Attari, SZ

Bruine de Bruin, W

Davidson, CI

Dekay, ML

English

White Rose Research Online

This is a repository copy of Changing household behaviors to curb climate change: How hard can it be?.White Rose Research Online URL for this paper:http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/74532/Article:Attari, SZ, Dekay, ML, Davidson, CI et al. (1 more author) (2011) Changing household behaviors to curb climate change: How hard can it be? Sustainability, 4 (1). 9 - 11 . ISSN 1937-0695 https://doi.org/10.1089/SUS.2010.9724eprints@whiterose.ac.ukhttps://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/Reuse See Attached Takedown If you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing eprints@whiterose.ac.uk including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request. he residential sector contributes over 20% of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S.1 In an Environment article published two years ago, Gardner and Stern2 identiied a short list of the 27 most efective actions U.S. households could take to decrease their contributions to climate change, suggesting that altering the selection and use of everyday technologies could reduce household energy consumption by nearly 30%. Examples include tuning up the car twice a year, replacing incandescent light bulbs with compact luorescent bulbs (CFLs), and installing more eicient air condi-tioning and heating units.Gardner and Stern noted several barriers to such actions: Renters usually cannot upgrade appliances, for example. hey therefore suggested that indi-viduals make the most efective action in each cat-egory (e.g., transportation) a priority if it is feasible and has not already been taken. We agree with this approach, which leads people to those actions with the greatest savings potential for them speciically. However, knowing more about people’s perceptions of the ease or diiculty of implementing the short-list actions would be helpful for designing infor-mation campaigns, incentives, and other eforts to reduce household energy consumption.As part of a recent national survey on public percep-tions of energy consumption and savings3, we asked 505 participants to rate how diicult it would be for them to implement 15 of Gardner and Stern’s 27 actions. We omitted 12 other actions because of their speciicity (e.g., “Purchase (or trade [for]) 52˝ Pro-jection HD TV instead of a 48˝ Plasma HD TV”). Our question, which was adapted from self-eicacy research in other domains4, stated: “Please indicate how easy or hard it would be for you to make each ofthe following changes. Please consider all aspects of the changes, including the physical or mental ef-fort required, the time or hassle involved, and any relevant monetary costs.” he response scale ranged from 1 (“extremely easy”) to 7 (“extremely hard”).Participants were also told, “If you already engage in the activity please check the option on the far let,” which was labeled “Do it already.”Table 1 lists the 15 actions, starting with those rated as least diicult. All actions were rated as relatively easy, with means signiicantly below the scale mid-point (“neither easy or hard”), all ps < 0.05. he per-centage of participants indicating that they “Do italready” ranged from 24.4% (for carpooling) to 51.7% (getting recommended car tune-ups), with several percentages being higher than expected (e.g., 42.0% indicated that they had already replaced 85% of their light bulbs with CFLs). he low diiculty ratings and high implementation rates may relect a selection bias in our sample (e.g., more respondents with pro-environmental attitudes) or a desirability bias in their reporting.1 Yet, across the 15 actions, fewer participants reported having taken actions that were perceived as more diicult, r(13) = –0.79, p < 0.001, suggesting that both measures yield valid information regarding relative diiculty. Despite this correlation, some actions perceived as easy had rela-tively low adoption rates (e.g., adjusting refrigerator and freezer thermostats), implying opportunities for low-efort energy savings.In Figure 1, the percentages of household energy saved by these actions2 are plotted against mean dif-iculty ratings. Among actions rated as relatively easy (black symbols), the most energy would be saved by replacing incandescent bulbs with CFLs and by get-ting recommended car tune-ups (though this does not mean that other actions should be neglected). Figure 1 also indicates that actions saving similar amounts of energy difer in perceived diiculty. For example, carpooling with one other person savesabout as much energy as tuning one’s car, but the for-mer action is substantially more diicult. Similarly, turning down one’s thermostat in winter (easy) saves roughly as much energy as upgrading to a more eicient heating unit or upgrading  to insulated windows (more diicult). Reducing the washing 1The Earth Institute & Center for Research on Environmental   Decisions, Columbia University, New York, New York.2Department of Psychology, The Ohio State University,  Columbus, Ohio.3Syracuse Center of Excellence in Environmental and Energy   Systems & Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York.4Department of Social and Decision Sciences & Department  of Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University,  Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.Changing Household Behaviors to Curb Climate Change: How Hard Can it Be?By Shahzeen Z. Attari,1 Michael L. DeKay,2 Cliff I. Davidson,3 and Wändi Bruine de Bruin4Carpooling with one other person saves about as much energy as tuning one’s car, but the former action is substantially more dificult.MARY ANN LIEBERT, INC. •  VOL. 4  NO. 1  • FEBRUARY 2011  •  DOI:10.1089/sus.2010.9724            SUSTAINABILITY  