the carbon footprint of uk households 1990 2004 a socio economically disaggregated quasi multi regional input output model this paper presents a socio economically disaggregated framework for attributing co2 emissions to people s high level functional needs based around a quasi multi regional input output qmrio model the study in theory takes into account all co2 emissions that arise from energy used in production of goods and services to satisfy uk household demand whether the emissions occur in the uk or abroad results show that co2 emissions attributable to households were 15 above 1990 levels in 2004 and that although absolute decoupling occurred between household expenditure and co2 during the uk s switch from coal to gas in the early 1990s since then only slight relative decoupling is evident the proportion of co2 that arises outside uk borders in support of uk consumption is rising and reducing these emissions is particularly problematic in a global trading system investigation into the carbon footprint of different segments of the uk population shows wide variation the segment with the highest carbon footprint emits 64 more co2 than the segment with the lowest results show that recreation and leisure are responsible for over one quarter of co2 emissions in a typical uk household in 2004 we conclude that expanding lifestyle aspirations are significant factors in driving household co2 emissions but the study also emphasizes that attention must be paid to the infrastructures and institutions that result in considerable amounts of co2 being locked up in basic household activities through which people meet their everyday needs for subsistence protection and communication with family and friends the findings highlight the sheer scale of the challenge facing uk policy makers and suggest that policies should be targeted towards segments of society responsible for the highest carbon footprints

is what we think of as rebound really just income effects in disguise this paper examines the question of whether unexpectedly high energy use in the wake of energy efficiency gains can be explained as arising from increases in consumer wealth as opposed to energy efficiency rebound effects the analysis concludes that historical energy consumption increases were driven by more than just income levels with the lowest income consumers in the us using more energy in 2002 than they did in 1987 despite significant energy use efficiency gains and despite declining average incomes in this category further direct use of energy in households increased for all income categories over this time period these results point to rebound as being the culprit not income effects

turning lights into flights estimating direct and indirect rebound effects for uk households energy efficiency improvements by households lead to rebound effects that offset the potential energy and emissions savings direct rebound effects result from increased demand for cheaper energy services while indirect rebound effects result from increased demand for other goods and services that also require energy to provide research to date has focused upon the former but both are important for climate change this study estimates the combined direct and indirect rebound effects from seven measures that improve the energy efficiency of uk dwellings the methodology is based upon estimates of the income elasticity and greenhouse gas ghg intensity of 16 categories of household goods and services and allows for the embodied emissions of the energy efficiency measures themselves as well as the capital cost of the measures rebound effects are measured in ghg terms and relate to the adoption of these measures by an average uk household the study finds that the rebound effects from these measures are typically in the range 5 15 and arise mostly from indirect effects this is largely because expenditure on gas and electricity is more ghg intensive than expenditure on other goods and services however the anticipated shift towards a low carbon electricity system in the uk may lead to much larger rebound effects

an empirical study on the rebound effect considering capital costs technological progress is one of the means of reducing energy usage and carbon dioxide co2 emissions however this reduction in turn leads to a reduction in the real cost of energy services per unit which results in an increase in the demand for energy services therefore a reduction in the anticipated co2 emissions caused by a technological improvement might be partially offset in response to the cost reduction previous studies have referred to this effect as the rebound effect a large amount of empirical evidence on the rebound effect exists however most of these studies assume an exogenous improvement in energy efficiency and thus capital costs that may decrease the magnitude of the rebound effect are not taken into account expressly this paper extends the scope of the research conducted by brannlund et al brannlund r ghalwash t nordstrom j 2007 increased energy efficiency and the rebound effect effects on consumption and emissions energy economics 29 1 17 in terms of two aspects i considering capital costs explicitly as additional capital costs and ii adapting an iterating procedure and estimating the rebound effect using japanese household data as a result of our empirical analysis we conclude that the rebound is approximately 27 however we also find that ignoring additional capital costs leads to an increase in the rebound effect in the case of japanese households the magnitude of the rebound effect increases to approximately 115 moreover our simulation study shows that only a one time iteration of brannlund et al brannlund r ghalwash t nordstrom j 2007 increased energy efficiency and the rebound effect effects on consumption and emissions energy economics 29 1 17 may lead to a biased result

the symbiotic rebound effect in the circular economy abstract the circular economy has emerged as an important approach in addressing how society can use its resources more efficiently theoretical advancements in the circular economy have yielded benefits for both practice and policymaking however if the eco efficiency of resource use is to be improved then certain challenges that face the circular economy must be resolved one of these challenges concerns the rebound effect by investigating resource flow with a circular rather than linear system as well as within a producer producer rather than producer consumer type of relationship we identify a rebound effect that we term symbiotic rebound we differentiate it from other forms of rebound effect on the basis of its main driver opportunity costs drive a higher than expected use of resources in a circular economy rather than the usual driver of demand as found in other types of rebound in identifying describing and illustrating a symbiotic rebound effect we make two contributions first to the rebound literature and second to theory development on the circular economy

human values and preferences for cleaner livestock production abstract this article analyzes the relationship between the preferences of european consumers for process attributes of pig farming broadly related to sustainable oriented practices and the individual human values as identified by schwartz a sample of 2437 nationally representative individuals from five european countries was analyzed using a generalized logit model our contribution suggests that european consumers are aware of the environmental impact of pig production swine production attributes that emerged as most significant in our survey are those related to the possibilities of pigs being raised outdoors less important bust still significant are the positive consumers preference for low fat content standard meat quality and small farm size finally our results suggest that consumers preferences are massively linked to individual values in particular consumers showing enhanced self transcendency and high openness to change values are likely to call for cleaner pork production systems on the contrary consumers with more pronounced self enhancement conservation and hedonism values are more likely to pay little attention to sustainability in the swine sector results allow to assess the social acceptance of the implementation of cleaner production processes in livestock production

white certificate schemes economic analysis and interactions with the eu ets this paper examines the economic environmental and distributional impacts of an idealised tradable white certificate twc scheme and shows how the impacts are modified when the scheme operates in parallel with the eu emissions trading scheme eu ets it uses simple graphical techniques to assess whether a twc scheme will increase decrease or have an ambiguous effect on electricity demand wholesale and retail electricity prices carbon emissions and investment in energy efficiency paying particular attention to the interpretation of additionality

black hole tariffs and endogenous policy theory political economy in general equilibrium preface acknowledgments list of results 1 a preview of the results 2 endogenous policy theory a diagrammatic approach part i endogenous policy theory with specific factors the theory of industry tariffs in partial equilibrium 3 the probabilistic voting model of political efficiency and powerless politicians 4 endogenous lobbying theory and the contribution specialization theorem 5 endogenous tariff theory 6 the power function model of endogenous industry lobbying 7 three simple tests of the stolper samuelson theorem 8 the invisible foot and the waste of nations lawyers as negative externalities part ii endogenous policy theory in general equilibrium a long run theory of national tariff levels 9 the 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 model of endogenous redistribution theory 10 a prisoner s dilemma theory of endogenous protection the leontief model 11 the compensation effect and the multiple equilibrium trap 12 increasing returns to politics and factor endowments economic development and brazilian vitality versus the indian disease 13 endogenous protection in the united states 1900 88 14 a cobb douglas model 15 black hole tariffs 16 the endowment effect cross national evidence on endogenous tariffs part ii postscript 17 the senile industry argument for protection 18 optimal obfuscation and the theory of the second worst the politically efficient policy mathematical appendices references author index subject index

