ELI Innovation Paper on A Framework for Good Green Nudging

ELI Innovation Papers

Launched in 2020, the aim of the new ELI Innovation Paper Series is to enable ELI Members to propose pioneering legal or multidisciplinary ideas, which deserve the attention of the European legal community and aim at improving European law. The Innovation Papers contain concrete proposals for relevant stakeholders and may resemble ELI project output (such as draft legislation, model rules, principles, checklists or position papers – more information about ELI projects is available here). They are, however, usually shorter than ELI projects (typically not more than 10 pages, including the Executive Summary) and may potentially be of a more tentative nature. It is not necessary that Innovation Papers are the result of comprehensive research, but they should possibly serve as inspiration to other stakeholders and be a catalyst for discussion. Innovation Papers, which begin by the submission of a proposal to the ELI Secretariat on the opening of a call, may be followed by an ELI project.

About & Outcome

In September 2025, ELI published the ‘Framework for Good Green Nudging’. It sets out 11 Guiding Principles (GPs) — necessity, proportionality, privacy, transparency, explainability, autonomy, dignity, agency, effectiveness, acceptability and oversight — for designing, implementing, and evaluating nudges that advance environmental sustainability. The Framework for Good Green Nudging aims to enhance legal certainty, encourage best practices, and build public trust in the behavioural dimension of environmental governance. By integrating behavioural science into European consumer and environmental law, it offers practical tools to influence everyday choices. The Guiding Principles were prepared by Dr Marta Santos Silva (ELI Council Member; Postdoctoral Researcher at the Research Centre for Justice and Governance at Minho University, Portugal) with input from ELI Members and adopted by the ELI Council.