Who Is Behaving? Consequences for Energy Policy of Concept Confusion

Abstract

Policies to reduce household energy use usually target the individual customer. This is probably one explanation for the limited effect of many information policies, because two concepts with different meanings are confused: individual and household. In most contexts, an individual stands for what s/he does, but in the policy context, an individual is taken to represent the entire household. This is not problematic for a single-person household, but, in a multi-person household, activities performed by different household members influence the whole household's energy use. This paper illuminates problems arising from confusing the concepts of household and individual when developing policies to reduce household energy use. Examples relate to indoor space heating and energy-intensive home-based activities. The results indicate that it is analytically simple to consider individuals at home, as well as their activities using electrical appliances contributing to heating, but much more complicated to take the whole household into consideration. Our model provides a basis for better-targeted information actions to reduce energy use. Also, empirically based models capturing variations between households with different activity patterns are important for developing policies resulting in reduced energy use for space heating in multi-person households.

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“…While some consist only of nuclear family members, others include extended family or unrelated members. Yet household environmental impact, based on the amount of resources they consume in their day-to-day practices, is dependent on not only the number of members of a household but also on the dynamics between them (Ellegård & Palm, 2015). These results strengthen the claims made by other researchers that individuals are best understood as embedded in particular social contexts that shape consumption patterns (Kennedy et al, 2009;Lutzenhiser, 1992;Spaargaren, 2003).…”

Becoming FEW Conscious: A Conceptual Typology of Household Behavior Change Interventions Targeting the Food-Energy-Water (FEW) Nexus

“…We must also direct attention toward resource disparities by gender, race, and class within the context of any country under study. Ellegård and Palm (2015) further warned of confusing the individual with the household as a unit of analysis: "Individually tailored information is often discussed, but equally important are information and policy instruments targeting households' and household members' combined energy consumption patterns as they are derived from the activity sequences written in the individuals' time-diaries" [99] (p. 7633).…”

Erratum: Ellegård, K. and Palm, J. Who Is Behaving? Consequences for Energy Policy of Concept Confusion. Energies 2015, 8, 7618–7637

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Reference

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