willingness to pay for sustainability labelled chocolate an experimental auction approach this study evaluates young consumers attitudes to sustainable food and analyzes the determinants of their willingness to pay wtp for chocolate bars with different sustainability labels data were collected through experimental auctions in italy assessing respondents n 80 aged between 18 and 35 wtp for chocolate bars with three selected labels i e fair trade rainforest alliance and carbon footprint econometric outcomes reveal that several socio demographic factors exert a positive and statistically significant effect on wtp for all the selected chocolate bars namely age cohort older gender female and household income high respondents lifestyles and food consumption habits also had an effect on final bids this study offers valuable insights to policy makers and practitioners for efficiently targeting young consumers in campaigns to increase sustainability labelled food consumption

rice farmers preferences for fairtrade contracting in benin evidence from a discrete choice experiment abstract private standards such as fairtrade have emerged as a response to consumer civil society and corporate concerns about the production conditions of imported food many studies have investigated the welfare implications of smallholder participation in fairtrade schemes and consumers willingness to pay for fairtrade and other labelled products on the other hand no study has yet investigated farmers preferences for fairtrade and other private standards such insights would be valuable to improve the efficiency of certification schemes and ensure that they are tailored to farmers needs using a choice experiment this study investigates the preferences of smallholder rice farmers in benin for fairtrade and organic standards and compares the value of three types of contracts domestic fairtrade and fairtrade organic the results indicate that farmers positively value contracts but prefer domestic over fairtrade contracts because the former involve fewer requirements at current market prices farmers are willing to accept a fairtrade contract that includes fertiliser and child labour restrictions and a social premium but they are not willing to accept a fairtrade organic contract that completely prohibits chemical input use the results imply that adding organic requirements to fairtrade contracts may undermine the adoption and spread of fairtrade certification in the beninese rice sector

endogenous protection and retaliation between canada and the united states abstract endogenous protection theory and the theory of retaliation explain movements in tariffs differently using a varma model to test for the presence of granger causality we examine the interrelationships between tariffs and political pressure in the u s and canada

a household s burden the embodied resource use of household equipment in germany the paper describes patterns of resource use related to german households equipment using cluster analysis and material flow accounting data on socio demographic characteristics and expenditures on fuel electricity and household equipment allow for a differentiation of seven different household types the corresponding resource use expressed in material footprint per person and year is calculated based on cradle to gate material flows of average household goods and the related household energy use our results show that patterns of resource use are mainly driven by the use of fuel and electricity and the ownership of cars the quantified material footprints correlate to social status and are also linked to city size age and household size affluent established and or younger families living in rural areas typically show the highest amounts of durables and expenditures on non durables thus exhibiting the highest use of natural resources

why people don t take their concerns about fair trade to the supermarket the role of neutralisation this article explores how neutralisation can explain people s lack of commitment to buying fair trade ft products even when they identify ft as an ethical concern it examines the theoretical tenets of neutralisation theory and critically assesses its applicability to the purchase of ft products exploratory research provides illustrative examples of neutralisation techniques being used in the ft consumer context a conceptual framework and research propositions delineate the role of neutralisation in explaining the attitude behaviour discrepancies evident in relation to consumers ft purchase behaviour providing direction for further research that will generate new knowledge of consumers ft purchase behaviour and other aspects of ethical consumer behaviour

the european commission s sustainable consumption and production and sustainable industrial policy action plan abstract the promotion of sustainable consumption and production patterns is enshrined as a key objective in the renewed european union sustainable development strategy eu sds sustainable consumption and production is arguably the most challenging aspect of the eu sds it requires changes to the way products and services are designed produced used and disposed of taking into account producer and consumer behaviours this paper reviews the european commission s communication on the sustainable consumption and production and sustainable industrial policy action plan introduced on july 16 2008 the paper examines the priority areas identified for action the means adopted to improve energy and environmental performance of products as well as uptake by consumers the paper concludes that the absence of mandatory quantifiable targets and deadlines and a reliance on both cross sectoral and multi level relationships are likely to weaken the ability of the action plan s fundamental objective of decoupling economic growth from resource use

estimating direct and indirect rebound effects for u s households with input output analysis part 2 simulation abstract this is the second part of a two part paper that integrates economic and industrial ecology methods to estimate the indirect rebound effect from residential energy efficiency investments we apply the model developed in part one to simulate the indirect rebound given an estimate of the direct rebound using a 2002 environmentally extended input output model and the 2004 consumer expenditure survey in 2002 for the u s we find an indirect rebound of 5 15 in primary energy and co 2 e emissions assuming a 10 direct rebound depending on the fuel saved with efficiency and household income the indirect rebound can be as high as 30 40 in no x or so 2 emissions for efficiency in natural gas services the substitution effect modeled in part one is small in most cases and we discuss appropriate applications for proportional or income elasticity spending assumptions large indirect rebound effects occur as the u s electric grid becomes less carbon intensive in households with large transportation demands or as energy prices increase even in extreme cases there is limited evidence for backfire or a rebound effect greater than 100 enacting pollution taxes or auctioned permits that internalize the externalities of energy use would ensure that rebound effects unambiguously increase consumers welfare

reducing rebound effect through fossil subsidies reform a comprehensive evaluation in china abstract china has committed a sharp reduction in its carbon intensity by 2020 and proposed to take integrated policy package including energy subsidy reform to achieve this goal while energy efficiency improvement is the key influencing factor for this goal its effectiveness is significantly determined by rebound effect energy subsidy as an economic regulation policy would significantly affect rebound effect to explore how china s fossil subsidies reform would affect rebound effect this study conducts a comprehensive evaluation based on a multi sector computable general equilibrium cge model rebound effects at different technological improvement levels are investigated and the impacts of different subsidies reform scenarios on mitigating rebound effects and on the whole economy is analyzed the results provide significant policy insights firstly rebound effect does exist in china larger for electricity than for primary energies secondly by removing fossil energy subsides the rebound effect would be effectively mitigated and removing all subsides would reduce the rebound effect most however it would bring significant negative impacts on the macro economy thirdly an integrated policy with removal of fossil energy subsidies and increment of clean energy subsidies would be more effective greatly reducing rebound effect and also bring benefits for both economy and environment our findings would be critical for china s low carbon policy making in the future

estimating direct and indirect rebound effects for u s households with input output analysis part 1 theoretical framework abstract this is the first part of a two part paper providing an analytical model of the indirect rebound effect given a direct rebound estimate that integrates consumer demand theory with the embodied energy of household spending from environmentally extended input output analysis the second part applies the model developed in part one to simulate the direct and indirect rebound for the average u s household in terms of primary energy co2e nox and so2 emissions and for energy efficiency investments in electricity natural gas or gasoline services part one provides a critical review of the largely independent economic and industrial ecology literatures on the indirect rebound by studying the two goods case and the n goods case we demonstrate that the indirect rebound is bounded by the consumer budget constraint and inversely related to the direct rebound we also compare the common proportional spending and income elasticity spending assumptions with our model of cross price elasticities including both substitution and income effects for the indirect rebound by assuming zero incremental capital costs and the same embodied energy as conventional technologies for efficient appliances we model an upper bound of the indirect rebound future work should also consider the increase in consumer welfare possible through the rebound effect

