The invisibility of energy and how to communicate less energy intensive lifestyles

For those working within the area of energy saving and conservation it’s not unusual for individuals to make comments such as: “It’s not worth it!”, “I already do everything I can”, and “There is nothing else I can do”. But evidence suggests this is rarely the case. The objective of this research is to contribute to the understanding of an approach to empower people to live less energy-intensive lifestyles. Previous research has already identified a number of initiatives that have targeted changing peoples’ energy consumption behaviour (Nye & Hargreaves, 2009) (Abrahamse, Steg, Vlek, & Rothengatter, 2005). What all of these initiatives have in common is that they intend to reduce commonly known barriers to action that consumers use to explain their inability to reduce energy consumption, such as price, lack of information, lack of perceived control. However, current research hasn’t yet agreed what is the “best” approach to promote behavioural change in this area. This is the focus of this research project that aims to explore the potential for encouraging low energy intensive lifestyles through constructing a framework to narrow the gap between social marketers and consumers. In general, three different fields have contributed to an understanding of what could be termed as the “irrational” behaviour of individuals: 1. economics - the idea of a rational individual in search of maximizing utility, making decisions based on “cost” and “information”. 2. sociology - an understanding that energy is “invisible” but a fundamental part of our daily lives ; our social practices (Spaargaren & Vliet, 2000) such as warming our house, enjoying a movie, preparing food. 3. Psychology - different frameworks exist for understanding behavioural change, and the connections between beliefs, expected outcomes, perceived behavioural control, actions and the behaviour itself. These frameworks share similar constructs such as self-efficacy, perceived control, and expected outcomes (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975) (Bandura, 1977). It is these constructs that we explore in this research and their links to effective communication initiatives. This paper not only reports on key literatures that have informed the research questions, it also begins to describe the process of building of a picture of the context in which the research ideas and outcomes will be explored. The research partners with a Portuguese energy agency whose aim is to increase low energy intensive lifestyles in Portugal. An initial survey of energy behaviours was carried out with a view to constructing a picture of individuals’ perceptions, attitudes and willingness to listen and to act upon messages concerning energy efficiency. A national survey to over a thousand Portuguese inhabitants highlighted that people are aware of what is socially expected from them. This was demonstrated by reported behaviours such as switching off the lights or appliances to avoid stand-by power-use. However Asked for the reasons why they save energy, many responded cost, followed by environmental reasons and resource savings. One striking finding was the amount of people reporting “I already do everything I can” (50.3%) and “I already save a lot or enough” (22.1%) especially since a significant number of people lacked awareness about their high energy consuming appliances or behaviours when asked to recall the energy consuming appliances they have at home. A perceived lack of self-efficacy, disbelief regarding the expected outcomes or the perceived lack of control among others, are common issues faced by social marketers in different areas. Adding to this the fact that energy is invisible and intangible to people, this could add additional complexity to efforts to promote behavioural change; energy behaviour change initiatives may well require different triggers and other emphases on peoples’ ability to reach different solutions and outcomes. For that reason this research intends to explore the role communication could play as an effective way to influence the constructs of perceived self-efficacy and perceived expected outcomes, in order to empower individuals into a collective effort towards a subjective social norm in the area of energy saving and conservation. To do so, this research intends to look not only at the area of energy but also at other areas to understand how self-efficacy and expected outcomes have been integrated within interventions, with the objective of mapping these perspectives against those of energy consumers. The intention is to highlight differences of perceptions and potential gaps which could inform future effective interventions for low energy intensive lifestyles.