influences on energy supply infrastructure a comparison of different theoretical perspectives changes to the energy supply infrastructure are a vital component of climate change mitigation strategies but what exactly underlies changes to energy supply infrastructure this paper through exploration and critical analysis of relevant literature explores the various underpinning influences on energy infrastructure supply using a comparison of different theoretical perspectives these influences were explored with specific emphasis on techno economics social psychology socio technical transitions social practices and institutional dimensions to energy supply the aim was to have a better understanding of the direct and indirect role of politics and the political system in influencing energy supply infrastructure decisions through the various theoretical lenses the study revealed that techno economics uses financial instruments and market information as intervention tools its effectiveness is measured by social welfare and cost effectiveness social psychology uses a combination of information incentives and innovative informative instruments as its intervention tools its effectiveness is measured by behavioural change institutions use regulatory instruments as its intervention tool its effectiveness is measured by regulatory compliance social practices look at change in broader social systems its effectiveness is measured by social change socio technical transitions focus on determining social movements and social innovations its effectiveness is measured by legitimacy and social learning

residential peak electricity demand response highlights of some behavioural issues electricity demand response refers to consumer actions that change the utility load profile in a way that reduces costs or improves grid security the focus of demand response has mainly been on the commercial and big industrial sectors because of the large demand reduction that they can offer to the utility grid operators utilities are showing increasing interest in residential demand response rdr rdr can be treated as an energy resource which can be assessed and commercially developed however there are still some issues that remain to be addressed for rdr to be successful these include price unresponsiveness of some residential consumers equity issues and high cost of the metering infrastructure the aim of this paper is to investigate and present some of the challenges in achieving effective voluntary demand reduction based on a review of residential demand response literature as well as the general residential energy use behaviour literature the authors propose the use of a hybrid engineering approach using social psychology and economic behaviour models to overcome these challenges and realize the benefits of supply security and cost management

a utility consistent combined discrete choice and count data model assessing recreational use losses due to natural resource damage abstract a two stage budgeting approach can often be taken when analyzing consumer choice situations in this paper we examine the particular situation where a consumer makes purchases of a discrete commodity of which there are a number of brands in the first stage the consumer decides how many purchases to make in the second stage the consumer decides how to allocate these purchases across brands our econometric approach to this type of situation uses a utility consistent combined discrete choice and count data model the second stage which is specified as a multinomial choice model produces a price index for the commodity which is used to estimate the first stage which is specified as a count data model we apply the model to recreational demand behavior in alaska in order to estimate the welfare losses suffered by recreational users due to the exxon valdez oil spill these results may provide useful input to government agencies attempting to estimate the appropriate level of taxes fines or regulations for deterring damage to the environment

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

site aggregation in a random utility model of recreation random utility models are commonly used to model the choice among a set of alternatives often due to data or computational constraints the analyst must use aggregated alternatives to estimate the model these aggregates are defined by averaging characteristics of alternatives over prespecified groups in this analysis we demonstrate that unless some very restrictive conditions hold the use of aggregated alternatives will lead to biased results then using a data set of recreational fishing in wisconsin we show the effects that this bias can have on the results estimated from the model

game theoretic modeling of increasing returns to scale abstract this paper surveys the analysis by means of cooperative game theory of economies in which there are increasing returns to scale in the first section necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of a core of a general equilibrium economy are considered in the second section the partial equilibrium approach to increasing returns production which developed along with the natural monopoly literature is surveyed the close relationship between the general equilibrium and partial equilibrium approaches is emphasized

heating homes understanding the impact of prices abstract studies show that energy prices have an impact on household energy consumption however these studies pay little attention to interpreting the findings and therefore little is known about how and why households respond to energy prices this paper provide an example of an interpretation of the impact of energy prices on consumption from a social practice theoretical perspective this paper investigates the impact of district heating price level on energy used for space heating and hot water by danish households living in single family detached houses the results show a moderately negative effect of the price level on consumption which is stronger in newer presumably more energy efficient houses and for higher income households however the effect varies across years which suggests that the price responsiveness is more a matter of changing everyday practices short term response than being able to afford energy improvements long term response in a practice theoretical perspective the results indicate that price differences have an impact on everyday practices where for example the aspect of energy in everyday practices is perceived as more valuable to practitioners in expensive areas compared to cheaper areas and that the meaning of price in practices is influenced by the social and material contexts