what if consumers decided to all go green environmental rebound effects from consumption decisions shifting consumer preferences towards green consumption is promoted by many governments and environmental groups rebound effects which reduce the effectiveness of such actions are estimated for cost saving green consumption choices using australian data cases examined are reduced vehicle use reduced electricity use changing to smaller passenger vehicles and utilising fluorescent lighting it is found that if rebound effects are ignored when evaluating green consumption environmental benefits will be overstated by around 20 for reduced vehicle use and 7 for reduced electricity use rebound effects are higher and environmental benefits lower when more efficient vehicles or lighting are utilised rather than simple conservation actions of forgoing use in addition lower income households have higher rebound effects suggesting that environmental policy directed at changing consumer behaviour is most effective when targeted at high income households an inherent trade off between economic and environmental benefits of green consumption choices is demonstrated the size of the rebound effect and the observed variation with household income is attributed to life cycle analysis lca methodologies associated with the calculation of embodied ghg emissions of consumption goods these results should be therefore be interpreted as the minimum rebound effect to include in policy evaluation

residential energy expenditures and the relevance of changes in household circumstances this paper analyses the impact that dwelling characteristics and characteristics and behaviours of household members have on per capita energy expenditures it also analyses whether changes in household socio economic circumstances translate in changes in energy expenditures socio economic characteristics have a moderate impact while dwelling characteristics and especially household size have much larger impacts the largest changes in energy expenditures are due to changes in household size the recent socio demographic trends will make it harder to design policies to effectively reduce the carbon footprint of a country while policies influencing cohabitation and family size may have positive indirect effects

tariff behavior in five european countries further evidence abstract temporary movements in the average tariff rate for a country can lead to intertemporal substitution effects a five country model of tariff movements is estimated in a generalized system the tariff formation process follows a random walk for the united kingdom denmark sweden and france which implies that tariff changes can be viewed as permanent in those countries however in switzerland the cumulative impulse responses to a tariff shock imply not only shock persistence but shock magnification

testing commitment cost theory in choice experiments in choice experiments it is commonly assumed that individuals make choices in static and certainty decision making conditions real world choices however are usually made in a dynamic setting committing a purchase decision under conditions of uncertainty might have a commitment cost cc in this study we test cc theory using a nonhypothetical choice experiment specifically we test whether choice behavior and willingness to pay estimates differ when individuals have the option to gain present or delayed information or reverse the transaction our results suggest that the construction of a dynamic decision context can be relevant in the design of choice experiments

tariff behavior in five european countries abstract this paper examines the time series properties of average tariff rates for denmark france sweden switzerland and the united kingdom for all five countries the tariff series contains a unit root however a complete description of the tariff rate series for each country suggests that tariff changes may have quite different effects on macroeconomic variables such as the trade balance in each of the five countries studied

the rebound effect gender and social justice a case study in germany abstract energy efficiency increases are essential in reducing energy consumption and co 2 emissions policy is therefore rightly concerned about rebound effects which cause energy and co 2 emission reductions to be less than anticipated a policy dilemma is emerging in that less economically privileged groups tend to show the highest rebound effects some studies suggest policymakers may therefore be reluctant to support energy efficiency upgrades among such groups this paper argues this is based on a misunderstanding of the conceptual structure of the rebound effect firstly a mathematical analysis confirms that the rebound effect is merely a comparison of proportions not a measure of absolute levels of energy consumption which are the real cause of increased co 2 emissions secondly an empirical study of commute distances in north rhine westphalia germany s largest state reveals that female commuters show considerably higher rebound effects than male commuters both in time and cross sectional analyses however male commuters consume the most energy and produce the most co 2 emissions by every measure this resonates with recent studies showing the same disjunction between rebound effects and absolute consumption in home heating among poorer and wealthier households policy needs to focus on absolute consumption levels and be cautious in interpreting rebound effects

estimating direct rebound effects for personal automotive travel in great britain direct rebound effects result from increased consumption of cheaper energy services for example more fuel efficient cars encourage more car travel this study is the first to quantify this effect for personal automotive travel in great britain we use aggregate time series data on transport activity fuel consumption and other relevant variables over the period 1970 2011 and estimate the direct rebound effect from the elasticity of both vehicle and passenger kilometres with respect to a vehicle fuel efficiency km mj b the fuel cost of driving km and c road fuel prices mj we estimate a total of 108 models paying careful attention to methodological issues and model diagnostics taking changes in fuel efficiency as the explanatory variable we find little evidence of a long run direct rebound effect in great britain over this period however taking changes in either the fuel cost of driving or fuel prices as the explanatory variable we estimate a direct rebound effect in the range 9 to 36 with a mean of 19 this estimate is consistent with the results of us studies and suggests that around one fifth of the potential fuel savings from improved car fuel efficiency may have been eroded through increased driving we also show how the normalisation of distance travelled per capita per adult or per driver affects the results obtained

testing the endogeneity of tariff policy in the u s abstract endogenous tariff theory suggests tariffs are created in response to self interested political pressure using a varma model covering the period 1890 1970 in the u s we show that macroeconomic variables which proxy political pressure granger cause the tariff

carbon trading in the policy mix the kyoto protocol is stimulating the development of emissions trading schemes at the national and international levels these are being introduced alongside existing policy instruments such as carbon taxes and negotiated agreements leading to complex problems of policy interaction but the topic of policy interaction remains under researched this paper aims to improve understanding of such interactions by examining the conditions under which a cap and trade scheme for carbon dioxide emissions may usefully coexist with carbon energy taxes support mechanisms for renewable electricity and policies to promote energy efficiency the paper argues that each of these instrument combinations may be acceptable provided they contribute to either improving the static or dynamic efficiency of the trading scheme or delivering other valued policy objectives but since the coexisting instruments may raise overall abatement costs while contributing nothing further to emission reductions the objectives and trade offs within the policy mix must be explicit

price premium of organic salmon in danish retail sale the year 2016 will be pivotal for organic aquaculture producers in eu because it represents the deadline for implementing the complete organic life cycle in aquaculture production depending on the sturdiness of farms already producing such a shift in the industry may affect production costs of exclusively using organic fry for production if the profitability of the primary organic aquaculture producers should be maintained then farmers must be able to correspondingly receive higher prices transmitted through the value chain from the retail market this study identifies the price premium for organic salmon in danish retail sale using consumer panel scanner data from households by applying a random effect hedonic price model that permits unobserved household heterogeneity a price premium of 20 was identified for organic salmon the magnitude of this premium is comparable to organic labeled agricultural products and higher than that of eco labeled capture fishery products such as the marine stewardship council this indicates that the organic label also used for agricultural products may be better known and trusted among consumers than the eco labels on capture fishery products

