On February 19, 2026, the Netherlands Scientific Climate Council (WKR) published its advisory report titled 'Engage with behaviour change! Making sustainable and adaptive behaviour easy and obvious'. In this report, the WKR makes recommendations for more effective and structural behavioral policies aimed at promoting sustainable and adaptive behaviour. The key message is: structural and more effective behavioral policies can significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, increase the resilience and freedom of choice of the Dutch people, and yield benefits for our health, safety, and nature. Many people are open to climate policy if it is fair and feasible, and expect the government to take action.

Many Dutch people consider climate change to be important and are willing to act on it. However, the physical and social context oftentimes inhibits sustainable or climate-adaptation choices, for example, because choices are not affordable or because people are tempted to make choices that are unsustainable or increase climate risks.

The context can be changed in many ways to enable sustainable and adaptation behaviour. Sustainable behaviour reflects choices and behaviours that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, such as purchasing a heat pump, buying second-hand items, or traveling by train rather than by car. Adaptation behaviour involves choices and behaviours that reduce risks from climate change, such as installing sunshades, placing sandbags, or drinking enough during hot periods. The national government can enable citizens to engage in these behaviours through behavioural policy, which requires different combinations of policy instruments than those currently used.

Recommendations for more effective behavioural policy

Behavioural policy is more effective when it addresses key antecedents of choices and behaviour. As most choices and behaviour are influenced by multiple factors, a mix of policy instruments and measures is needed. Ideally, positive as well as negative incentives are implemented, while counterproductive incentives are removed. Hence, the following three recommendations, in conjunction, will make behavioural policy more effective:

  1. Create a context in which sustainable and adaptation behaviour is easy, affordable, attractive, and the norm, via spatial policy, subsidies, choice architecture, and information provision.
  2. Implement policy that discourages behaviours that increase climate risks, including spatial policy, pricing instruments, laws and regulation, and information provision.
  3. Remove counterproductive incentives that promote behaviours that contributes to climate risks, such as fossil subsidies, and advertisements and offers aimed at promoting the consumption of meat, dairy, gasoline cars, and air travel, among other things.

Recommendations for more structural behavioural policy Behavioural policy is not yet being implemented structurally because of how interactions between society, markets, and the public sector are currently organized. Present barriers can be removed in the following three ways:

  1. Make the influence of vested interests more transparent and limit their influence. Improve the involvement of societal organizations and citizens in policy making.
  2. Ensure that policy targeting sustainable and adaptation behaviour is fair, for example by (higher) pricing for above average consumption, progressive taxes, or compensation.
  3. Place the potential and necessity of structural behavioural policy on the agenda at the directorate level within the government. Increase behavioural knowledge and capacity within the government in three ways: basic knowledge among all file holders, behavioural experts per department, and an expert centre across departments.

Commission

  • Prof. dr. E.M. (Linda) Steg (lead)
  • Prof. dr. H.C. (Heleen) de Coninck