رفتارهای صرفه جویانه در انرژی و سرمایه گذاری در بهره وری انرژی: بریتانیا Factors affecting energy-saving behaviours and energy efficiency investments in British households

1. Introduction The UK government is committed to reducing carbon emissions by at least 80% (from the 1990 baseline) by 2050 and to improving the energy efficiency of the UK’s residential building stock (HM Parliament, 2008). Achieving significant improvements in the energy efficiency of the UK’s housing stock has the potential to contribute substantially to the three challenges of the energy trilemma. Such improvements not only would decarbonise the energy system but also would ensure that the energy supply is secure and that energy is affordable (World Energy Council, 2016). Moreover, better levels of energy efficiency can improve occupants’ health (and thus reduce the burden on the National Health Service), safety, and comfort, in addition to lowering maintenance costs and making homes a nicer place in which to live (IEA, 2014c; Payne et al., 2015). However, the UK’s housing stock is amongst the oldest and least energy efficient in Europe. Meeting the UK’s longterm carbon emissions target implies that “one building would need to be retrofitted every minute for the next 40 years at an estimated cost of £85 billion for homes alone” (Dixon and Eames, 2013). The recent failure of the UK government’s flagship energy efficiency policy such as the withdrawal of funding from the Green Deal Home Improvement Fund (GDHIF) has placed a sharp focus on the issue of energy demand reduction in the residential sector. Studies on energy use at the household level have observed a large degree of variability in energy consumption across identical houses that cannot be entirely explained by infrastructural differences: the role of occupant behaviour is as important as building physics with regard to energy consumption (Santin et al., 2009; Gram-Hanssen, 2011; Morley and Hazas, 2011). Numerous scholars suggest that large reductions in household1 energy use are unlikely to be achieved from interventions designed to finance building retrofitting alone. There is evidence suggesting the potential for larger energy savings if technical, infrastructural, and energy saving behavioural intervention changes are applied in combination and mutually reinforce each other via the same goal. Energy behaviours and energy efficiency investment decisions are complex and shaped by many factors, both individual and contextual. Due to this complexity, they are usually studied using fragmented and disciplinary studies from a wide range of thematic areas such as engineering, economics, psychology, and sociology (Lopes et al., 2012).