empirical estimates of the direct rebound effect a review beginning with william stanley jevons in 1865 a number of authors have claimed that economically justified energy efficiency improvements will increase rather than reduce energy consumption jevons paradox is extremely difficult to test empirically but could have profound implications for energy and climate policy this paper summarises and critiques the arguments and evidence that have been cited in support of jevons paradox focusing in particular on the work of len brookes and harry saunders it identifies some empirical and theoretical weaknesses in these arguments highlights the questions they raise for economic orthodoxy and points to some interesting parallels between these arguments and those used by the biophysical school of ecological economics while the evidence in favour of jevons paradox is far from conclusive it does suggest that economy wide rebound effects are larger than is conventionally assumed and that energy plays a more important role in driving productivity improvements and economic growth than is conventionally assumed 2008 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

rebound effect of efficiency improvement in passenger cars on gasoline consumption in canada abstract the fossil fuel driven transport sector has been one of the major contributors to co2 emission across the world keeping it on the energy policy agenda for the past three decades canada ranks second in gasoline consumption among oecd countries and canadian gasoline expenditure share has been increasing since the 1990s fuel efficiency policies aim to decrease gasoline consumption however the effect can be mitigated by changes in consumer behavior such as traveling more distances a rebound effect thus the effectiveness of fuel efficiency policy is dependent on the magnitude of the rebound effect in this paper we estimate the rebound effect for personal transportation in canada using data from the household spending survey for the period 1997 2009 the model includes a system of expenditure share equations for gasoline other energy goods and non energy goods specified by aids and quaids models and estimated by the nonlinear sur method our estimation results show a rather high average rebound effect of 82 88 but with significant heterogeneity across income groups provinces and gasoline prices specifically the rebound effect ranges from 63 to 96 across income groups and provinces and increases with gasoline prices

living up to expectations estimating direct and indirect rebound effects for uk households this study estimates the combined direct and indirect rebound effects from various types of energy efficiency improvement by uk households in contrast to most studies of this topic we base our estimates on cross price elasticities and therefore capture both the income and substitution effects of energy efficiency improvements our approach involves estimating a household demand model to obtain price and expenditure elasticities of different goods and services utilising a multiregional input output model to estimate the ghg emission intensities of those goods and services combining the two to estimate direct and indirect rebound effects and decomposing those effects to reveal the relative contribution of different mechanisms and commodities we estimate that the total rebound effects are 41 for measures that improve the efficiency of domestic gas use 48 for electricity use and 78 for vehicle fuel use the primary source of this rebound is increased consumption of the cheaper energy service i e direct rebound and this is primarily driven by substitution effects our results suggest that the neglect of substitution effects may have led prior research to underestimate the total rebound effect however we provide a number of caveats to this conclusion as well as indicating priorities for future research

the effect of house energy efficiency programs on the extensive and intensive margin of lower income households investment behavior abstract this paper examines the biggest house energy efficiency retrofit support program in greece which ran during 2011 2015 and approximately fifty thousand households participated we take advantage of an exogenous policy change resulting in cost reduction for households that occurred while the program was running this change substantially increased the subsidy rate for lower income households we find that this effective cost reduction increased the participation rate extensive margin we add to the literature on retrofits by further showing that this change increased substantially the investment amount intensive margin of these lower income households detailed data on a sub sample of households reveal that this increase was driven primarily by window replacement and thermal insulation investments

the system wide impact of healthy eating assessing emissions and economic impacts at the regional level abstract encouraging consumers to shift their diets towards a lower meat lower calorie alternative has been the focus of food and health policies across the world the economic impacts of such changes on regions have been less widely examined but are likely to be significant especially where agricultural and food production activities are important for the region in this study we use a multi sectoral modelling framework to examine the environmental and economic impacts of such a dietary change and illustrate this using a detailed model for scotland we find that if household food and drink consumption follows healthy eating guidelines it would reduce both scotland s footprint and territorial emissions and yet may be associated with positive economic impacts generating a double dividend for both the environment and the economy the economic impact however depends critically upon how households use the income previously spent on higher meat higher calorie diets furthermore the likely but not modelled benefits to health suggest the potential for a triple dividend

consumer responses to gasoline price and non price policies abstract gasoline consumption in emerging economies have been rising rapidly due to economic growth and increasing urbanization rate in recent years however the development has brought about new socio economic and environmental challenges leading governments to adopt various policies to control the trend although the impacts of price changes on gasoline consumption are well researched in the literature studies on different policies in a specific country is limited in this paper we investigate the impact of three distinct policies price reform rationing and fuel efficiency on consumer responses in iran we estimate price income and efficiency elasticities across household characteristics income groups and provinces using the aids model and the household expenditures data for the period 2005 2016 the results show that the average price elasticity is 76 however it varies across household characteristics time and space the price responses are greater in provinces neighbouring the countries with high price differentials and welfare losses of price reform are more sever for lower income families the estimated elasticities under different policy regimes show that energy price reform has led to significantly higher elasticities while rationing has led to decreased elasticities the more stringent efficiency regulation and increasing imports of fuel efficient cars have also increased elasticities

valuing diversification benefits through intercropping in mediterranean agroecosystems a choice experiment approach abstract the agricultural sector faces a series of environmental challenges such as water and soil pollution erosion or biodiversity loss especially in monoculture systems alternatively crop diversification is seen as an option to reduce negative impacts and to enhance agricultural ecosystem services es most of these es such as improving resilience despite the benefits and the high social value do not take part in the market in this context the present paper presents an analysis of social preferences regarding crop diversification practices in mediterranean agroecosystems to do so a choice experiment has been developed to assess social demand for more welfare improving agricultural cropping systems benefits were obtained from improving environmental and cultural es provision due to intercropping as crop diversification practices the results show a strong social preference for crop diversification with regard to all the benefits considered in the experiment in fact the total economic value for non market goods and services provided by intercropping which ranges from 900 to 1400 ha year for some crops might be potentially higher than cropland financial benefits these results highlight the social support for a change in agricultural model to reach sustainable agroecosystems which is essential to ensure the success of agrarian and rural development policies

healthy sustainable and plant based eating perceived mis match and involvement based consumer segments as targets for future policy abstract given the inseparable environmental and health impact of dietary habits integrating health and sustainability goals has become a highly topical issue in policy development and communication to encourage consumers to adopt healthier and more sustainable diets increasing evidence indicates that it is possible to develop diets that are both environmentally sustainable and healthy but their potential success largely depends on consumers willingness and ability to change their behavior this study investigates consumer perceptions of the match or mismatch between healthy and sustainable diets and gives insight into consumers motivation to eat healthily and sustainably as measured by involvement data were collected in spring 2014 through a cross sectional quantitative online survey with samples representative for age gender and region in four european union eu countries united kingdom germany belgium and the netherlands n 2783 the images of a healthy diet a sustainable diet and a plant based diet were found to be highly compatible based on a strongly observed match between european consumers perceptions of these concepts half of the participants were highly involved in healthy eating and one third in both healthy and sustainable eating informational food policy actions targeting both healthy and sustainable food consumption behavior are recommended to address issues relevant to the target segments taking into account their levels of involvement increasing consumers motivation and involvement in health and sustainability emerges as a key trigger for increasing healthy and sustainable eating

