Household acceptability of energy efficiency policies in the European Union: Policy characteristics trade-offs and the role of trust in government and environmental identity

Corinne Faure; Marie Charlotte Guetlein; Joachim Schleich; Gengyang Tu; Lorraine Whitmarsh; Colin Whittle

doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2021.107267

Household acceptability of energy efficiency policies in the European Union: Policy characteristics trade-offs and the role of trust in government and environmental identity

Corinne Faure, Marie Charlotte Guetlein, Joachim Schleich, Gengyang Tu, Lorraine Whitmarsh, Colin Whittle

Department of Psychology

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Abstract

This research investigates the acceptability of energy efficiency policies among European households. Based on large-scale surveys in Italy, Poland, Sweden, and the UK, we use a discrete choice experiment to study the trade-offs made by households between various policy characteristics including policy target level, dependence on energy imports, policy instruments (education and information programmes, standards, taxation, energy consumption limit), costs to the household, and distribution of costs between households and other sectors. In particular, we investigate the role of trust in government and of environmental identity on the acceptability of these policy characteristics. Across the four countries, we find that households prefer effective policies, dislike personal costs, and prefer non-coercive to coercive instruments; further, trust in government helps make coercive policies such as taxes more acceptable, whereas higher environmental identity makes consumption limits more acceptable.

Original language	English
Article number	107267
Journal	Ecological Economics
Volume	192
Early online date	28 Oct 2021
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2021.107267
Publication status	Published - 28 Feb 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This research benefitted from funding by the European Union's Horizon 2020 Framework Programme under the project CHEETAH - CHanging Energy Efficient Technology Adoption in Households (Grant agreement ID: 723716). We are grateful to the reviewing team for its insightful comments. We also acknowledge the help of members of the project consortium of the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research and of the Technical University of Vienna for their comments on the choice of attributes and attribute levels for the choice experiment.

Funding Information:
This research benefitted from funding by the European Union's Horizon 2020 Framework Programme under the project CHEETAH - CHanging Energy Efficient Technology Adoption in Households (Grant agreement ID: 723716). We are grateful to the reviewing team for its insightful comments. We also acknowledge the help of members of the project consortium of the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research and of the Technical University of Vienna for their comments on the choice of attributes and attribute levels for the choice experiment.

Keywords

Choice experiment
Energy efficiency policies
Policy acceptability
Policy instruments
Trust, environmental identity

ASJC Scopus subject areas

General Environmental Science
Economics and Econometrics

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.1016/j.ecolecon.2021.107267

Policy acceptability_Ecological Economics_R1_FINAL.PDFAccepted author manuscript, 626 KBLicence: CC BY-NC-ND

Cite this

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abstract = "This research investigates the acceptability of energy efficiency policies among European households. Based on large-scale surveys in Italy, Poland, Sweden, and the UK, we use a discrete choice experiment to study the trade-offs made by households between various policy characteristics including policy target level, dependence on energy imports, policy instruments (education and information programmes, standards, taxation, energy consumption limit), costs to the household, and distribution of costs between households and other sectors. In particular, we investigate the role of trust in government and of environmental identity on the acceptability of these policy characteristics. Across the four countries, we find that households prefer effective policies, dislike personal costs, and prefer non-coercive to coercive instruments; further, trust in government helps make coercive policies such as taxes more acceptable, whereas higher environmental identity makes consumption limits more acceptable.",

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note = "Funding Information: This research benefitted from funding by the European Union's Horizon 2020 Framework Programme under the project CHEETAH - CHanging Energy Efficient Technology Adoption in Households (Grant agreement ID: 723716). We are grateful to the reviewing team for its insightful comments. We also acknowledge the help of members of the project consortium of the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research and of the Technical University of Vienna for their comments on the choice of attributes and attribute levels for the choice experiment. Funding Information: This research benefitted from funding by the European Union's Horizon 2020 Framework Programme under the project CHEETAH - CHanging Energy Efficient Technology Adoption in Households (Grant agreement ID: 723716). We are grateful to the reviewing team for its insightful comments. We also acknowledge the help of members of the project consortium of the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research and of the Technical University of Vienna for their comments on the choice of attributes and attribute levels for the choice experiment. ",

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Household acceptability of energy efficiency policies in the European Union: Policy characteristics trade-offs and the role of trust in government and environmental identity

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

UN SDGs

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