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

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

renewable micro generation of heat and electricity review on common and missing socio technical configurations abstract a widespread adoption of distributed generation dg technologies in energy systems can play a key role in creating clean reliable energy and support the targets of emission reduction a transition from current modes of production to a significant deployment of renewable energy technologies can fundamentally affect the structure of the industry and change the way energy is produced transmitted and sold the current paper provides an extended review of the socio technical configurations of micro generation based on journal publications and reports during the 21st century the paper analyses currently existing and missing configurations and discusses technology and policy implications to support proliferation of micro generation technology and local energy production from renewable sources the potential for new configurations can be found particularly in heat producing micro generation with solar heat heat pumps and biomass developing further the operations and maintenance of distributed generation technologies and business models appears an area that calls for further innovation and corresponding innovation policy measures third party service and community driven deployment models can aide the proliferation of distributed generation and further innovation therein justifying the introduction of feed in tariffs to attract such models during their early diffusion

on measuring energy poverty in indian households summary the relationship between energy and poverty is obvious and goes both ways recognizing this this paper provides a short overview of different approaches to measuring energy poverty it then presents a novel two dimensional measure of energy poverty and energy distribution that combines the elements of access to different energy types and quantity of energy consumed an assessment of the extent of energy poverty and changes in energy distribution pattern are analyzed by applying this measure to indian household survey data for 1983 2000 the analysis shows a significant reduction in the level of energy poverty and a rapidly developing subcontinent the new measure is a good complement to conventional monetary measures and is general enough to be applied to other developing countries

price information and bidding behavior in repeated second price auctions examining panel data on bidding behavior in over forty second price auction markets with repeated trials we observe that i posted prices influence the behavior of the median naive bidder ii posted prices do not affect the behavior of the median experienced bidder or the bidder for familiar goods and iii anticipated strategic behavior wanes after two trials the results suggest that while affiliation might exist in auctions for new goods the repeated trial design with nonprice information removes the correlation of values and provides the experience that bidders need to understand the market mechanism

perceived price complexity of dynamic energy tariffs an investigation of antecedents and consequences dynamic tariffs have the potential to contribute to a successful shift from conventional to renewable energies but tapping this potential in europe ultimately depends on residential consumers selecting them this study proposes and finds that consumer reactions to dynamic tariffs depend on the level of perceived price complexity that represents the cognitive effort consumers must engage in to compute the overall bill amount an online experiment conducted with a representative sample of 664 german residential energy consumers examines how salient characteristics of dynamic tariffs contribute to perceived price complexity subsequently a structural equation model sem reveals that the depth of information processing is central to understand how price complexity relates to consumers behavioral intentions the results suggest that it will be challenging to convince european consumers to select complex dynamic tariffs under the current legal framework policymakers will need to find ways to make these tariffs more attractive

residential implementation of critical peak pricing of electricity this paper investigates how critical peak pricing cpp affects households with different usage and income levels with the goalof informing policy makers who are considering the implementation of cpptariffs in the residential sector using a subset of data from thecalifornia statewide pricing pilot of 2003 2004 average load changeduring summer events annual percent bill change and post experimentsatisfaction ratings are calculated across six customer segments categorized by historical usage and income levels findings show thathigh use customers respond significantly more in kw reduction than dolow use customers while low use customers save significantly more inpercentage reduction of annual electricity bills than do high usecustomers results that challenge the strategy of targeting only high usecustomers for cpp tariffs across income levels average load and billchanges were statistically indistinguishable as were satisfaction ratesresults that are compatible with a strategy of full scale implementationof cpp rates in the residential sector finally the high use customersearning less than 50 000 annually were the most likely of the groups tosee bill increases about 5 percent saw bill increases of 10 percent ormore suggesting that any residential cpp implementation might considertargeting this customer group for increased energy efficiencyefforts