the bunch of sustainability labels do consumers differentiate abstract a huge number of sustainable labels addressing the different pillars of sustainability emerged over the last years some labels promote factors which already imply other sustainability issues e g organic incl animal friendliness to a certain extent hence the question arises how consumers react towards the redundancies of different sustainability labels to add to the literature this study applies a latent class model for discrete choices first to test whether consumers take different sustainable labels into account when making their decision and second to test how consumers deal with different sustainable labels that are partly claiming the same aspect results indicate that three consumer segments with well distinguished preferences and willingness to pay measures for the respective attributes can be identified one group being the price sensitives exclusively deciding on the product with the lowest price regardless of any sustainable attribute of the product another group opts for products with a sustainable label without any clear preference for a specific sustainable attribute but expressing a clear willingness to pay more for all presented sustainable labels i e the label choosers a third group can be named price conscious label discriminators for them some sustainable aspects provide negative utility when labelled exclusively e g organic or free of genetically modified organisms but labelled together e g organic together with free of genetically modified organisms or animal welfare it provides them significantly positive utility even though being redundant by definition based on our findings there is no general statement to be made regarding the question whether different sustainable aspects complement or substitute each other the research rather emphasizes that a differentiated look at different consumer types and different labels symbolizing sustainability is needed the research adds to the existing literature by examining not only the relevance and acceptance of different sustainable labels to different consumer segments but also the interrelationship of different sustainable labels the study clearly shows that with regard to different sustainable labels the more the merrier does not always apply however almost 85 of the market could be satisfied with a universal sustainability label

energy consumption for space heating a discrete continuous approach energy demand for space heating is estimated using a discrete continuous choice model which focuses on the relationship between the choice of heating equipment and energy consumption the model is estimated on norwegian micro data and the two stages of the model are estimated simultaneously the capital cost and the operating cost of the heating systems are both found to have a significant impact on the choice of heating system furthermore the results show that household characteristics are important variables in residential energy models energy price elasticities and income elasticities are also estimated

the rebound effects of switching to vegetarianism a microeconomic analysis of swedish consumption behavior sustainable diets in particular vegetarianism are often promoted as effective measures to reduce our environmental footprint yet few conclusions take full scale behavioral changes into consideration this can be achieved by calculating the indirect environmental rebound effect related to the re spending of expenditure saved during the initial behavioral shift this study aims to quantify the potential energy use and greenhouse gas emission savings and most likely rebound effects related to an average swedish consumer s shift to vegetarianism using household budget survey data it estimates engel curves of 117 consumption goods derives marginal expenditure shares and links these values to environmental intensity indicators results indicate that switching to vegetarianism could save consumers 16 of the energy use and 20 of the greenhouse gas emissions related to their dietary consumption however if they re spend the saved income according to their current preferences they would forego 96 of potential energy savings and 49 of greenhouse gas emission savings these rebound effects are even higher for lower income consumers who tend to re spend on more environmentally intensive goods yet the adverse effect could be tempered by purchasing organic goods or re spending the money on services in order to reduce the environmental impact of consumption it could thus be recommended to not only focus on dietary shifts but rather on the full range of consumer expenditure

consumers motivational associations favoring free range meat or less meat abstract the present paper analyzed the motivational orientations of consumers who choose to eat 1 small portions of meat or 2 ethically distinctive meat such as free range meat in relation to the motivational orientations of their opposites going beyond the conventional approach to consumer behavior our work builds on recent insights in motivational psychology about the ways in which people may approach matches or avoid mismatches to the desired end state of getting enough nourishment by eating the right food consumers who tend to approach matches are often focused on choosing the best alternatives from their choice set chronic promotion focus consumers who tend to avoid mismatches are often focused on rejecting unacceptable alternatives from their choice set chronic prevention focus distinguishing these two motivational orientations provides a scientific basis for the aim to foster more sustainable food consumption and production patterns our approach involves a systematic analysis of consumers goal orientations regarding meat choices we examined how a sample of dutch consumers n 939 described their chronic motivational orientations regarding food their own meat choices and about two weeks later their promotion and prevention oriented associations favoring either small portions of meat and free range meat or their opposites largely in line with our hypotheses we found that consumers with a chronic prevention orientation avoided the mismatch of large portions also those of them who paid the premium price of free range meat considered eating meat produced by intensive farming a mismatch conversely if consumers with a chronic promotion orientation paid the premium price of free range meat they considered this the best alternative from their choice set accordingly choosing a small portion of meat was often approached with a prevention orientation and choosing free range meat with either a prevention or a promotion orientation these differences in motivational orientation underline that the pursuit of sustainability requires careful consideration of not just undesirable but also of desirable alternatives

frontiers in the economics of energy efficiency abstract energy efficiency has become an essential instrument to obtain effective greenhouse gas mitigation and reduced energy dependence this introductory article contextualizes the contributions of the supplemental issue by showing the new setting for energy efficiency economics and policy discussing the role of price instruments to promote energy savings presenting new approaches for energy efficiency policies and placing energy efficiency within a wider energy and environmental framework

building energy efficiency a research branch made of paradoxes abstract the literature dealing with building energy efficiency has long since debated about the possible occurrence of the so called jevons paradox in a nutshell benefiting from energy savings due to transition to high performance buildings may the same savings cause a kind of rebound effect by acting as an incentive to increase consumptions on closer inspection this is not the only paradox affecting the research branch that focuses on the energy used by the buildings and the building industry a second paradox is that investments in energy efficient solutions may contribute to energy price control which in turn lends itself to make the same investments not profitable a third paradox lies in the need to adopt energy intensive materials in order to achieve substantial energy savings in operation hence sometimes we just substitute a certain amount of operating energy with a more or less commensurate amount of embodied energy here we argue that the joint consideration of the paradoxes mentioned above should not be neglected since it brings with itself several implications needing to be disentangled whether we aim to get further enhancements in this disciplinary field

missing carbon reductions exploring rebound and backfire effects in uk households households are expected to play a pivotal role in reducing the uk s greenhouse gas ghg emissions and the uk government is encouraging specific household actions to help meet its targets however due to the rebound effect only a portion of the ghg emission reductions estimated by simple engineering calculations are generally achieved in practice for example replacing short car journeys by walking or cycling reduces consumption of motor fuels but this frees up money that may be spent on for example purchasing extra clothes or flying on vacation alternatively the money may be put into savings since all of these options lead to ghg emissions total ghg savings may be less than anticipated indeed in some instances emissions may increase a phenomenon known as backfire we estimate that the rebound effect for a combination of three abatement actions by uk households is approximately 34 targeting re spending on goods and services with a low ghg intensity reduces this to a minimum of around 12 while re spending on goods and services with a high ghg intensity leads to backfire our study highlights the importance of shifting consumption to lower ghg intensive categories and investing in low carbon investments

re spending rebound a macro level assessment for oecd countries and emerging economies abstract it is well known that energy conservation can lead to rebound effects that partly offset the original energy savings one particular rebound mechanism is re spending of money savings associated with energy savings on energy intensive goods or services we calculate the average magnitude of this re spending rebound for different fuels and countries and for both energy and carbon co2 emissions we find that emerging economies neglected in past studies typically have larger rebounds than oecd countries since such economies play an increasingly important role in the global economy the re spending rebound is a growing concern the re spending effect is generally larger for gasoline than for natural gas and electricity paradoxically stronger financial incentives to conserve energy tend to increase the rebound this suggests that with climate regulation and peak oil the re spending rebound may become more important we discuss the policy implications of our findings

