Copenhagen is nudging residents and tourists to accept a social credit system
The city of Copenhagen, Denmark, has recently introduced a “CopenPay” system to reward tourists for taking green actions such as using public transportation or cycling. These rewards include access to cultural experiences and free vegetarian meals.
It is a climate change-based behavioural modification and social credit system.
CopenPay is a pilot programme launched by Copenhagen’s official tourism organisation, Wonderful Copenhagen, aiming to encourage tourists and residents to adopt “climate-friendly” behaviours. From 15 July to 11 August 2024, 24 participating attractions and businesses in Copenhagen will reward visitors for taking “eco-friendly” actions.
“There is a need to change the mindset of tourists and encourage green choices. Data show a large willingness as 82% say they want to act sustainably, but only 22% have changed their behaviour,” Wonderful Copenhagen says.
If people wanted to “act sustainably,” they would. But Wonderful Copenhagen seems to have not understood this basic concept. So, to achieve its desires, Wonderful Copenhagen is employing nudge techniques to get people to change their behaviour.
By now, we should all be familiar with psychological techniques known as “nudging,” which emerged as one of the primary tools used against us during the covid era. But for those who may not yet be familiar, a brief explainer.
Nudge theory aims to influence people’s behaviour through subtle, indirect and non-coercive means. Although as Dr. Robert Malone pointed out, nudging is a form of psychological manipulation that is often used in PsyOps and PsyWar campaigns and can border on psychological and even physical torture.
Below are some key nudging techniques:
- Default Options: Set default choices that align with the desired behaviour, making it easier for people to opt-in.
- Loss Aversion: Use the fear of loss to motivate behaviour change. For example, highlighting the consequences of not taking action.
- Scarcity: Create a sense of urgency by limiting availability or emphasising limited-time offers.
- Feedback: Provide feedback on behaviour, highlighting progress and encouraging continued improvement.
- Social Proof: Use social influence by showcasing the actions of others, demonstrating that a behaviour is common or popular.
- Visual Cues: Use visual elements, such as placement, colour or imagery to draw attention to desired behaviours.
- Simplification: Reduce cognitive burden by simplifying choices and options, making it easier for people to make decisions.
- Opportunity: Create an environment that enables and facilitates desired behaviours.
- Capability: Enhance people’s ability to make desired choices by providing necessary resources or skills.
After reading the announcement on Wonderful Copenhagen’s website launching CopenPay, you’ll recognise several of these nudge techniques being deployed.
Once we recognise it for what it is, and knowing the “green” agenda has little to nothing to do with the environment or climate change, we can see that Wonderful Copenhagen is treating tourists in the same way people train their dogs – offering a treat for obedient behaviour.
To reward participants of the scheme – visitors need to show proof of their “green” actions in the form of, for example, train tickets, photos of biking, participating in cleanup efforts or volunteering at urban farms – the social credit guinea pigs are given rewards such as free vegetarian meals, kayak rentals and guided museum tours.
“For instance, visitors arriving at the National Gallery of Denmark with plastic waste are invited to a workshop to turn it into a piece of art,” the tourist organisation says.
What a wonderful way for someone who has saved up for a once-in-a-lifetime visit to Copenhagen to spend their time while on holiday. In short, here’s what the tourist organisation is proposing: spend your time collecting rubbish, take a holiday snap of you and your family collecting it and then take the rubbish to a specific location so you can turn it into a “piece of art”; presumably to take home as a memento, at which point you can either throw it in the rubbish bin or put it in pride of place in your home. Surely you can just do all of that at home? If you did, you’d save a lot of money.
“Similarly, taking public transport or a bike to Copenhagen’s iconic heating plant grants a unique experience of skiing down its slope on the building’s roof,” Wonderful Copenhagen says.
If you’re into this sort of thing, this may not be such a bad option if you feel compelled to do your bit. At least it’s better than collecting rubbish and spending time trying to make it look not like rubbish, rather than just throwing it in the nearest bin.
Wonderful Copenhagen’s CEO Mikkel Aarø-Hansen doesn’t like tourists and feels tourists should sign up for this scheme because tourism is bad. “We must turn tourism from being an environmental burden into a force for positive change, and one important step in this transformation is to change how we move around on the destination, what we consume, and how we interact with the locals,” he says.
If Copenhagen views tourists as an environmental burden who aren’t interacting with locals appropriately, perhaps the simplest way to reduce the burden is to reduce tourism. Which, with the CopenPay initiative, the city may well achieve.
“It is a core task for us to make travelling sustainable. And we will only succeed if we bridge the large gap between the visitors’ desire to act sustainably and their actual behaviour,” Aarø-Hansen says. “We want visitors to make conscious, green choices.”
What if we don’t support the nefarious green agenda? Besides that, visitors want to feel welcome. Tourists don’t want to feel as if they are a burden to the place they’re visiting. And they certainly don’t want to feel guilt-tripped into having to ride a bicycle or catch a train everywhere they go lest they are frowned upon and tut-tutted by the locals for not behaving as the tourist organisation desires.
Overall, it would seem that CopenPay is not intended to increase tourism or even keep its current levels of tourism. We know the goal is not the environment or climate change. So, what is the goal? CopenPay is being used to nudge its guinea pigs and wider society towards a social credit system.
It’s not only the name, which includes the word “pay,” that indicates it is in effect a pilot to link finances to a social credit score, an example of which is the system used in China to evaluate the trustworthiness and behaviour of people and businesses.
Wonderful Copenhagen directly, and deliberately, links desired behaviour to currency, a medium of exchange for goods and services, in its launch announcement. “CopenPay [is] a new initiative transforming green actions into currency for cultural experiences,” Wonderful Copenhagen says.
Eventually “rewarding green actions” will segue into “punishing non-green actions.” The currency of “cultural experiences” replaced with actual currency.
This isn’t guesswork. We don’t have to guess where this leads, because we know. They told us. They laid out the world they want to build, and this is just one of the first bricks.
Wonderful Copenhagen is not only nudging visitors to the city. It has desires to nudge the whole of Denmark and the world.
If the pilot is successful, CopenPay may be rolled out as a year-round initiative and expanded to other parts of Denmark. The hope is not only to continue the pilot project but also to inspire other cities around the world to introduce similar initiatives, Wonderful Copenhagen states.
“Since travelling is international, our success is dependent on the choices of people and destinations elsewhere. We therefore also strive to inspire sustainable behaviours and cultural appreciation worldwide,” says Aarø-Hansen.
For our part, Aarø-Hansen is neither inspiring our behaviour nor is he inspiring appreciation for Danish culture. For those who would like to visit Copenhagen and join the city’s social credit scheme, happy trash collecting.