review of dynamic pricing programs in the u s and europe status quo and policy recommendations with the development of demand response dr technologies and increasing electricity demand dynamic pricing has been a popular topic in many countries this paper evaluates various dynamic pricing programs in the u s and europe and provides insights into various aspects including risks and rewards enabling technologies lower income groups and customer types surrounding programs such as time of use tou critical peak pricing cpp peak time rebates ptr and real time pricing rtp we conclude this paper with three main findings 1 policy coordination in promoting dynamic pricing programs between federal and state regulatory agencies is very critical 2 customer engagement is very important and can be enhanced via more accessible educational programs and policy adjustments and 3 more investment in related r d is required to construct a commonly accepted methodology for measuring the effectiveness of dynamic pricing programs

developing food labelling strategies multi level labelling abstract labelling is an important cue for consumers as it helps to quickly communicate information about a product or production process however the majority of labels on the market are binary such as labels that indicate whether a product was produced using animal welfare friendly standards or not or whether it was produced organically or not yet there are many intermediate qualities that binary labels do not display in turn this could lead to a market failure a multi level label can show different process standards of products explicitly nonetheless before launching a multi level labelling system it should be tested if a multi level labelling system can shift market shares in favour of the labelled products using a consumer study with 1538 german consumers and the example of animal welfare the shares of product choices are calculated two comparisons of the shares of product choices will be made one between no label and a binary label and the other between no label and a multi level label the results suggest that a multi level labelling system achieves higher market shares therefore boosts sustainability attributes and can result in higher revenues or sales the results deliver important information for policymakers and industry

extreme daily increases in peak electricity demand tail quantile estimation a generalized pareto distribution gpd is used to model extreme daily increases in peak electricity demand the model is fitted to years 2000 2011 recorded data for south africa to make a comparative analysis with the generalized pareto type gp type distribution peak electricity demand is influenced by the tails of probability distributions as well as by means or averages at times there is a need to depart from the average thinking and exploit information provided by the extremes tails empirical results show that both the gp type and the gpd are a good fit to the data one of the main advantages of the gp type is the estimation of only one parameter modelling of extreme daily increases in peak electricity demand helps in quantifying the amount of electricity which can be shifted from the grid to off peak periods one of the policy implications derived from this study is the need for day time use of electricity billing system similar to the one used in the cellular telephone and fixed line billing technology this will result in the shifting of electricity demand on the grid to off peak time slots as users try to avoid high peak hour charges

voting and paying for public goods an application of the theory of the core abstract let any coalition with a majority of all voters have the power to choose the quantities of public goods under rule i a majority coalition bears a cost of its decision that is proportional to its size under rule ii it must bear the whole cost of its decision thus rule i imposes costs on minorities although they have no power to choose the quantities of public goods while rule ii allows goods to have some attributes of semiprivate goods it is shown that a nonempty core under rule i implies a nonempty core under rule ii but not conversely necessary and sufficient conditions in terms of the properties of the von neumann morgenstern characteristic function are given

the process of industrialization from the perspective of energetic metabolism abstract this paper empirically analyzes the socioeconomic energy metabolism of austria in the period 1830 1995 during this period austria underwent a transition from being a largely agricultural society to being an industrial society we describe the changes associated with this transition in terms of the physical economy or more precisely in terms of changes in the throughput of energy assessed in physical units j per year in accordance with currently used methods of material flow accounting mfa we define the indicators direct input and domestic consumption with respect to socioeconomic energy flows using these indicators we analyze the transition from 1830 at which time biomass provided more than 99 of austria s domestic energy consumption dec to 1995 when biomass accounted for 30 and fossil energy for 60 of dec total dec in austria increased by a factor of 6 in this period the paper discusses the relevance of these changes for processes of interaction between society and its natural environment focusing on the interrelations between energy metabolism and changes in land use

how do consumers in developed countries value the environment and workers social rights in developing countries this paper uses a lab experiment to investigate developed countries consumer valuations of characteristics linked to the environment and workers social rights in developing countries it focuses on seafood products and distinguishes between regular environmentally friendly and fair trade varieties consumer valuations are elicited with a multiple price list results show that environmental and social labels have similar effects on participant willingness to pay when they are first presented using welfare variation coming from the labels we also show that the absence of negative information linked to the regular variety may lead to an underestimation of the value of information associated with the label