economic energy and greenhouse emissions impacts of some consumer choice technology and government outlay options abstract the impacts of selected spending options in the australian economy are determined in terms of energy consumption greenhouse gas emissions and a range of economic parameters six case studies of one current practice and one alternative environmentally motivated spending option are carried out describing consumer choices technologies and government outlays the assessment method is based on input output theory and as such enables both the direct and indirect effects of spending to be quantified in general the results indicate that pro environmental objectives such as reductions in energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions are compatible with broad socio economic benefits such as increases in employment and income and reductions in imports

sustainability labels on coffee consumer preferences willingness to pay and visual attention to attributes abstract sustainability labels are important tools that help consumers assess the sustainability aspects of food while past studies have focused on visual attention to nutrition information no study has investigated the visual attention paid by consumers to the sustainability information on food our study contributes to the need to better understand consumers attention to sustainability information when making food choices the objective was to explore the importance that consumers attach to sustainability attributes and investigate how this relates to the visual attention paid to these attributes during the choice decision and to willingness to pay wtp visual attention during the decision making process was measured in terms of fixation time and fixation count which were then analyzed in relation to the stated attribute importance our results suggest that consumer segments with differences in stated attribute importance visually attend differently to these attributes higher valued attributes also exhibited higher visual attention our results suggest that consumers who spend more time attending to and fixate more on sustainability attributes value them more

revealing hidden co2 impacts from consequential consumption by matrix analysis application to japanese single households abstract the aim of this study was to develop a novel analytical framework using matrix based analysis to visualize the environmental impacts of consumption by considering the direct and indirect consumption of all the items induced by the initial consumption called consequential consumption in the context of consequential life cycle assessment lca the significance of this framework and the importance of considering consequential consumption have been demonstrated by analyzing the net co 2 emissions due to consumption through a case study of single households in japan the analytical framework includes the following four steps 1 categorization of consumers 2 calculation of a matrix of consequential consumption 3 impact assessment and 4 uncertainty analysis the normalization process plays an essential role in the calculation of a matrix of consequential consumption while meeting the constraint of fixed income the matrix of consequential consumption was obtained by analyzing the latest japanese household expenditure data for 2004 the net co 2 emission from consumption was estimated using the matrix of consequential consumption and the co 2 intensities of products services in japan as a result we found that the consumption of some products services have the potential to increase decrease co 2 emissions beyond their own co 2 intensities because of consequential consumption in spite of their relatively small co 2 intensities several products and services meat dairy products and eggs oils fats and condiments water and sewerage charges domestic nondurable goods have high net co 2 emissions per unit price japanese yen jpy this is because of high co 2 emissions from the consequential consumption of energy in contrast the net co 2 emission from charges for board are negative because of the substitution relationship between food and energy items compared with the results of other foregoing studies on food materials the net co 2 emission by our approach is much larger than that indicated by the conventional process specific approach

higher wages for sustainable development employment and carbon effects of paying a living wage in global apparel supply chains abstract in this paper we explore how paying a living wage in global supply chains might affect employment and carbon emissions sustainable development goals 8 and 13 previous work has advocated using wage increases for poorer workers to increase prices for wealthier consumers thereby reducing consumption and associated environmental damage however the likely effects of such an approach remain unclear using an input output framework extended with income and demand elasticities we estimate the employment and carbon effects of paying a living wage to brazilian russian indian and chinese bric workers in the western european clothing supply chain we find negligible effects on carbon emissions but a substantial increase in bric employment under 3 scenarios of consumer behaviour changes in western european consumption lead to small decreases in global carbon emissions and bric employment however the increase in bric wages increases demand in bric this increased demand increases production which largely cancels out the carbon savings and generates net increases in bric employment we conclude by arguing that paying higher wages in global supply chains represents a good but not sufficient step toward achieving the sustainable development goals

rethinking economy wide rebound measures an unbiased proposal in spite of having been first introduced in the last half of the ninetieth century the debate about the possible rebound effects from energy efficiency improvements is still an open question in the economic literature this paper contributes to the existing research on this issue proposing an unbiased measure for economy wide rebound effects the novelty of this economy wide rebound measure stems from the fact that not only actual energy savings but also potential energy savings are quantified under general equilibrium conditions our findings indicate that the use of engineering savings instead of general equilibrium potential savings downward biases economy wide rebound effects and upward biases backfire effects the discrepancies between the traditional indicator and our proposed measure are analysed in the context of the spanish economy

ghg reduction potential of changes in consumption patterns and higher quality levels evidence from swiss household consumption survey abstract an effective consumer oriented climate policy requires knowing the ghg reduction potential of sustainable consumption the aim of this study is to draw lessons from differences in consumption between households with high and low ghg emissions we evaluate a survey of 14 500 households and use a method that allows measuring changes in price level of consumption comparing the 10 of households with the highest ghg emissions per capita with the lowest 10 controlling for differences in expenditure level and household structure we find a range 5 17 tons of co2 equivalent per capita and year the observed differences stem mainly from heating electricity use car use and travel by aircraft consumption patterns with low ghg emissions are characterized by less spending on mobility but more on leisure and quality oriented consumption leading to higher prices per unit further characteristics are a higher share of organic food low meat consumption and fewer detached single family houses our findings imply that a significant reduction in ghg emissions would be possible by adopting real world consumption patterns observable in society the twin challenge is to shift consumption towards more climate friendly patterns and to prevent any trend towards high emitting consumption patterns

food labeling and eco friendly consumption experimental evidence from a belgian supermarket using an incentive compatible framed field experiment we investigate whether consumers food consumption is more eco friendly when the information about a product s environmental impact is more easily accessible through an online survey we identify a food label that is perceived to be the most easily accessible for assessing a product s eco friendliness among six alternatives these alternatives vary on multiple dimensions including whether a standardized score of the overall environmental impact is added this new food label is subsequently tested in an experimental food market embedded in a belgian supermarket we find that the presence of the new label that was preselected in the online survey leads to more eco friendly food consumption relative to either the label currently used in the supermarket or the label that contains the raw information of the environmental impact in our experimental food market the use of an easy to interpret but comprehensive environmental information label increases the overall eco friendliness of our subjects food consumption by about 5 3 relative to the default label used in current markets

sustainability labels on food products consumer motivation understanding and use this study investigates the relationship between consumer motivation understanding and use of sustainability labels on food products both environmental and ethical labels which are increasingly appearing on food products data was collected by means of an online survey implemented in the uk france germany spain sweden and poland with a total sample size of 4408 respondents respondents expressed medium high to high levels of concern with sustainability issues at the general level but lower levels of concern in the context of concrete food product choices understanding of the concept of sustainability was limited but understanding of four selected labels fair trade rainforest alliance carbon footprint and animal welfare was better as some of them seem to be self explanatory the results indicated a low level of use no matter whether use was measured as self reported use of different types of information available on food labels or as use inferred from the results of a choice based conjoint analysis hierarchical regression indicated that use is related to both motivation and understanding and that both motivation understanding and use are affected by demographic characteristics human values as measured by the schwartz value domains and country differences the results imply that sustainability labels currently do not play a major role in consumers food choices and future use of these labels will depend on the extent to which consumers general concern about sustainability can be turned into actual behaviour

