PCLM-D-25-00079

Is there a public mandate for restricting advertising of high-carbon products and services?: Citizens’ jury and public polling evidence from the UK

PLOS Climate

Dear Dr. Ainscough,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS Climate. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Jun 14 2025 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at climate@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pclm/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Giuseppina Migliore

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

Dear authors,

the two reviewers have completed their revisions. The manuscript has some points that need to be clarified.

Please address these points and respond to the reviewers' requests step by step.

Thank you and good work

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Does this manuscript meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria ? Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe methodologically and ethically rigorous research with conclusions that are appropriately drawn based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available (please refer to the Data Availability Statement at the start of the manuscript PDF file)?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception. The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS Climate does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Dear authors,

Thank you for the opportunity to review your manuscript, it’s always a great achievement to get it to the peer-review stage. I have arranged my review into major and minor comments, although, as you’ll see, I don’t have much to say in the ‘major comments’ section! Overall, I was impressed with the quality of the work and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. I think great care has been taken in exploring this topic and the incorporation of multiple data sources (both quantitative and qualitative) and analysis techniques like regression and cluster analysis is a strength. I think the manuscript makes a good contribution to knowledge around this topic, and it’s always a nice addition to have policy recommendations. There are some minor changes I think could be considered as well as some clarifications. I’ll begin my review with a summary of the manuscript before presenting my comments. Thank you again for the opportunity and I hope my comments may be of some use.

Best wishes.

Summary of manuscript:

The manuscript reports on the results of a citizen’s jury in the UK on the topic of restricting advertising of high-carbon products and services followed by a survey assessing support for potential policies to determine the presence (or not) of a public mandate. The first half of the manuscript reports on the citizen’s jury and finds that most participants were supportive of some amount of regulation on high carbon products and services. The proposals generated through the citizen’s jury were then incorporated into a survey instrument to understand if there was wider societal support. Overall, the study finds that there is a high amount of support for some proposals like a traffic light system for high carbon products and services, although outright bans are generally not preferred. Moreover, belief efficacy is the strongest predictor of support, which fits nicely with prior research on topics like social cognitive theory.

Major comments:

(1) I think the limitations around deliberative democracy is important highlight, and while the authors do note this on page 9, I think it would be clearer to include a traditional limitations section in the manuscript. This section could also incorporate any other limitations pertaining to the survey. I think this approach would make the manuscript well-rounded, especially given it is making recommendations to policymakers.

Minor comments:

(1) Lines 86-87: a small clarification here could be helpful, noting what specifically was banned. Was it an outright ban on all fossil fuel companies in advertising their product? Or a ban on letting them sponsor events for advertising? I’m wanting to know specifically what they’re not allowed to do.

(2) Lines 113: mentions the longest running precedent is HFSS, although I thought it may have been tobacco. Just raising this to double check the claim for accuracy. Adding a reference could be helpful here too.

(3) Lines 241-242: I’m curious about what frames were used during these sessions. Earlier in the manuscript, it’s established that there’s not much research in this domain, and hence, did the experts take a balanced approach in showing the current evidence on advertising and high-carbon product and service purchasing? I guess my underlying question is where the participants told “yes, advertising does lead to people buying more high carbon products” or was it caveated with the limited evidence base?

(4) Lines 255: curious as to whether any inter-coder reliability was conducted? If not, this could be an addition to the limitations section.

(5) Lines 260: I wasn’t too sure what was meant by ‘sources’ or data.

(6) I may have missed it, but didn’t see anywhere in the manuscript that notes the data collection was ethically approved – that would be an important addition.

(7) Table 5: is this a percentage based on R2? A clarification could be helpful here.

(8) Figures: they are a little blurry, and it could be useful to have the percentages in each block so it makes it easier to know the relative percentages.

Reviewer #2: This study addresses the challenge of reducing emissions through shifts in consumption by providing a detailed analysis of public support in the UK for regulating the advertising of high-emission products.

Suggestions for clarification and improvement:

The manuscript refers to “broad UK representation”; however, participants were recruited from the Greater Manchester area to minimize travel. It would be helpful to specify how representativeness was addressed.

