitive tariffs and taxes, water restrictions, and education campaigns.
Behavioural economics
Behavioural economics is a discipline within economics that seeks to expand the classic model of rational human decision-making within economics by allowing for the various biases and heuristic foibles that characterise people as they really are. Insights from the discipline are increasingly being used to craft policy in order to achieve policy goals through encouraging behaviour change among the target population. The WRC has been studying behavioural economics for several
years. With many South African municipalities increasingly needing to manage the demand on their water resources, behavioural economics presents opportunities to reduce household water demand, which already constitutes a significant share of total water demand.
Cape Town study
In November 2015, the WRC and the University of Cape Town, in collaboration with the City of Cape Town, implemented a six-month study, targeting Cape Town’s residential households, to explore the effects of behavioural nudges on residential water consumption. Notably, this was one of the first studies to implement a large-scale behavioural intervention via a local municipality in a developing country. The trial also coincided with the severe drought in the region, with dams being at their lowest in 20 years and level 2 water restrictions as well as tariff increases (starting 1 January 2016) in place. Thus, the experiment provides a test of the ability of behavioural messages to encourage water conservation in times of water scarcity. The trial involved over 400 000 households at varying income levels and consisted of one control group and nine treatment groups, each of which
