Individual behaviour and circular economy policies

This working paper takes stock of the literature on behaviourally-informed interventions to facilitate the transition to a circular economy and discusses measures that could be pilot tested in Italy. It provides an overview of the key concepts of behavioural economics and describes the main “biases” that could influence the adoption of behaviours aligned with the transition to a circular economy by consumers. It goes on to review the empirical evidence on the motivations that may affect the adoption of such behaviours, as well as the empirical insights into the effectiveness of implemented behavioural interventions relevant to the circular economy transition. Finally, the paper introduces three proposals for experimental pilots in Italy.