Climate News 25:18
Behaviour change interventions to reduce household energy often face criticism from those who would prefer technical solutions, such as purchasing and installing heat pumps, reverse cycle air-conditioners, and insulation.
Leaving aside that the active purchasing is itself a choice behaviour, practitioners need to think about where behaviour change interventions fit in shifting households to lower energy consumption technologies, and how they can act as a precursor. A new paper examining the use of social nudging to reduce energy consumption considers this conundrum. Social nudging includes interventions that specifically leverage social norms and comparisons. This can include benchmarking against one’s peers or messaging that draws on strong group identity, to encourage energy saving behaviours. The paper considers the effectiveness of such behavioural interventions across different countries, and their role in moving towards locking in household energy emission reductions through the purchase of technologies. In addition to noting that practitioners should apply different types of norms for different audiences, it also notes that behavioural change projects can achieve a degree of equity in the energy transition for those households unable to invest in dramatic structural changes to their homes. Understanding this is necessary to ensure that we don’t apply solutions based on ‘middle class assumptions’ and that behaviour change has a dual role to play: to help households that can’t afford the necessary electrification technologies and to pave the way for technological investment for those who can afford it but may need persuasion. It doesn’t have to be behaviour change or technology. Electrification is a big jump. Behaviour change can help make that easier or it can be the jump that brings real change for some households.
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