IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v36y2008i12p4449-4453.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Promoting household energy conservation

Author

Listed:
  • Steg, Linda

Abstract

It is commonly assumed that households must change their behaviour to reduce the problems caused by increasing levels of fossil energy use. Strategies for behaviour change will be more effective if they target the most important causes of the behaviour in question. Therefore, this paper first discusses the factors influencing household energy use. Three barriers to fossil fuel energy conservation are discussed: insufficient knowledge of effective ways to reduce household energy use, the low priority and high costs of energy savings, and the lack of feasible alternatives. Next, the paper elaborates on the effectiveness and acceptability of strategies aimed to promote household energy savings. Informational strategies aimed at changing individuals' knowledge, perceptions, cognitions, motivations and norms, as well as structural strategies aimed at changing the context in which decisions are made, are discussed. This paper focuses on the psychological literature on household energy conservation, which mostly examined the effects of informational strategies. Finally, this paper lists important topics for future research.

Suggested Citation

  • Steg, Linda, 2008. "Promoting household energy conservation," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(12), pages 4449-4453, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:36:y:2008:i:12:p:4449-4453
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301-4215(08)00464-3
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Vringer, Kees & Blok, Kornelis, 1995. "The direct and indirect energy requirements of households in the Netherlands," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 23(10), pages 893-910, October.
    2. Santos, Georgina & Li, Wai Wing & Koh, Winston T.H, 2004. "9. Transport Policies In Singapore," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 209-235, January.
    3. Edgar G. Hertwich, 2005. "Consumption and Industrial Ecology," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 9(1‐2), pages 1-6, January.
    4. Jakobsson, C. & Fujii, S. & Gärling, T., 2000. "Determinants of private car users' acceptance of road pricing," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 153-158, April.
    5. Poortinga, Wouter & Steg, Linda & Vlek, Charles & Wiersma, Gerwin, 2003. "Household preferences for energy-saving measures: A conjoint analysis," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 49-64, February.
    6. Reinders, A. H. M. E. & Vringer, K. & Blok, K., 2003. "The direct and indirect energy requirement of households in the European Union," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 139-153, January.
    7. Santos, Georgina, 2004. "11. Urban Road Pricing In The U.K," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 251-282, January.
    8. Edgar G. Hertwich, 2005. "Consumption and the Rebound Effect: An Industrial Ecology Perspective," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 9(1‐2), pages 85-98, January.
    9. Cecilia Jakobsson & Satoshi Fujii & Tommy Gärling, 2002. "Effects of economic disincentives on private car use," Transportation, Springer, vol. 29(4), pages 349-370, November.
    10. Katzev, Richard D. & Johnson, Theodore R., 1983. "A social-psychological analysis of residential electricity consumption: the impact of minimal justification techniques," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 3(3-4), pages 267-284, September.
    11. Benders, Rene M.J. & Kok, Rixt & Moll, Henri C. & Wiersma, Gerwin & Noorman, Klaas Jan, 2006. "New approaches for household energy conservation--In search of personal household energy budgets and energy reduction options," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(18), pages 3612-3622, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wiedenhofer, Dominik & Lenzen, Manfred & Steinberger, Julia K., 2013. "Energy requirements of consumption: Urban form, climatic and socio-economic factors, rebounds and their policy implications," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 696-707.
    2. Girod, Bastien & de Haan, Peter, 2009. "GHG reduction potential of changes in consumption patterns and higher quality levels: Evidence from Swiss household consumption survey," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(12), pages 5650-5661, December.
    3. Ornetzeder, Michael & Hertwich, Edgar G. & Hubacek, Klaus & Korytarova, Katarina & Haas, Willi, 2008. "The environmental effect of car-free housing: A case in Vienna," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(3), pages 516-530, April.
    4. Jia, Jun-Jun & Xu, Jin-Hua & Fan, Ying, 2018. "Public acceptance of household energy-saving measures in Beijing: Heterogeneous preferences and policy implications," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 487-499.
    5. Edeltraud Haselsteiner & Barbara Smetschka & Alexander Remesch & Veronika Gaube, 2015. "Time-Use Patterns and Sustainable Urban Form: A Case Study to Explore Potential Links," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(6), pages 1-29, June.
    6. Oikonomou, V. & Becchis, F. & Steg, L. & Russolillo, D., 2009. "Energy saving and energy efficiency concepts for policy making," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(11), pages 4787-4796, November.
    7. Kerkhof, Annemarie C. & Benders, Ren M.J. & Moll, Henri C., 2009. "Determinants of variation in household CO2 emissions between and within countries," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 1509-1517, April.
    8. Abrahamse, Wokje & Steg, Linda, 2009. "How do socio-demographic and psychological factors relate to households' direct and indirect energy use and savings?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 711-720, October.
    9. Monia Niero & Charlotte L. Jensen & Chiara Farné Fratini & Jens Dorland & Michael S. Jørgensen & Susse Georg, 2021. "Is life cycle assessment enough to address unintended side effects from Circular Economy initiatives?," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 25(5), pages 1111-1120, October.
    10. Pottier, Antonin, 2022. "Expenditure elasticity and income elasticity of GHG emissions: A survey of literature on household carbon footprint," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    11. Vincent Sennes & Jacques Breillat & Francis Ribeyre & Sandrine Gombert, 2009. "Local policies for reducing the ecological impact of households: the case study of a suburban area in France," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 11(5), pages 1031-1049, October.
    12. Millar, Neal & McLaughlin, Eoin & Börger, Tobias, 2019. "The Circular Economy: Swings and Roundabouts?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 11-19.
    13. Benedetto, Graziella & Rugani, Benedetto & Vázquez-Rowe, Ian, 2014. "Rebound effects due to economic choices when assessing the environmental sustainability of wine," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(P1), pages 167-173.
    14. Ouyang, Jinlong & Long, Enshen & Hokao, Kazunori, 2010. "Rebound effect in Chinese household energy efficiency and solution for mitigating it," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 35(12), pages 5269-5276.
    15. Vonk Noordegraaf, Diana & Annema, Jan Anne & van Wee, Bert, 2014. "Policy implementation lessons from six road pricing cases," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 172-191.
    16. Oikonomou, Vlasis & Rietbergen, Martijn & Patel, Martin, 2007. "An ex-ante evaluation of a White Certificates scheme in The Netherlands: A case study for the household sector," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 1147-1163, February.
    17. Dimitropoulos, John, 2007. "Energy productivity improvements and the rebound effect: An overview of the state of knowledge," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(12), pages 6354-6363, December.
    18. Steinberger, Julia K. & van Niel, Johan & Bourg, Dominique, 2009. "Profiting from negawatts: Reducing absolute consumption and emissions through a performance-based energy economy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 361-370, January.
    19. Ingolfur Blühdorn & Michael Deflorian, 2019. "The Collaborative Management of Sustained Unsustainability: On the Performance of Participatory Forms of Environmental Governance," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-17, February.
    20. Kenichi Mizobuchi & Kenji Takeuchi, 2012. "The Influences of Economic and Psychological Factors on Energy-Saving Behavior: A Field Experiment in Matsuyama, Japan," Discussion Papers 1206, Graduate School of Economics, Kobe University.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:36:y:2008:i:12:p:4449-4453. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.