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

rural electrification in the developing world abstract rural electrification does not cause development electricity is a derived demand occurring only when an area has reached a certain economic level this has important consequences for the choice of areas for electrification rural electrification subsidies are generally excessive and tariffs need to be greatly increased renewable energy sources should be analysed on the same technical and economic basis as conventional supply systems particular care is required when considering photovoltaic systems for pre electrification community management may provide a means of electricity supply for some villages but the key questions are likely to be institutional and managerial rather than technical

experimental auction procedure impact on valuation of quality differentiated goods despite increased use of experimental auctions a myriad of different procedures are being employed without formal consideration of how the procedures might affect results this study investigates the effect of several procedural issues on valuation estimates from experimental auctions results indicate the second price auction generates higher valuations than english becker degroot marschak bdm and random nth price auctions especially in latter bidding rounds and that random nth price auction yields lower valuations than english and bdm auctions we find that endowing subjects with a good prior to eliciting bids can have an impact on valuations but the effect varies across auction mechanism

air conditioning and antibiotics demand management insights from problematic health and household cooling practices air conditioners and antibiotics are two technologies that have both been traditionally framed around individual health and comfort needs despite aspects of their use contributing to social health problems the imprudent use of antibiotics is threatening the capacity of the healthcare system internationally similarly in australia the increasing reliance on air conditioning to maintain thermal comfort is contributing to rising peak demand and electricity prices and is placing an inequitable health and financial burden on vulnerable heat stressed households this paper analyses policy responses to these problems through the lens of social practice theory in the health sector campaigns are attempting to emphasise the social health implications of antibiotic use in considering this approach in relation to the problem of air conditioned cooling and how to change the ways in which people keep cool during peak times our analysis draws on interviews with 80 australian households we find that the problem of peak electricity demand may be reduced through attention to the social health implications of air conditioned cooling on very hot days we conclude that social practice theory offers a fruitful analytical route for identifying new avenues for research and informing policy responses to emerging health and environmental problems

environmental friendly food choice experiment to assess consumer s attitude toward climate neutral milk the role of communication the livestock sector has a high impact in terms of carbon footprint lowering ghg emission from the livestock sector deals with implementing climate neutral production techniques in a cost effectiveness way and with developing market communication to make carbon free diary products competitive with alternative products this study aimed at analyzing how information and communications could impact or affect the consumer s attitude toward climate neutral fresh milk the research focused on a case study carried out in tuscany among a sample of supermarket customers to assess consumer attitude toward fresh climate neutral milk using choice experiments methods the participants were asked to attend a focus group meeting made of four different sessions during the first session participants were asked to fill a background questionnaire and to watch a short documentary video about the climate change risks a second session consisted in a choice experiment in which participants were presented with 12 choices each describing a scenario in which the milk key attributes were planned at different levels price organic labeling and carbon footprint labeling during the third session the focus group discussions was developed following a semi structured debate about environmental labeling climate neutral labeling and the environmental impact of individual s purchasing behavior in the fourth session participants were asked to express their preferences on the choice sets with the same scenarios presented in the second session in order to assess variation in individual willingness to pay wtp toward climate neutral and organic milk results show that communication could play a role in changing consumer attitude toward carbon free products

