Sustainability
Sustainable Use of Resources, Environmental Policies and Urban Heat Mitigation
Assessment of designs (conventional economic instruments as well as nudges) to reduce individuals’ consumption of energy, water and resources in general.
Research on strategies to mitigate urban heat especially for vulnerable population groups.Â
Recommendations for decision-makers to steer individuals’ resource consumption and to enable urban heat mitigation in an efficient way.
This research theme is supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) in the frame of its NFP 73 program, by the National Research Fund of Singapore (NRF) and by the Singapore-ETH Center (SEC) in Singapore.
Current Research Areas
Spillovers Between Different Environmental Areas
Can the effect of targeted interventions to make private households behave more environmentally friendly be boosted due to positive spillovers between different environmental areas? Under which conditions can such positive spillovers be expected and between which areas?
Electricity and Water Conservation
How effective are feedbacks, conservation goals, social norms or monetary/non-monetary incentives to stimulate private households to save energy or water? Are there spillovers from saving electricity or hot water on cold water usage, heating or other environment related activities?
Sustainable Mobility
Are app feedbacks and social comparisons effective to reduce CO2 emissions from individual mobility? How concerned are people about the privacy of their mobility data?
Urban Heat Mitigation
Which population groups are most vulnerable with respect to urban heat? How does urban heat affect individual and collective economic performance? Which urban heat mitigation strategies have a good benefit-cost ratio and what are people willing to pay for mitigation activities?
