Dr. Pete Lunn:

The evidence is absolutely clear that advertising persuades. The Deputy is right about that. Specific research carried out on car advertising has shown that it persuades and gives an incorrect perception to people about the benefits of car travel, what it feels like to be in a car, how pleasant it is, how useful it is and so on. Advertising does persuade. It exaggerates the benefits of products, and there is a bucket of research that shows that is true. If one wants to take that on, there is a real case to be made. We regulate advertising on a regular basis and have done so for a long time. We do it, for example, to try to avoid people buying poor financial products and so on. There is a big issue associated with greenwashing and there is a big issue associated with not providing information about the environmental standards of products. There is a question to be asked about whether we need reform of advertising and marketing that takes the latter very seriously and does much more in that space. Certainly, the behavioural science would suggest there is a case to answer in terms of persuasive advertising, greenwashing and the possibility of simplifying environmental information in advertising and marketing in ways that allow consumers to make more informed and greener choices.

When it comes to the focus on the behaviour of CEOs in corporations, speaking as a behavioural scientist, it is extremely difficult because most of them are not very keen to participate in studies in the same way that members of the public are. It is difficult. Nevertheless, one of the reasons that throughout the meeting so far I have stressed the importance of system change rather than individual change is that one of the things we know from the evidence is that people in those positions respond to changes in pricing structures and regulations. If we want to change their behaviour, the way to do that is to change their corporate incentives. If we make their corporate incentives greener, we will get greener behaviour.