Sustainability Citizenship

Why should you recycle your rubbish? Because the government might fine you if you don’t? Because you are nudged into re-cycling by your Council providing you with a nice new green plastic bin. Or because you believe as a citizen that you owe it to your fellow human beings - in short that it is the right thing to do. In this provocative short essay Andrew Dobson argues that government obsession with financial incentives, or more recently with the politics of nudging people to do the right thing, is undermining the creation of an ethically-based sustainability citizenship. And it is only with the latter that we will make long-term changes to how we live.