Efficient Diffusion of Sustainable Environmental Practices through Green Networks

A movement towards sustainable use and management of ecosystem services requires collective action by individuals or groups of individuals (Ostrom, 1990). Additionally, ecosystem services have public goods features whose provision depends upon multiple social and psychological factors (Shang and Croson, 2009) which may align with individuals’ intrinsic motivation or “warm glow” (Frey 1994, Benabou and Tirole 2003). Banerjee and Shogren (2012) have also shown that problems of collective action vis-àvis ecosystem services provision are more likely to be resolved if there is a “social norm” component such as peer pressure, reputation, and altruism which ties back to the findings of Shang and Croson (2009). Given these results, in a land conservation context, Banerjee and Shogren (2012) recommend widespread publicity of land retirement decisions as a means to create a stewardship social norm within agricultural communities that can have an effective impact on species protection in particular and adoption of pro -environmental behaviors in general