9CommentaryOver 49% reported changing washer temperature settings from “hot wash, warm rinse”to “warm wash, cold rinse.”Commentary 10  SUSTAINABILITY         MARY ANN LIEBERT, INC. •  VOL. 4  NO. 1  •  FEBRUARY  2011  •  DOI:10.1089/sus.2010.9724Replacing two 100-watt kitchen bulbs with 75-watt bulbs   2.18  49.1Turning up the refrigerator thermostat from 33° F to 38° F and the freezer thermostat from –5° F to 0° F     2.27  33.7Replacing 85% of all incandescent bulbs with equally bright compact luorescent bulbs      2.30  42.0Changing washer temperature settings from “hot wash, warm rinse”   to “warm wash, cold rinse”      2.33  49.5Getting recommended car tune-ups (including air ilter changes)   2.46  51.7Cutting highway speed from 70 mph to 60 mph    2.48  32.2In the winter: turning down thermostat from 72° F to 68° F during the day and to 65° F during the night     2.63  48.9In the summer: turning up the air conditioner thermostat from 73° F to 78° F  2.71  45.1Watching 25% fewer hours of TV each day     2.95  29.1Replacing poorly insulated windows with highly insulated windows   3.55  26.1Carpooling with one other person to work     3.62  24.4Installing a more eficient washer (replace a 2001 or older non-Energy Star washer with a new Energy Star unit)    3.62  30.1 Installing a more eficient heating unit (92% eficient)    3.63  25.7Buying a more fuel eficient automobile (31 vs. 20 mpg)   3.64  30.5Drying clothes on a clothes line (not using the dryer) 5 months of the year  3.73  25.9*Dificulty ratings are from participants who did not report that they had already taken the action. Means that differ by more than 0.21 are signiicantly different at p < 0.05 by paired t tests. Summer thermostatWatch 25% less TVFridge setting Line dry clothesEfficient  washerInsulated windowsEfficient heating unit2 bulbs to 75-watt85% to CFLs Tune carWasher setting Cut highway  speedWinter thermostatCarpool to workBuy a more fuel efficient car0%2%4%6%8%10%12%14%16%1 2 3 4 5 6 7Ease or difficulty of energy-saving behaviorsActual percentage of energy saved ("Short List")Extremely  easy Very easy Very hardSomewhat hardNeither easy nor hardSomewhat  easy Extremely hardFigure 1. Actual household energy savings versus the perceived ease or dificulty of implementing 15 actions from Gardner and Stern’s short list. Error bars indicate 95% conidence intervals for mean perceptions. Symbols in black represent mean scores from 2–3; those in grey represent mean scores from 3–4.Action from the short listMean dificulty rating*Percentage who “Do it already”Table 1. Mean dificulty ratings (ordered from least to most dificult) and percentages of participants reporting that they “Do it already” for 15 energy-saving actions from Gardner and Stern’s short list.MARY ANN LIEBERT, INC. •  VOL. 4  NO. 1  •FEBRUARY 2011  •  DOI:10.1089/sus.2010.9724          SUSTAINABILITY  11machine’s temperature settings (easy) saves slightly more energy than upgrading to a more eicient washer or line-drying clothes for ive months of the year (more diicult).Campaigns targeting energy-saving actions that are both efective and easy to implement may help peo-ple to identify and harvest the “low-hanging fruit”5 for decreasing household energy consumption.6 While such eforts are greatly facilitated by simple, well-organized efectiveness information like that in Gardner and Stern’s short list,2 our results suggest that the design of energy-conservation programs would also beneit from a better understanding of perceived barriers to action.AcknowledgmentsFunding was provided by the Francois Fiessinger Scholarship to the irst author, National Science Foundation (DUE-0442618, SES-0345840), and the Earth Institute. We would also like to thank Dave Krantz and Elke Weber for their helpful comments.References1. Energy Information Agency. Emissions of Green-house Gases Report. U.S. Department of Energy, Washington, DC, 2008; DOE/EIA-0573, Table 6. http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggrpt/carbon.html2. Gardner G, and Stern, P. he short list: he most efective actions U.S. households can take to curb cli-mate change. Environment Magazine 2008;50(5):12-24.3. Attari SZ, DeKay ML, Davidson CI, and Bruine de Bruin W. Perceptions of energy consumption and savings. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2010;107(37):16054-16059.4. O’Leary A, Jemmott L, and Jemmott III J. Media-tion analysis of an efective sexual risk-reduction in-tervention for women: he importance of self-eica-cy. Health Psychology 2008;27(2):S180-S184.5. Vandenbergh MP, Barkenbus J, and Gilligan J. In-dividual carbon emissions: he low-hanging fruit. UCLA Law Review 2008;55:1701-1758.6. Dietz T, Gardner G, Gilligan J, Stern PC, and Vandenbergh MP. Household actions can provide a behavioral wedge to rapidly reduce US carbon emis-sions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sci-ences, 2009;106(4):18452-18456.Address correspondence to:  Shahzeen Z. AttariCRED, Columbia University406 Schermerhorn Hall1190 Amsterdam Avenue, MC5501New York, NY 10027Email: shahzeen.attari@gmail.comReducing the washing machine’s temperature settings (easy) saves slightly more energy than upgrading to a more eficient washer orline-drying clothes for ive months of the year (more dificult).

Changing household behaviors to curb climate change: How hard can it be?

Shahzeen Z. Attari

Michael L. DeKay

Cliff I. Davidson

Wändi Bruine de Bruin

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Sustainability The Journal of Record

Changing Household Behaviors to Curb Climate Change: How Hard Can it Be?

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Changing household behaviors to curb climate change: How hard can it be?

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