Behavioral science and energy conservation: Conceptualizations, strategies, outcomes, energy policy applications

While economic, physical design, and legal disciplines have been the dominant approaches in energy conservation policies, each perspective has limitations with regard to effectively being able to modify energy-related behaviors of consumers. A behavioral science approach which integrates knowledge bases from a number of disciplines and levels of analysis has had relatively little input into energy policy, even though conceptually and technically the approach is well developed, and has recently demonstrated its applicability to energy policy through many field experiments. These studies, which have used combinations of antecedent and consequence strategies, are critically reviewed with regard to energy savings attributable to these strategies and the potential for large-scale applicability. Based on this review, a sophisticated, media-based approach, developed from a detailed marketing plan, is described as the foundation of a basic program. However, such a program would be experimental in nature and contain subparts to carefully evaluate other strategies (e.g., diffusion, feedback). Thus, the behavioral sciences, while by no means offering a panacea, can make important contributions to energy policy when working in concert with other disciplines.