Are citizens willing to accept changes in public lighting for biodiversity conservation?

Abstract

Light pollution has significantly increased in recent years, in concert with urban sprawl. Light pollution consequences for nocturnal wildlife, human health, and energy consumption are numerous but are poorly tackled in urban policies. The regulation and mitigation of light pollution is possible, but requires an important shift in the lighting paradigm, including in public lighting often managed by local authorities. One of the main sources of reticence of local authorities to regulate light pollution is the potential rejection by citizens of lighting changes. In this article, we investigate citizens’ willingness to accept the transition to more sustainable lighting regimes. We use a discrete choice experiment in a large French metropolis to measure the relative weight of different characteristics of public lighting – light intensity, light extinction, light colour – in respondents’ decisions. We show that respondents are globally open to public lighting shifts, but their preferences in terms of the changes are highly heterogeneous. By incorporating socioeconomic variables of respondents into our econometric models, we characterise the main profiles of preferences regarding lighting changes. This provides practical information to urban and environmental planners allowing them to match the municipalities where the need for light pollution control is a priority with those where measures seem socially acceptable by citizens.