peak electricity demand and social practice theories reframing the role of change agents in the energy sector abstract demand managers currently draw on a limited range of psychology and economic theories in order to shift and shed peak electricity demand these theories place individual consumers and their attitudes behaviours and choices at the centre of the problem this paper reframes the issue of peak electricity demand using theories of social practices contending that the problem is one of transforming technologically mediated social practices it reflects on how this body of theory repositions and refocuses the roles and practices of professions charged with the responsibility and agency for affecting and managing energy demand the paper identifies three areas where demand managers could refocus their attention i enabling co management relationships with consumers ii working beyond their siloed roles with a broader range of human and non human actors and iii promoting new practice needs and expectations it concludes by critically reflecting on the limited agency attributed to change agents such as demand managers in dominant understandings of change instead the paper proposes the need to identify and establish a new group of change agents who are actively but often unwittingly involved in reconfiguring the elements of problematic peaky practices

consumers willingness to pay for eco friendly apples under different labels evidences from a lab experiment abstract an experiment was conducted in france to evaluate the impact of health and environmental information on consumers choices between conventional and organic apples results show that additional and precise messages about both pesticides use and pesticides residues significantly impact consumers choices between both products the experiment also studied the effect of a new label signaling apples that only use few pesticides compared to conventional apples with elicited willingness to pay we show that the introduction of this new label increases the average participants surplus whatever the information context for participants because of a higher quality compared to conventional apples and a lower price compared to organic products in order to complement this label a minimum quality standard imposing the use of few pesticides is socially optimal when initial participants knowledge is limited

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

explaining shifts in uk electricity demand using time use data from 1974 to 2014 abstract peaks in electricity demand generate significant negative environmental and economic impacts as a result recent policy and research attention has focused on the potential for temporal flexibility of demand especially in the context of intermittent low carbon generation much of this work emphasises the need to understand what makes up the peak and to engineer solutions to meet this normal consumption however today s patterns of temporal consumption may only be a snapshot of continuing change this paper uses uk household time use survey data to analyse change in temporal patterns of activities over the last 40 years to shed light on apparent temporal shifts in overall uk electricity demand the results highlight long term evolution in when and where people work travel eat use media and carry out social activities in particular they suggest that changing patterns of labour market participation may be contributing to shifts in food related personal home care and media activities which correlates with shifts in electricity demand we conclude that both stable and dynamic social structures and forms of organisation have direct implications for policy debates around current and future flexible demand side solutions

rural electrification and energy poverty empirical evidences from brazil the aim of this article is to evaluate the impact of rural electrification on the reduction of energy poverty in brazil through the analysis of 23 000 rural domiciles or rural properties between the years 2000 and 2004 the results indicate a fast change in the profile of energy consumption and a reduction of energy poverty this new approach works as a complement among other variables to analyze and quantify the real economic social and energy impacts in rural electrification programs generally applied in developing countries

sustainable food consumption among young adults in belgium theory of planned behaviour and the role of confidence and values abstract this study investigates determinants of sustainable food consumer behaviour in belgium to gain a better insight in sustainable consumption a study was conducted in which attitudes and behaviour as well as the role of individual characteristics like confidence and values related to sustainable products are analyzed the focus of the analysis is on exploring the influence of determinants as hypothesised by the theory of planned behaviour tpb attitudes perceived behavioural control social norms on sustainable consumption intention in general and specifically depending on consumer s perceived confidence and personal values the empirical research builds on a survey with a sample of 456 young adults using a questionnaire and showing an advertisement for hypothetical sustainable dairy products stepwise multiple regression models showed that 50 of the variance in intention to consume sustainable dairy was explained by the combination of personal attitudes perceived social influences perceived consumer effectiveness and perceived availability in addition different levels of confidence and value orientation yield different strengths of the determinants the findings yield public policy and marketing recommendations for stimulating sustainable food consumption among young adults

cost reflective electricity pricing consumer preferences and perceptions abstract in australia residential electricity peak demand has risen steeply in recent decades leading to higher prices as new infrastructure was needed to satisfy demand one way of limiting further infrastructure induced retail price rises is via cost reflective electricity network pricing that incentivises users to shift their demand to non peak periods empowering consumers with knowledge of their energy usage is critical to maximise the potential benefits of cost reflective pricing this research consulted residential electricity consumers in three australian states on their perceptions and acceptance of two cost reflective pricing scenarios time of use and peak capacity pricing and associated technologies to support such pricing smart meters in home displays and direct load control devices an energy economist presented information to focus groups on the merits and limitations of each scenario and participants views were captured almost half of the 53 participants were agreeable to time of use pricing but did not have a clear preference for peak capacity pricing where the price was based on the daily maximum demand participants recommended further information to both understand and justify the potential benefits and for technologies to be introduced to enhance the pricing options the results have implications for utilities and providers who seek to reduce peak demand

