Browsing by Subject "energy"

Behavior change can be seen as one cornerstone in transiting to more sustainable energy cultures. Various implemented behavioral intervention experiments have been popular and successful in creating behavioral change during and/or right after the intervention period, however follow-up research examining the persistence of changed behavior has been limited. The empirical material of this thesis builds on a set of data collected in a European research project ENERGISE. The analysis utilizes the data collected from two Finnish living lab experiments performed in 2018, focusing the examination on the closing interviews conducted by the research team and the participants’ self-reported practices in the follow-up survey three months after the intervention. The analysis examines the formation of new practices in relation to their persistence in everyday life. Answers to open questions presented in the follow-up survey are also examined in the analysis, to fuller the representation of events. The sample of the research is not enough to make comprehensive statistical generalizations, instead it gives interesting insight on the durability of the effects of one energy intervention. The research questions guiding this thesis are: How did household practices change when households participated in an intervention? How persistent are the observed changes in practices post-intervention? What contributes to the persistence of treatment effects? This examination observed persistence of behavioral change post-intervention. This examination suggests that these encouraging results may be supported by a number of different factors; the broad perspective of energy practices that the intervention designed on practice theory provided and the making of household routines visible to participants to question and experiment with. In addition, the intervention techniques used as making commitments, goal setting, social comparison elements and providing energy feedback, which corroborate with prior intervention follow-up studies that have noted the importance of a carefully thought intervention design with these techniques, to support creating permanent behavioral change. Intervention designs should also in-clude a longer-term evaluation and further study investigating the factors contributing to creating permanent change should be implemented.

Everyday life of consumers revolves around housing, food and transport. Consumption related to these areas forms a burden to the atmosphere through direct or indirect energy consumption which causes climate warming GHG emissions. Climate change itself results in deepening global economic and humanitarian problems while the human populations constantly grows. In this quantitative study I researched the relationship between sociodemographic variables and residential location to attitudes towards climate change, possibilities of individual influence and political guidance of consumption. My target was to find perspectives on how to further sustainable consumption and the shift to ecological options. The empirical part drew on the 2016 European Social Survey’s Finnish material due to its comprehensiveness and the good quality. The data was analyzed using data processing program SPSS. Everyday life and sustainable consumption were studied using a practice theory approach. Everyday practices are routinized actions which are not actively given thought. Routines are formed to ease everyday life, but they stand as obstacles for change. These routines must be broken and there must be sufficient incentives for consumers to shift to new ways of executing practices. Consumption can be made more sustainable by changing its quality or quantity. Technological solutions offer more ecological options, but the level of consumption should be decreased as well. My analysis showed that education has a positive relationship with attitudes toward climate change, the probability to conserve energy, how one sees their own influence and responsibility as well as political guidance of consumption. Income had the same effect as education. Age and residential area had an opposite effect. With age grew skepticism and efforts to save energy dropped. Moving from large cities to the countryside the phenomenon was similar. Objection to political guidance was also strongest in the countryside. My observations showed that worriedness about climate change and perceived level of responsibility and possibilities of making change through one’s own actions increased the level of energy saving and the support for political guidance of consumption. Because consumption related to everyday practices is highly routinized breaking these routines is needed to enable change. This requires the understanding of one’s role as a consumer, supporting of the transition to more sustainable options of consumption and the guidance of market offerings through political decisions. In my opinion the role of education and young consumers in central in driving change.

Households account for a significant proportion of final energy consumption in Europe. Household energy consumption has been researched intensively and intervention studies aiming at changing energy behaviour have been popular. Previous intervention studies have mainly been concentrating on individual behaviour, and research analysing the role of contextual factors has been very limited. The aim of the thesis is to study the effects of geographical and cultural, material and institutional, and socioeconomic and demographic contexts on the outcomes of household energy use interventions. The data used in this thesis was collected in a European research project “ENERGISE”, in which interventions on two energy intensive household practices, space heating and laundry washing, were carried out. The data included 306 households from eight European countries: Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Finland, Hungary, Ireland and the UK. The data was analysed using the following methods: one-way ANOVA, independent samples t-test, Pearson’s correlation, and multiple linear regression. The following independent variables were tested: country, building type, baseline consumption levels, education level, employment status, family size, and age. The analyses were conducted in two phases. In the first phase, the main effects of the independent variables were tested. In the second phase, multiple regression models were built based on the results from the first phase. The intervention outcomes differ between some of the geographical contexts. Temperatures are reduced the most in Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands, and laundry cycles are reduced more in Denmark than in other countries during the interventions. Higher baseline consumption levels are connected to higher reductions in both household practices. Families with five or more persons reduce the room temperatures and laundry cycles less than smaller families. Households with contact person aged 55-64 reduce laundry cycles the least. Building type, contact person education level and contact person employment status are not connected to the intervention outcomes. The results confirm observations from previous studies, that context may significantly affect the successfulness of energy behaviour interventions and therefore it should be carefully considered in planning interventions. The results also suggest that different energy practices are likely to be affected by different sets of contextual factors. The thesis shows that conducting cross-national comparative research is challenging and it requires careful planning throughout the research process.