The manuscript should explain how responses on the point Likert scale (0–10) were converted into a 5-point scale for regression analysis.

The paper employs a mixed-methods design in which findings from the citizen jury informed the development of the broader survey. While Table 1 usefully outlines which data sources addressed each research question, Sections 4 (Results) and 5 (Discussion) would benefit from clearer articulation of how the jury’s qualitative insights help interpret the survey data. For example In the analysis of perceived policy effectiveness and support, insights from jury deliberations could illuminate why certain measures were perceived as more (or less) effective.

The discussion is already well-developed, but it could be strengthened by exploring how policymakers might build public support using evidence-based communication strategies. For instance, messaging tailored to the “Neutral” and “Moderate support” groups—grounded in evidence of policy effectiveness—could be effective in increasing

Given the reported distrust in government and industry, it would be worth considering whether these findings support the case for more participatory decision-making processes (beyond initial deliberation), or for the establishment of governance structures perceived as independent and transparent to oversee advertising regulations.

Add a dedicated limitations section.

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6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean? ). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy .

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

PCLM-D-25-00079R1

Is there a public mandate for restricting advertising of high-carbon products and services?: Citizens’ jury and public polling evidence from the UK

PLOS Climate

Dear Dr. Ainscough,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS Climate. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Jul 31 2025 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at climate@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pclm/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Giuseppina Migliore

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

Additional Editor Comments:

Dear authors, the paper has improved greatly, however, there are still some gaps and points to be clarified before final publication.

Please, follow the suggestions provided by the reviewer in order to improve academic readability and submit the manuscrip as soon as possible.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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2. Does this manuscript meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria ? Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe methodologically and ethically rigorous research with conclusions that are appropriately drawn based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available (please refer to the Data Availability Statement at the start of the manuscript PDF file)?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception. The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS Climate does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Dear authors,

Thank you for considering my feedback and doing a great job with the revisions - all looks good to me. One minor point, the figures do look better but still appear blurry to me. Perhaps it's worth working with the editor to ensure the final figures are a clear as possible to improve the readability and presentation.

Well done!

Reviewer #2: The paper has improved greatly, however, there are still some gaps and points to be clarified/improved before final publication.

Consider editing the abstract for concision and clarity.

It is recommend adding a section in Discussion explicitly considering potential urban–rural divides in attitudes to advertising restrictions, and how this might bias the jury outputs.

Please add details on cluster validation, including justification for the chosen number of clusters, and any robustness checks performed.

Consider adding to the discussion a brief reflection on ethical considerations around using DMPs for policy legitimacy, including risks of instrumentalisation.

Include a more explicit discussion of the possibility that public acceptability of bans might increase over time, given precedents in other sectors, and how this could inform policy sequencing.

Include in the SI or Results a justification for the chosen threshold of 6–10 = ‘support’, or provide sensitivity analysis with alternative thresholds.

If possible, conduct and report an inter-coder reliability statistic (e.g. Cohen’s Kappa). If not feasible, at least expand the Limitations section with more detail about why not and what impact this might have.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean? ). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy .

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

**********

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Is there a public mandate for restricting advertising of high-carbon products and services?: Citizens’ jury and public polling evidence from the UK

PCLM-D-25-00079R2

Dear Dr. Ainscough,

We're pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you'll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you'll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at https://www.editorialmanager.com/pclm/ click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. For billing related questions, please contact billing support at https://plos.my.site.com/s/.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact climate@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Giuseppina Migliore

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Dear Authors,

Thank you for submitting the revised version of your manuscript entitled "Is there a public mandate for restricting advertising of high-carbon products and services?: Citizens’ jury and public polling evidence from the UK" to PLOS Climate.

After two rounds of review and revisions, I believe the manuscript has been significantly improved and now provides a clear and valuable contribution to the field. Based on the reviewers’ feedback and my own assessment, I recommend the manuscript for publication.

Thank you for your thoughtful engagement with the review process and for contributing to the ongoing discussion on public engagement and climate-related policy interventions.

Reviewers' comments: