technology adoption consumer inattention and heuristic decision making evidence from a uk district heating scheme this paper contributes to the debate on the energy efficiency paradox according to which consumers fail to adopt cost effective energy efficient technologies over less efficient technologies and therefore fail to reduce energy consumption both traditional and behavioural theories are used to investigate the decision making process of residential consumers with empirical evidence based upon a specially designed quasi experimental survey of 784 households on the decision to connect to a district heating system a more energy efficient alternative to individual heating systems the results suggest an internal discount rate of around 36 per cent for homeowners a signal that consumers undervalue future energy costs we also find the household s decision to be negatively affected by years of payback up to around 7 8 years our findings suggest that neglecting consumer inattention and heuristics can lead to biases which cast doubt on the existence of the energy efficiency paradox we believe that these results help to explain why some consumers are unlikely to invest in energy efficient technology particularly those on low incomes

distributed photovoltaic power generation possibilities benefits and challenges for a widespread application in the mexican residential sector mexico plans to implement a national program to support the adoption of distributed photo voltaic generation dpvg among qualified households the main objectives of such a program would be to reduce the burden of the substantial federal energy subsidy and increase the share of renewable energy sources used to generate electricity in this paper we assess the current conditions under which the mexican residential electricity sector operates and quantify the potential effects that the massive adoption of dpv systems would have on household expenditure and welfare subsidy reduction pollution and water resource usage based on the positive results in terms of both economic and environmental effects our paper provides a significant support for further design and implementation of a dpvg program

exploring factors that influence social retail investors decisions evidence from desjardins fund most studies on the choices motivations and behavior of investors consist of segmentations focused on socio demographic characteristics such as age income education level etc such approaches seem to simplify even mutilate reality by aggregating data about observable variables and considering investors as homogeneous groups these perspectives are inspired by a scientific approach that consists of separating in order to better understand the observed phenomena by considering individual as a homo economicus that is to say a rational and autonomous individual who makes decisions motivated by material gains these studies fail to recognize all the complexity that shapes human behavior this paper argues that to understand the behavior and choices of investors in regards to socially responsible investing sri we must consider social investors as complex individuals in addition we should take into account influence that the institution may exercise throughout the role of advisors and sri promotion strategies our research builds on a multidimensional approach that explores to what extent demographic environmental social and governance esg issues the trade offs between financial return and social values the attitudes and the role of the institution throughout the role of the advisor and sri promotion strategies influence the decisions of individual social investors moreover it adopts a more open approach by exploring the characteristics and behaviors of individual social investors in relation to those of conventional investors our research provides evidence from the desjardins fund qualitative and quantitative data gathered by desjardins from online surveys are subjected to bivariate and multivariate analyses and are complimented by ten semi structured interviews with managers analysts and advisors who provided further insight into sri investment behavior and choice the results show that while demographic characteristics still remain important in understanding the behavior and attitudes of social investors it is their social values esg issues financial return considerations and the role played by the institution in mediating investment decisions that are significantly associated with sri portfolios our research highlights the complexity surrounding the phenomenon of sri and has several implications both in terms of theory and practice

investment inefficiency and the adoption of eco innovations the case of household energy efficiency technologies abstract this paper examines the factors determining household adoption of energy efficiency eco innovations we do so by testing hypotheses grounded in diffusion and finance theory and the literature on the barriers to energy efficiency using two large surveys of uk households we explore the adoption of nine technologies our results indicate investment inefficiency amongst household adopters occurs for two reasons first contrary to notions of rational choice we find a negative relationship between the investment return of technologies and their level of diffusion second we show adopters of these technologies display characteristics broadly consistent with diffusion theory contradicting the prediction of finance theory that investment return not individual characteristics should drive adoption we also find that policy has played a role in inducing the diffusion of these technologies and that tenure and spill over effects are important in adoption finally adoption is motivated more by a desire to save money than by environmental concern we conclude by giving examples of how our research can lead to better policy timing and targeting

energy tax credits and housing improvement this paper investigates whether federal and state tax credits allowed to households who make energy saving improvements to their residence lead to an increase in improvement activity a two period utility maximization model of household behaviour is used to determine the theoretical influence of tax credits energy prices and other factors on the optimal magnitude of conservation capital improvement regressions using various qualitative measures of conservation improvement as the dependent variable are estimated using household level energy consumption and improvement data consistent with evidence from earlier surveys the empirical results do not support the hypothesis that energy tax credits lead to more widespread or more extensive energy conservation improvement activity

how households in pakistan take on energy efficient lighting technology abstract a household survey in pakistan is used to examine drivers of more efficient compact fluorescent light bulb cfl adoption and the impact of cfl adoption on the demand for lighting services higher price of a cfl to an incandescent bulb ib and limited knowledge about the life span of cfls versus ibs are found to lower adoption rates by as much as 20 while cfl adoption increases the technical efficiency of household lighting the lower cost for lighting services results in estimated rebound effects that decrease potential energy savings by 23 to 35 due to increased brightness and extended hours of use these findings have important implications for household welfare and cost benefit tradeoffs for cfl projects

switch off the light please energy use aging population and consumption habits abstract in parallel with worldwide population growth europe is experiencing a fast demographic shift widely studied but generally undervalued by policymakers population aging may imply smaller household sizes and more home based energy consumption which will change the energy mix consumer preference shifts and different attitudes towards environment among the generations determine additional effects study of the link between an aging population and energy demand is even more important for italy because its energy dependence is almost complete and its population is aging quickly this paper aims to assess the role of changing generational preferences in the energy expenditure trend in italy by distinguishing between a pure age effect and a cohort effect the decomposition shows significant differences in the shape of age and cohort effects thus confirming that beside an aging effect we must consider that recent generations have a higher residential energy expenditure indeed the energy culture of post war italian generations seems more linked to thermal comfort heating and air conditioning than to environmental attitudes

more efficient household electricity use since 1973 the efficiency of most energy uses in homes has improved throughout the oecd 1 this means that to provide a given amount of energy service for example heating cooling locomotion or mechanical force less energy is required today than was needed in the past these improvements have been gained through the introduction of new appliances and for space heating and cooling new homes with more efficient building shells and the retrofitting of the existing building stock in this report we analyse some of the past changes in the efficiency of household appliance electricity use and discuss prospects for and barriers to further increases in the future

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

regional distribution of photovoltaic deployment in the uk and its determinants a spatial econometric approach abstract photovoltaic pv panels offer significant potential for contributing to the uk s energy policy goals relating to decarbonisation of the energy system security of supply and affordability the substantive drop in the cost of panels since 2007 coupled with the introduction of the feed in tariff fit scheme in 2010 has resulted in a rapid increase in installation of pv panels in the uk from 26 5mwp in 2009 to over 5gw by the end of 2014 yet there has been no comprehensive analysis of the determinants of pv deployment in the uk this paper addresses this gap by employing spatial econometrics methods to a recently available data set at a fine geographical detail following a traditional regression analysis a general to specific approach has been adopted where spatial variations in the relationships have been examined utilising the spatial durbin model using the cross sectional data relating to the uk nuts level 3 data empirical results indicate that demand for electricity population density pollution levels education level of households and housing types are among the factors that affect pv uptake in a region moreover lagrange multiplier test results indicate that the spatial durbin model may be properly applied to describe the pv uptake relationship in the uk as there are significant regional spillover effects

what s driving energy efficient appliance label awareness and purchase propensity the eu appliance energy consumption labeling scheme is a key component of efforts to increase the diffusion of energy efficient household appliances in this paper the determinants of consumer knowledge of the energy label for household appliances and the choice of class a energy efficient appliances are jointly estimated using data from a large survey of more than 20 000 german households the results for five major appliances suggest that lack of knowledge of the energy label can generate considerable bias in both estimates of rates of uptake of class a appliances and in estimates of the underlying determinants of choice of class a appliance simulations of the choice to purchase a class a appliance given knowledge of the labeling framework reveal that residence characteristics and in several cases regional electricity prices strongly increase the propensity to purchase a class a appliance but socio economic characteristics have surprisingly little impact on appliance energy class choice

exploring the diffusion of low energy houses an empirical study in the european union abstract diffusion of low energy houses is an important part of energy and climate policy in the european union eu and in individual eu countries key barriers to the adoption of low energy houses include additional construction costs and uncertainty surrounding actual energy and cost savings in this paper we econometrically analyze determinants of low energy house adoption including time and risk preferences we rely on original data from a large survey conducted among households in eight eu countries to our knowledge this is the first empirical study of low energy building adoption to rely on a demographically representative sample our set of covariates includes parameters of time and risk preferences that were elicited via state of the art incentivized multiple price list experiments and via self assessment scales we find mixed results for the effects of time discounting on low energy house adoption risk preferences do appear to matter as risk proneness increases so does the adoption of zero net or energy plus building but not passive houses consistent with the low cost hypothesis about environmental attitude and action we find no results for environmental attitudes and social norms

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

is the income elasticity of environmental improvements less than one we estimated the income elasticity of environmental improvements for a number of european data sets the value of this parameter is consistently found to be less than one with few exceptions our findings are compared with state of the art contingent valuation studies from other countries we also compared our findings with those reported in the literature on charitable donations and corporate donations these studies show a similar pattern donations decrease as a percentage of income as income increases

environmental ideology and household energy conservation in beijing abstract during a period of extraordinary urban growth china s per capita carbon footprint could soar a growth in households willingness to purchase green products and to engage in voluntary restraint could help offset this pollution increase as the free market will design products to cater to this group of consumers we study whether chinese urbanites who label themselves as environmentalists consume fewer resources than the average urbanite based on a sample of beijing s micro data drawn from the household survey on energy consumption in china we document the association between a household s environmental ideology and its energy conservation behavior our findings imply that government s demand side efforts such as environmental education and persuasion may help to bring about more sustainable behaviors

differing cultures of energy security an international comparison of public perceptions this study reviews how energy users perceive the importance of energy security dimensions it asks how does the sense of energy security vary with culture its primary source of data is a summary of survey distributed in eight languages to almost 2500 respondents in brazil china denmark germany india kazakhstan japan papua new guinea saudi arabia singapore and the united states it utilizes an energy literacy test in denmark as a secondary data tool the survey results are used to test nine hypotheses about national economic political professional and epistemic cultures the study concludes by affirming the complexity of energy security as a cultural topic by emphasizing how answers among respondents tended to converge more than diverge and by calling for further research

adoption of low cost energy efficiency measures in the tertiary sector an empirical analysis based on energy survey data this paper empirically explores factors driving the adoption of low cost energy efficiency measures in the tertiary sector which mainly consists of public and private services trade commerce and some small industries the measures considered include switching off installations or lighting managing energy use and routinely considering energy efficiency for new purchases our statistical analysis employs single and multivariate probit models relying on more than 1500 observations from a recent representative survey of the tertiary sector in germany the findings suggest that the landlord tenant dilemma holds for the adoption of all low cost energy efficiency measures considered they further imply that financial incentives such as higher energy prices accelerate the diffusion of low cost energy measures our findings also provide some evidence that knowledge transfer from the mother company to a subsidiary enhances the diffusion of low cost energy efficiency measures likewise public sector organizations are more likely to adopt energy management by and large though sectoral heterogeneity appears to have little impact on the adoption of low cost energy efficiency measures

communications on energy household energy conservation abstract this study assesses the influence of attitudinal and socio economic factors on household energy conservation actions a household interview survey in regina saskatchewan found that respondents perceive an energy problem although no association with energy conservation actions was determined two attitudinal and five socio economic variables influence household energy conservation energy and monetary savings are available to households through energy conservation public awareness of household energy conservation through the media can reinforce existing energy conservation actions and encourage new actions

willingness to pay for improved air quality in sweden the aim of the paper is to quantify individual willingness to pay measures of improved air quality in sweden by using the contingent valuation method cvm such measures are important for policy makers when deciding about public investments and policy instruments in order to regulate environmental impacts e g from road transportation and industry the mean willingness to pay wtp for a 50 reduction of harmful substances where the respondents live and work was about 2000 sek year which is of the same order of magnitude as earlier stated preference studies in nordic countries most parameters in the econometric analysis had the expected sign wtp was increasing in income wealth and education it was larger for men members of environmental organizations people living in big cities which are on average more polluted and people who own their house or apartment it was lower for retired people however the additional wtp for people in big cities although significantly higher than for other people

