Nudging Acceptability for Wood Ash Recycling in Forests: A Choice Experiment

In this paper, our objective is to assess the general French population's acceptability of application of wood ash in forests, a measure currently not allowed but under consideration by the government. The main originality of our approach is that we test how a nudge can be used as an instrument to increase social acceptability, conveying objective information regarding ash recycling. Furthermore, although we do not consider it as a welfare measure, we show how the estimation of the willingness-to-pay can be considered as a complement to the more traditional social acceptability measure. Three nudges were introduced as three treatments in a discrete choice experiment. In the first treatment, the options with wood ash application were highlighted to indicate to the respondents that they corresponded to pro-environmental measures (positive framing). In the second treatment, we changed the wording of the two non-status quo options to highlight the recycling aspect of wood ash application. In the last treatment, we adopted a productive wording to highlight the fact that wood ash application increases wood production. Treatments, in particular positive framing and productive wording, influence the willingness-to-pay but depend on the attitudes of the respondents.