climate change mitigation potential of norwegian households and the rebound effect abstract an increasing number of studies show that efficiency improvements alone will not be sufficient to attain the substantial emission reductions needed to mitigate global warming to a target of 2 c consumption side changes are likely to be needed to achieve sufficient emission reductions the united nations emphasize the importance of developed countries taking the lead in lowering emissions to achieve the sustainable development goals this paper assess to what extent norwegian households can lower their carbon footprint consistent with territorial emission reductions towards the 2 c target of global warming through implementing a set of behavioral actions we evaluate the efficacy of the set of actions both initially and after considering rebound effects a multiregional environmentally extended input output database is linked with the norwegian consumer expenditure survey to analyze both average and marginal expenditure per unit of increased income further linear programming is applied to examine the changes needed by households to reach different emission reduction targets we find that households implementing the full set of actions without re spending can obtain a 58 decrease in their carbon footprint when accounting for the effect of re spending this reduction drops to 24 35 which is not within the requirements of the 2 c target the optimization analysis suggests households can achieve reductions up to 45 by restricting re spending to specific goods and services this indicates that curbing the rebound effect is key to achieving real reductions in household carbon footprints we show that changing consumption patterns can significantly contribute to lowering anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions without compromising the level of economic activity

rebound effects in agricultural land and soil management review and analytical framework abstract increasing the efficiency of production is the basis for decoupling economic growth from resource consumption in agriculture more efficient use of natural resources is at the heart of sustainable intensification however technical improvements do not directly translate into resource savings because producers and consumers adapt their behaviour to such improvements often resulting in a rebound effect where part or all of the potential resource savings are offset in extreme cases increases in efficiency may even result in higher instead of lower resource consumption the jevons paradox rebound effects are particularly complex in agricultural land and soil management where multiple resources are used simultaneously and efficiency gains aim to lower the need for farmland water energy nutrients pesticides and greenhouse gas emissions in this context quantification of rebound effects is a prerequisite for generating realistic scenarios of global food provision and for advancing the debate on land sparing versus land sharing however studies that provide an overview of rebound effects related to the resources used in agriculture or guidelines for assessing potential rebound effects from future innovations are lacking this paper contributes to closing this gap by reviewing the current state of knowledge and developing a framework for a structured appraisal of rebound effects as a test case the proposed framework is applied to emerging technologies and practices in agricultural soil management in germany the literature review revealed substantial evidence of rebound effects or even jevons paradox with regard to efficiency increases in land productivity and irrigation water use by contrast there were few studies addressing rebound effects from efficiency increases in fertilizer use pesticide application agricultural energy use and greenhouse gas emissions while rebound effects are by definition caused by behavioural adaptations of humans in agriculture also natural adaptations occur such as resistance of pests to certain pesticides future studies should consider extending the definition of rebound effects to such natural adaptations the test case revealed the potential for direct and indirect economic rebound effects of a number of emerging technologies and practices such as improved irrigation technologies which increase water productivity and may thereby contribute to increases in irrigated areas and total water use the results of this study indicated that rebound effects must be assessed to achieve realistic estimates of resource savings from efficiency improvements and to enable informed policy choices the framework developed in this paper is the first to facilitate such assessments

the role of risk and trust attitudes in explaining residential energy demand evidence from the united kingdom recent research into the determinants of household energy consumption has aimed to incorporate findings from economics sociology and psychology in order to obtain a more comprehensive understanding of the factors determining energy demand the current paper contributes to this nascent stream of literature by studying the relationship between risk attitudes trust propensity and energy consumption at the household level drawing on the british household panel survey a well known data set in the context of energy studies i show that trust is negatively correlated with household energy demand while higher risk tolerance leads to increases in residential energy use potential explanations for these findings are investigated suggesting that risk preferences may be related with overall appliance stock and the size of the rebound effect

the influence of energy efficiency on other natural resources use an input output perspective abstract energy efficiency improvements reduce the costs of energy services and under some circumstances increase the available income this generates an additional increase of consumption of goods and services that need additional energy to be produced distributed and consumed this effect is known as the indirect rebound effect in the literature however beyond this additional increase of global energy consumption there is also a variation of the use of other natural resources due to the same mechanism this effect which we label as direct and indirect cross rebound effect is generally not considered by academia nor policy making when designing and implementing energy policies this research conceptualizes this effect develops a methodology for its estimation and provides estimates for the spanish economy results show that an energy efficiency in households could increase the use of minerals and water while reducing the use of energy fossil fuels and metal ores in spain these reductions however are lower than the expected ones from an input output perspective leading to positive direct and indirect cross rebound effects between 64 6 and 74 7 for energy equivalent to direct and indirect rebound effect 48 63 for fossil fuels 84 89 for metal ores backfire for non metallic minerals 147 134 and extreme backfire for water 1191 1628

who rebounds most estimating direct and indirect rebound effects for different uk socioeconomic groups this study estimates the combined direct and indirect rebound effects from various types of energy efficiency improvement and behavioural change by uk households and explores how these effects vary with total expenditure the methodology is based upon estimates of the expenditure elasticity and ghg intensity of 16 categories of goods and services and allows for the capital cost and embodied emissions of the energy efficiency measures themselves the study finds that rebound effects in ghg terms are modest 0 32 for measures affecting domestic energy use larger 25 65 for measures affecting vehicle fuel use and very large 66 106 for measures that reduce food waste furthermore measures undertaken by low income households are associated with the largest rebound effects with direct emissions forming a larger proportion of the total rebound effect for those households measures that are subsidised or affect highly taxed energy commodities may be less effective in reducing aggregate emissions these findings highlight the importance of allowing for rebound effects within policy appraisals as well as reinforcing the case for economy wide carbon pricing

measuring progress towards carbon reduction in the uk the uk climate change bill proposes to establish legally binding targets for a 60 reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 this paper discusses the challenges posed by measuring progress towards this target it takes as a premise that the conventional productionbased accounting framework enshrined in the unfccc emissions accounting guidelines is inappropriate for this task because it fails to account for the carbon traded across the uk national boundary accordingly it sets out a consumption based accounting framework using a two region environmental input output eio model which could in principle measure progress in reducing the emissions attributable to final consumers in the uk it illustrates the use of this framework to measure the reduction in carbon dioxide achieved by the uk between 1990 the kyoto base year and the year 2004 and compares this against the production perspective the results indicate that any progress towards the uk s carbon reduction targets visible under a production perspective disappears completely when viewed from a consumption perspective but the robustness of this conclusion depends critically on the accuracy of underlying economic and environmental data sets as well as specific assumptions concerning imports by analysing the consistency of uk input output data we conclude that eio is still some way from being able to answer the critical question of the carbon trade balance for the uk in these circumstances measuring real progress towards carbon reduction in the uk remains elusive