effects of feedback on residential electricity demand findings from a field trial in austria abstract this paper analyzes the effects of providing feedback on electricity consumption in a field trial involving more than 1500 households in linz austria about half of these households received feedback together with information about electricity saving measures pilot group while the remaining households served as a control group participation in the pilot group was random but households were able to choose between two types of feedback access to a web portal or written feedback by post results from cross section ols regression suggest that feedback provided to the pilot group corresponds with electricity savings of around 4 5 for the average household our results from quantile regressions imply that for households in the 30th to the 70th percentile of electricity consumption feedback on electricity consumption is statistically significant and effects are highest in absolute terms and as a share of electricity consumption for percentiles below or above this range feedback appears to have no effect finally controlling for a potential endogeneity bias induced by non random participation in the feedback type groups we find no difference in the effects of feedback provided via the web portal and by post

facade insulation retrofitting policy implementation process and its effects on health equity determinants a realist review abstract fuel poverty and cold housing constitute a significant public health problem energy efficiency interventions such as facade retrofitting address the problem from a structural and long term perspective despite evidence of the health benefits of insulation little is known about the political and social contexts that contribute to social inequalities in receiving and experiencing health benefits from these interventions we used a realist review methodology to better understand the mechanisms that explain how and why variations across different social groups appear in receiving energy efficiency facade retrofitting interventions and in their impact on health determinants we considered the four stages of the policy implementation framework public policy approach policy receiving intervention and impact on health determinants we found strong evidence that certain social groups low income renters elderly suffering most from fuel poverty experience more barriers for undertaking a building retrofitting due to factors such as upfront costs presentism thinking split incentives disruption and lack of control and that some public policies on housing energy efficiency may exacerbate these inequalities this can be avoided if such policies specifically aim at tackling fuel poverty or social inequities are completely free to users target the most affected groups and are adapted to their needs

residential energy efficient technology adoption energy conservation knowledge and attitudes an analysis of european countries abstract relationships between measures of household energy use behavior and household characteristics are estimated using a unique dataset of approximately 5000 households in 10 eu countries and norway family age composition patterns are found to have a distinct impact on household energy use behavior households with young children are more likely to adopt energy efficient technologies and energy conservation practices and place primary importance on energy savings for environmental reasons by contrast households with a high share of elderly members place more importance on financial savings and have lower levels of technology adoption energy conservation practice use and knowledge about household energy use education levels also matter with higher levels associated with energy efficient technology adoption and energy conservation practice use similarly university education increases the stated importance of energy savings for greenhouse gas reductions and decreases the stated importance for financial reasons education impacts also vary greatly across survey countries and there is some evidence of an eastern western european divide with respect to attitudes towards energy savings these cross country differences highlight the need to balance a common eu energy efficiency policy framework with flexibility for country specific policies to address unique constraints to energy efficient technology and conservation practice adoption

green returns to education does schooling contribute to pro environmental behaviours evidence from thailand we investigate whether there are green returns to education where formal education encourages pro environmental behaviours using nationally representative surveys on environmental issues in thailand to establish the causal relationship between education and green behaviours we exploit the instrumental variables strategy using the supply of state primary schooling i e the corresponding number of teachers per 1000 children which varies over time and across regions as the instrument while controlling for regional cohort and income effects we find that more years of schooling lead to a greater probability of taking knowledge based environmentally friendly actions a great deal but not cost saving pro environmental actions in addition the paper finds no significant impact of formal education on concern about global warming nor the willingness to pay for environmental tax

the devil is in the details household electricity saving behavior and the role of information abstract the purpose of this paper is to analyze swedish households willingness to increase their daily efforts to save electricity the analysis builds on a broad theoretical framework which embraces both economic and norm based motivations in explaining household behavior the paper pays particular attention to the role of information about the availability of different behavioral changes that can be undertaken at the household level the empirical results are based on a postal survey that was sent out to 1200 swedish households and the econometric analysis is carried out within a so called ordered probit framework our results indicate that costs environmental attitudes and social interactions are all important determinants of electricity saving activities within swedish households we tested the hypothesis that information about available savings measures that is presented in a more concrete and specific way is more likely to affect stated behavior than is more general information and the data collected support this notion the paper ends by discussing some implications of these results for the design of future informative policy measures in the energy efficiency field

dyed in the wool an empirical note on fan loyalty this article attempts to investigate empirically the strength of intracity football club support and seeks to test the commonly held belief among the sports community that supporters will not switch allegiance between city rivals very readily to test this phenomenon data on the attendances of five english and two italian city rival clubs is used to conduct a cointegration analysis the results imply that a stable relationship does not exist between the attendance series which throws doubt on the proposition that supporters of a team are unlikely to switch their support to a rival club to test the possibility that this result could be due to fickle supporters ceasing to attend a sensitivity analysis is conducted between attendances and performance