metering eu policy and implications for fuel poor households abstract fuel poverty is a function of household energy consumption income and the cost of delivered energy the paper discusses ways in which current eu policy on the development of smart metering could affect fuel poor households the main focus is on developments in electricity metering and the development of active demand and smart grids so that demand can be matched closely with available supply advances in metering and related technologies open the way to time of use charging easier switching between suppliers and between credit payment and prepayment direct load control of some end uses by the utility greater scope for microgeneration and improved consumption feedback for customers these options open up both uncertainties and risks the paper offers definitions and discussion of various functions of smart metering summarizes the eu policy background and considers some possible equity implications of rolling out a new generation of meters there follows an assessment of potential implications to the fuel poor of changes to metering based on a review of the literature on energy feedback tariffing and supplier customer relationships much of the discussion is based on the uk experience with examples from other eu member states and where appropriate from other parts of the world

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

managing the energy trilemma the case of indonesia abstract this article argues that a central challenge for energy governance is how to manage a complex energy trilemma involving the sometimes competing demands of energy security climate change mitigation and particularly in developing countries energy poverty it suggests that tensions between the horns of the trilemma in large part explain indonesia s current profoundly suboptimal energy policy while these tensions are not inherently incapable of resolution such resolution would require good governance at both state and global levels the possibilities for and obstacles confronting such governance are explored and provisional solutions canvassed

measuring consumers willingness to pay at the point of purchase abstract economists psychologists and marketing researchers rely on measures of consumers willingness to pay wtp in estimating demand for private and public goods and in designing optimal price schedules existing market research techniques for measuring wtp differ in whether they provide an incentive to consumers to reveal their true wtp and in whether they simulate actual point of purchase contexts the authors present an empirical comparison of several procedures for eliciting wtp that are applicable directly at the point of purchase in particular the authors test the applicability of becker degroot and marschak s 1964 well known incentive compatible procedure for assessing the utility of lotteries to measuring consumers wtp in three studies the authors explore the reliability validity and feasibility of the procedure and show that it yields lower wtp estimates than do non incentive compatible methods such as open ended and double bounded contingent valuation they show experimentally t

consumers willingness to pay for sustainable food products the case of organically and locally grown almonds in spain abstract organically and locally grown products have positive environmental impacts due to the reduction in the greenhouse emissions required for their production this paper contributes to this research stream by investigating consumers preferences and their willingness to pay for almonds that have different sustainable labels distance claims 100 km 800 km and 2000 km and the organic logo established by the european union to achieve the objective consumers participated in a non hypothetical choice experiment latent class modeling was employed to identify distinct patterns of valuation the results suggest that consumers were willing to pay a positive price premium for locally grown traveled the shortest distance and organically produced almonds whereas they were not willing to pay a price premium for almonds that have traveled longer distances moreover the findings show that consumer preferences for these claims were heterogeneous with three consumer segments identified as conventional consumers short distance consumers and sustainable consumers overall results confirm the results of previous studies because spanish consumers were willing to pay a premium price for those almonds that are organically and locally produced and therefore generate fewer greenhouse gases emissions the findings of this study added scientific value to scholars of sustainable consumer behavior because of the use of real choice experiment since no hypothetical evaluation method simulates real markets with real products and a transaction of money real choice experiment provides better approximations of true willingness to pay for organic and local almonds therefore real choice modeling eliminates hypothetical and social bias the results of this study contribute to insights in the promotion of sustainable consumption among citizens by policy makers in this regard promotional and educational campaigns could drive different segments of consumers to increase their knowledge on the benefits of reduction of the quantity of ghg emissions required for organic and locally grown production