rebound and disinvestment effects in refined oil consumption and supply resulting from an increase in energy efficiency in the scottish commercial transport sector in this paper we use an energy economy environment computable general equilibrium cge model of the scottish economy to examine the impacts of an exogenous increase in energy augmenting technological progress in the domestic commercial transport sector on the supply and use of energy we focus our analysis on scottish refined oil as the main type of energy input used in commercial transport activity we find that a 5 increase in energy efficiency in the commercial transport sector leads to rebound effects in the use of oil based energy commodities in all time periods in the target sector and at the economy wide level however our results also suggest that such an efficiency improvement may cause a contraction in capacity in the scottish refined oil supply sector this disinvestment effect acts as a constraint on the size of rebound effects however the magnitude of rebound effects and presence of the disinvestment effect in the simulations conducted here are sensitive to the specification of key elasticities of substitution in the nested production function for the target sector particularly the substitutability of energy for non energy intermediate inputs to production

rebound effect of transportation considering additional capital costs and input output relationships the role of subsistence consumption and unmet demand abstract the anticipated carbon mitigation through energy saving technology progress might be partially or even totally offset due to rebound effect a better understanding of rebound effect especially the underling mechanisms has important implications for energy efficiency policies to achieve the goal of sustainability previous studies usually ignore additional capital costs for adopting energy efficient equipment and indirect carbon emissions for providing new consumption bundles also the precise mechanisms of how living standard affects rebound effect are unknown using almost ideal demand system aids model and input output relationships among sectors this paper builds a method to estimate the rebound effect that allows for additional capital costs and carbon emission changes of all other goods and services due to backward forward linkages we find that rebound effect is over 100 for transportation in rural china even though additional capital costs would indeed reduce the magnitude and the results are quite robust to alternative settings as for the mechanisms rebound effect is divided into substitution and income channels by slutsky decomposition here we show that both of these two channels are dependent on living standard because of subsistence consumption and unmet demand carbon emissions of poor households will rebound more through income channel of unmet demand while rich households usually do not restricted by subsistence consumption and thus through substitution channel rebound of carbon emissions would be larger for rich households the opposite directions of mechanisms dig more information about the nonlinearity of rebound effect to income levels furthermore given the estimating results this paper gains several insights in terms of welfare benefits rather than just focuses on carbon reduction

trading off nutrition and education a panel data analysis of the dissimilar welfare effects of organic and fairtrade standards millions of smallholder farmers in developing countries participate in different types of sustainability standards a growing body of literature has analyzed the welfare effects with mixed results yet there are important knowledge gaps first most existing studies have looked at the effects of one standard in one country when comparing between studies it is unclear whether dissimilar outcomes are the result of different standards or different local conditions second most studies have used cross section data so that selectivity issues remain a challenge third existing work has primarily analyzed effects in terms of purely economic indicators such as prices and income ignoring other dimensions of household welfare we address these shortcomings using panel data from small scale coffee producers in uganda and comparing the effects of two of the most popular sustainability standards namely organic and fairtrade welfare effects are analyzed in terms of household expenditures child education and nutrition results show that organic and fairtrade both have positive effects on total consumption expenditures however notable differences are observed in terms of the other outcomes organic contributes to improved nutrition but has no effect on education for fairtrade it is exactly the other way around we explore the mechanisms behind these differences

an empirical study on the behavior of hybrid electric vehicle purchasers abstract this paper empirically examines the factors influencing consumers choices concerning the purchase of hybrid electric vehicles hevs in addition the paper investigates whether purchasing hevs causes a rebound effect through which purchasers of hevs increase their annual vehicle mileage the results suggest that consumers who are more attentive to fuel economy may be inclined to choose hevs moreover the existence of the direct rebound effect is confirmed by the finding that the purchase of an hev leads to an increase in annual mileage per household greater mileage increases future fuel cost savings from using an hev relative to a conventional vehicle and thus potentially leads to increased fuel cost savings that offset the extra cost of choosing an hev however if the purchase of hevs leads to a considerable increase in annual mileage overall annual automotive co2 emissions per household may be significantly increased by using hevs

how to deal with the rebound effect a policy oriented approach policy makers and environmental agencies have echoed concerns brought forward by academics about the need to address the rebound effect for achieving absolute energy and environmental decoupling however such concerns have generally not been translated into tangible policy action the reasons behind this inaction are not fully understood and much remains unknown about the status of the rebound effect issue on the policy agenda and policy pathways available such knowledge gaps may hamper the development of effective policies to address this issue in this paper we examine the extent to and ways in which the rebound effect is considered in policy documents and analyse thirteen specific policy pathways for rebound mitigation the effectiveness of the pathways is scrutinised and conclusions are offered to mitigate rebound effects the main policy conclusions of the paper are that an appropriate policy design and policy mix are key to avoiding undesired outcomes such as the creation of additional rebound effects and environmental trade offs from the discussion economy wide cap and trade systems as well as energy and carbon taxes when designed appropriately emerge as the most effective policies in setting a ceiling for emissions and addressing energy use across the economy

the income elasticity of household energy demand a quantile regression analysis this article examines variation in the income elasticity of household energy demand across the energy expenditure distribution using expenditure data from the five most recent household budget surv

should we stop meating like this reducing meat consumption through substitution high levels of meat consumption are increasingly being criticised for ethical environmental and social reasons plant based meat substitutes have been identified as healthy sources of protein that in comparison to meat offer a number of social environmental and health benefits and may play a role in reducing meat consumption however there has been a lack of research on the role they can play in the policy agenda and how specific meat substitute attributes can influence consumers to replace partially replace meat in their diets in this paper we examine consumers preferences for attributes of meat and meat substitute products and develop consumer segments based on these preferences the results of a choice experiment with 247 uk consumers using food labels and mince ground meat illustrate that the type of mince fat content country of origin and price are major factors that influence choice carbon footprint method of production and brand play a secondary role in determining consumers choices of meat meat substitutes latent class analysis is used to identify six consumer segments price conscious healthy eaters taste driven green organic and vegetarian consumers which have different socio demographic characteristics and meat consumption patterns future interventions and policies aimed at reducing meat consumption including labelling provision of more information financial incentives educational campaigns and new product development will be more effective if they are holistic and target specific consumer segments instead of focus on the average consumer

determinants of demand for green products an application to eco label demand for fish in europe abstract in this paper we confront the theoretical motivations of the consumption of eco friendly products and the factors influencing the european perceptions regarding the fact that fish caught using an environmentally friendly technique may carry a special label we take advantage of the recent integration of non economic elements in the microeconomic analysis of consumers behavior in order to highlight the factors leading to their demand for green products thanks to an original european survey on seafood product carried out on more than 5000 consumers we test the influence of intrinsic motivation information localization and socio economic factors on the demand for an eco label for fish our results show a significant connection between the desire for eco labeling and seafood features especially the freshness of the fish the geographical origin of the fish and the wild vs farmed origin of the fish moreover we prove the major role played by the fish price we also demonstrate that the ecological issue regarding fisheries is highly connected to consumer information intrinsic motivation and socio economic status the typical green fish consumer is a young woman well educated well informed on the state of marine resources and not very trusting of the regulation of the fisheries consumers who are aware of the importance of marine resource preservation have the same profile