Citation: Vanner, R, Bicket, M, Elliott, B, Harvey, C (2015). Public acceptability of DYNAMIX policy mixes. DYNAMIX project deliverable D5.4.2. Report on governance assessment: public acceptability; London: PSI.

This report presents the outcomes from the assessment of public acceptability of the policy packages as proposed within the DYNAMIX project. It forms part of the DYNAMIX project’s larger ex-ante policy assessment of the environmental, social, economic, legal and public acceptability implications of implementing a number of policy packages that seek to achieve absolute decoupling by 2050. An important element underlying the analysis is reference to paradigms in the design and reconfiguration of the policy packages to alter the basis of public acceptability. Theoretical pathways for paradigm change are used to map-out pathways of interactions and inform policy sequencing in a way that can lead to the required paradigm changes over time. The approach used to assess public acceptability has been to reference previous relevant public discourses, as a means of understanding how the public would likely respond if the policy were to be proposed in the real world. This approach helps identify where public concerns lay, and therefore where thresholds in public acceptability exist. Mitigations are then proposed to ensure that EU-wide implementation is feasible. Initial assessments suggested that, of the 14 policies that underwent full assessment, 7 required mitigation. The report concludes by identifying where these early policies may lay the ground for more far-reaching policies to be considered.