estimating energy conservation patterns of greek households abstract this paper develops an empirical model to investigate the main determinants of household energy conservation patterns in greece employing cross section data in the empirical analysis household energy conserving choices models are employed using a discrete and a latent trait variable respectively as a dependent variable the results show that socio economic variables such as consumers income and family size are suitable to explain differences towards energy conservation preferences in addition the results suggest that electricity expenditures and age of the respondent are negatively associated with the number of energy conserving actions that a consumer is willing to adopt finally other variables such as environmental information feedback and consciousness of energy problems are characteristics of the energy saver consumer by evaluating consumer s decision making process with regards to energy conservation measures we are able to formulate and propose an effective energy conservation framework for greece an energy policy framework is among the main prerequisites not only to achieve sustainable development but also to maintain consumers quality of life

an econometric analysis of residential expenditures on energy conservation and renewable energy sources abstract economic theory suggests that residential expenditures on energy conservation and renewable energy sources will be determined by the ability of households to purchase conservation inputs their incentive to invest in conserving energy the energy efficiency of existing homes and miscellaneous factors such as climate and age of the home owner empirical analyses of energy related expenditures reported on individual income tax returns confirm the importance of household income energy price increases and climate conditions in determining energy conservation investments income tax credits are also found to have stimulated residential spending on conservation and renewable energy

regional differences in the dynamic linkage between co2 emissions sectoral output and economic growth environmental degradation measured by co2 emissions is a significant challenge to sustainable economic development owing to significant differences in the empirical relationship between the economic growth and co2 emissions and policies adopted by different countries to overcome the challenge are not decisive this study aims to generalize our knowledge about the relationship between co2 emissions per capita and economic growth across the world for 1980 2009 periods besides it explores whether the transformation of different economies e g agrarian to industrial and industrial to sophisticated service economy over the past few decades yielded any significant positive impact towards sustainable economic development by reducing the level of co2 emission empirical results suggest that i except for high income countries environmental kuznets curve ekc is a general phenomenon across the world and ii the transformation of different economies towards a service economy has produced more pollution in high income countries and less pollution in low and middle income countries

power to change analysis of household participation in a renewable energy and energy efficiency programme in central australia the australian government funded a national solar city program 2008 2013 to support communities to increase adoption of energy efficiency measures and renewable energy technology one community was alice springs a town with about 9000 households in the geographic centre of australia the programme offered a package of support free energy audits discounts for the purchase of renewable energy technology and energy efficiency measures and ongoing information households that adopted solar hot water and photovoltaic systems reduced their electricity usage immediately after adoption by 10 and 34 respectively and this was maintained in the long term a small rebound effect of 15 was observed in the photovoltaic adopters it was observed that on average households that adopted only energy efficiency measures did not have a significant reduction in their electricity usage over the long term however consistent with expectations this study did show that there was a significant correlation between the number of energy efficiency measures adopted and the greatest household reduction in electricity usage these contrary results indicate that there are additional factors involved the connection between the effective use of measures coincident behavioural change or increased energy awareness and greater energy reduction is discussed

do children matter an examination of gender differences in environmental valuation abstract this paper is concerned with the role played by children in a household on choice behaviour related to willingness to pay wtp for environmental goods improvements data from a contingent valuation cvm survey dealing with three environmental improvements are used to examine three hypotheses the first is that after controlling for income individuals with children have higher wtp than childless individuals the second hypothesis is that women with children are willing to pay more for environmental improvements than men with children particularly in the case where there is concern for environmental health risks the third is that childless men and women exhibit significant differences in wtp that arise from greater time constraints faced by women estimated wtp functions are shown to be statistically different for four groups of individuals women with children men with children women without children and men without children parents of either gender are willing to pay more than their childless counterparts valuations of mothers and fathers are statistically different for only one of the three goods being evaluated interestingly it is the fathers mean valuations that are higher this may arise from the fact that these environmental improvements lead to better recreational opportunities and as indicated earlier men are less time constrained further support for this view comes from results that show that valuations of childless men are significantly greater than those for childless women for two goods the paper concludes with some directions for future research in the area