do fair trade and eco labels in coffee wake up the consumer conscience abstract in this study a face to face survey was conducted in order to reveal consumer preferences for ethical and environmentally sound labeling programs in coffee valuation questions regarding the fair trade shade grown and organic coffee labels were asked using a payment card format after consumers were previously informed about each of the labeling programs results suggest that consumers are very receptive toward both fair trade and shade grown coffee labels and consequently are willing to pay higher premiums for these labeling programs than for the organic coffee

a theory of competition among pressure groups for political influence this paper presents a theory of competition among pressure groups for political influence political equilibrium depends on the efficiency of each group in producing pressure the effect of additional pressure on their influence the number of persons in different groups and the deadweight cost of taxes and subsidies an increase in deadweight costs discourages pressure by subsidized groups and encourages pressure by taxpayers this analysis unifies the view that governments correct market failures with the view that they favor the politically powerful both are produced by the competition for political favors

non universal nature of energy poverty energy services assessment of needs and consumption evidences from rural himachal pradesh abstract consumer behavior in rural ecosystems represents considerable variations vis a vis consumption of energy in different forms consumer preference towards any given energy service is a function of geographical situatedness local customs traditions and tastes including local weather conditions rural flavour of energy poverty has a distinctive micro character which can be understood in terms of socio cultural behaviourism of an energy consumer this geo spatial flavour further appears to be a function of socio economic functionalities of communities which could be socio culturally similar or different energy poverty is saddled with conceptual concentricity empirical evidence shows that the phenomena and the concept both are vulnerable in terms of operationalization by means of a single universal definition it exhibits contrarian hues in terms of availability access distribution affordability and acceptability of an energy service this study presents an alternative approach to understanding of both the phenomena and the associated conceptual construct the present paper is an explicit representation of the everyday grain of energy needs and consumption patterns in six rural socio cultural systems this study based upon fieldwork in the six villages viz bhadroya thapkour and gaghwal kangra district and kakira bidingi and talhara chamba district throws up interesting findings which challenge the contemporary discourse on energy poverty

influence of perceived value on purchasing decisions of green products in brazil abstract research on behavioral motivation for green product consumption has greatly advanced in recent years but many unknowns remain particularly regarding consumers willingness to pay premium prices for products with ecological appeal in this context this paper reports an experimental research that investigates the relationship between consumer perceived value for green products and price elasticity the research was performed using an adaptation of the model proposed by zeithaml 1988 and it was applied in the automotive and furniture sectors it was found that perceived value of green products increases willingness to pay in the purchasing decision it was also observed that demographical variables such as gender age and revenue positively impact perceived quality and the consequent purchase intention considering the population sampled results indicate that the effect of ecological appeal is similar to a 10 price reduction it means that according to the declared preference respondents were willing to pay on average a 10 premium for green products in the studied product categories the main theoretical contribution of our paper lies in furthering the understanding of how key dimensions that constitute perceived value relate to each other and to demographic and personal influence variables as well as its impact in willingness to pay premium prices for green products

recreation demand models with taste differences over people we estimate random parameter logit models of anglers choice of fishing site the models generalize logit by allowing coefficients to vary randomly over anglers rather than being fixed the models do not exhibit the restrictive independence from irrelevant alternatives property of logit and can represent any substitution pattern estimation explicitly accounts for the fact that the variation in coefficients over anglers induces correlation in unobserved utility over trips by the same angler willingness to pay for improved fish stock and the value to anglers of specific sites are calculated from the models and compared with the estimates obtained from a standard logit model

unveiling ethical product features the importance of an elaborated information presentation abstract despite growing consumer awareness of ethical consumption market sales are not growing accordingly because the presentation of appropriate ethical product information may influence consumers to choose ethical products this paper analyses the requirements necessary for the successful communication of ethical product features based on mcguire s 1976 information processing model and a review of current literature the information s comprehensibility meaningfulness and credibility are investigated in an online survey of us american citizens n 595 for two product categories representing fast moving consumer goods and durable goods a generalized mixed logit model revealed that all three communication factors affect consumers choices the more concerns about or expertise in organic production and fair trade purchase the consumers expressed the less important their price sensibility and the more they preferred a comprehensive addendum and credible sources e g government certificate or traceability the results strongly suggest that advertisers and marketers can customize product communications in order to better engage both the mass market and ethically oriented consumers

