Lifestyles and Their Impact on Energy-Related Investment Decisions

Abstract

This paper presents an empirical survey of energy-related investment decisions made by private households in Germany. The investment behaviour is segmented and discussed by applying the milieu approach. The decision makers are clustered in certain lifestyles, as represented by the Sinus-Milieus® from the Sinus Institute. To analyse the relationship between the lifestyles of house owners and their energy-related investment decisions, telephone interviews were conducted in order to acquire data on currently installed heating systems and preferences for future heating systems in private residential buildings. The results of the survey support the hypothesis of a link between lifestyles and the energy-related investment behaviour. Based on the observed relationship between lifestyles and decisions on energy technologies, predictions of energy trends in private residential buildings can be improved. In addition, the knowledge about specific development paths allows the utilisation of the information for information campaigns and the promotion of energy supply technologies which lead to lower CO<sub>2</sub>-emissions

Drivers of renewable technology adoption in the household sector

“…Most recent examples include Alyousef et al (2016) for PV systems and Kastner and Matthies (2016) for ST systems. We also exclude studies using qualitative and descriptive methods concentrating predominantly on the decisionmakers' motivations (Karakaya et al 2015;Kotilainen et al 2017;Sonnberger 2015) or lifestyle (Gröger et al 2011). and Madlener, 2012 and2016). The authors concede that the information value of the results is limited by the circumstance that their dataset consists of households that had invested in a renewable heating system and had actively applied for a government grant (Michelsen and Madlener, 2013: 225).…”

Privacy cynicism: A new approach to the privacy paradox

“…The focus group participants in this article were recruited along the Internet milieus by the cooperating market and social science research institute. The Internet milieus are largely in line with the older concept of Sinus-Milieus®, developed in the 1980ies (Otte, 2004;Gröger et al, 2011). The Internet milieu typology was originally developed in two steps: with 60 qualitative interviews in a first step and a large face-to-face (computer-assisted) survey with 2047 respondents in a second step.…”

“…This milieu categorization goes back to the "Sinus-Milieus®", which were developed in the 1980ies by the German market and social science research company Sinus. Subsequently, the Sinus-Milieus® were applied in many contexts and for various questions, mainly in the German-speaking world [Gröger, Schmid and Bruckner (2011) offer a summary in English, and Otte (2004) evaluates the typology in German].…”

The dark side of online participation: exploring non-, passive and negative participation

“…Internet milieus are largely in line with the older concept of Sinus-Milieus®, developed in the 1980ies (Otte, 2004;Gröger, Schmid & Bruckner, 2011). The Internet milieu typology was originally developed in two steps: with 60 qualitative interviews in a first step and a large face-to-face (computer-assisted) survey with 2047 respondents in a second step.…”

“…This milieu categorization goes back to the Sinus-Milieus®, which were developed in the 1980s. Subsequently, the SinusMilieus® were applied in many contexts, mainly in the German-speaking world (Gröger, Schmid & Bruckner, 2011;Otte, 2004).…”