Eliciting Stakeholders’ Preferences for Low-Impact Design Incentives: Conjoint Analysis Approach

Abstract

Incentives are considered effective catalysts for influencing human decisions to bring about attitudinal changes in behaviors with negative consequences on the environment. As a result, various forms of incentive instruments are currently being developed and trialed across the globe to promote the uptake of low-impact design (LID) infrastructure to improve storm-water management in the urban environment. Given the complexity of incentive policy design for a paradigm shift toward LID adoption, this study explores stakeholders’ preference for five types of generic LID incentives within the New Zealand context. To address the inertia associated with economic variables in the decision to adopt LID by the development communities, the use of incentives has been widely advocated. This study’s main objective is to measure the level of preference for these LID incentives among its stakeholders. The study will also help reveal the impact of a lack of incentives provision in support of the calls for its use to make LID infrastructure more appealing for storm-water runoff management. The research data were collected using an online survey from 250 participants across New Zealand consisting of registered construction professionals as well as local council officials with storm-water management responsibilities. A choice-based conjoint analysis technique was used to accomplish the stated study’s objectives. The results show the choice of incentive options explored in the study were comparable in terms of average total importance to encourage LID implementation in lieu of conventional end-of-pipe infrastructure solutions. Furthermore, the research findings clearly show that lack of incentive provision to encourage LID uptake is a disincentive to the development community’s motivation. Provisions of any levels of the incentive instruments examined in the study can serve as catalyst to boost stakeholders’ motivation to implement LID for urban storm-water runoff management based on the sensitivity analysis test.