cleaner production towards a sustainable transition abstract this special volume of the journal of cleaner production was built principally upon articles submitted for the 5th international workshop advances in cleaner production held in sao paulo brazil in 2015 the 43 articles emphasize the imperative need for shifting from unsustainable production and societal patterns to sustainable ones they provide many new technological and or management related approaches to help industries governments and society to speed up the transition to sustainable patterns efforts on defining and solving problems with the special accent upon a sustainable solution for the use of raw materials and energy technological advances product and policy changes are presented and deeply discussed improved corporate management for sustainable societal transitions is discussed highlighting consumer empowerment in sponsoring implementation of innovative cleaner technologies within companies industrial sectors supply chains and countries multiple examples are provided relating the successful combination of cleaner production in policy structures illustrating on how the focused work in production sectors is delivering multiplier benefits and creating conditions to facilitate a leapfrogged path toward sd

designing more cost reflective electricity network tariffs with demand charges abstract there is growing policy and regulatory interest in better aligning electricity tariffs with the cost of providing network services to customers to provide a better price signal for economically efficient use of the network and reduce cross subsidies between different customers given that network costs are significantly driven by peak capacity requirements many proposals for more cost reflective tariffs include a demand capacity component however there are many complexities in the implementation of such tariffs this paper first presents a method to visually assess how cost reflective a particular demand charge network tariffs is we apply it to a typical demand charge network tariff proposal within the australian national electricity market and actual consumption data of 3876 sydney households and find it to have low cost reflectivity in terms of aligning customer bills with their contribution towards network peak demand such misalignment has potentially significant adverse impacts on the economic efficiency of such tariffs an issue that does not appear to have received sufficient policy attention we then use this assessment method to demonstrate how a demand charge tariff structure can be adjusted to make it significantly more cost reflective this method can be applied to any tariff that includes a capacity based component

rural electrification in zambia a policy and institutional analysis abstract zambia is well endowed with hydropower and other energy resources which could facilitate production of electricity for both urban and rural areas of the country the country has an installed electricity generation capacity of 1786 mw and undeveloped hydropower potential of over 6000 mw in the last few years demand has been growing and it is anticipated to outstrip supply in 2008 the load growth is attributed to increased mining activities and development of the industrial base the country is also endowed with abundant natural resources such as arable land water minerals and wildlife with the available resource base electricity along with other social and economic infrastructure such as roads and telecommunications could facilitate increased economic activities in rural areas electricity could be used for crop irrigation agro processing small scale mining and to facilitate tourism however rural electrification re faces many challenges such as long distances from existing power stations to targeted rural areas low population densities high poverty levels and low skills availability these and other factors have contributed to continued low levels of access to electricity in rural areas of the country measures so far undertaken to facilitate access to electricity in rural areas of zambia include the adoption of a new national energy policy nep in 1994 with regard to the electricity sector and re in particular the nep was aimed at facilitating increased access by liberalising and restructuring the electricity market and promoting the use of low cost technologies and decentralised renewable energies to facilitate implementation of the new policy the government established a legal and institutional framework by enacting new legislation namely the electricity act and the energy regulation act in 1995 the electricity act provided for liberalisation and regulation of the electricity sector while the energy regulation act provided for the establishment of an independent regulator so as to stimulate private sector participation and efficiency in addition a rural electrification fund ref and associated administration mechanism was established in 1995 however re continued to experience many challenges in 2003 the government enacted the rural electrification act leading to the establishment of an agency dedicated to re this paper analyses the policy legal and institutional measures implemented in zambia and assesses their potential or effectiveness to tackle some of the challenges facing re in the country so as to increase access and affordability

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