Moral licensing, identity and eco-leadership: Can public managers’ support for a green recovery be undermined?

Abstract

IMPACT Local public managers are increasingly involved in policy co-design, especially in the aftermath of the Covid 19 pandemic. Municipal top management will benefit from this article because it shows how public managers’ policy priorities are shaped by their own and their leaders’ goals for the local administration. The authors provide a model clarifying the role of managers’ environmental self-identity and municipal eco-leadership in policy decisions that involve a trade-off between economic growth and protecting the environment/climate. Previous research has not shown whether ‘economy versus environment’ messages can influence public managers’ policy priorities. This article is important because it provides evidence, while there is still time to use it in policy-making, to support efforts to combat issues like climate change.