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Can climate leadership messaging encourage producer actions? A field experiment in Japan’s wine industry

Author

Listed:
  • Yokoo, Hide-Fumi

    (Hitotsubashi University)

  • KUBO, Takahiro

    (National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES))

  • Kunii, Daisuke
  • Sasaki, Hiroki

Abstract

If a government highlighted the first producer to adopt green technology, how would the remaining producers react? This study is the first attempt to evaluate the impact of a message sent by the government to an industry about a first mover in climate action. Among 374 wineries in Japan, randomly selected half received a message mentioning the winery that was an early adopter of renewable energy. We then observed whether other wineries participated in webinars on carbon footprint measurement to collect information. We find that this message about climate leadership did not encourage the wineries to participate in the webinar, and it even had a negative effect on nearby wineries. We interpret these results as reflecting both the strategic decisions of competing wineries and the adverse psychological effects of the message. This preregistered experiment suggests that we must be cautious when designing policies to honor first movers on the supply side.

Suggested Citation

  • Yokoo, Hide-Fumi & KUBO, Takahiro & Kunii, Daisuke & Sasaki, Hiroki, 2024. "Can climate leadership messaging encourage producer actions? A field experiment in Japan’s wine industry," SocArXiv hbzun, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:hbzun
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/hbzun
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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