Abstract
Understanding user’s behavior in buildings is crucial since user behavior significantly contributes to the overall building's energy consumption. Therefore, this study aims to identify a user's pro-environmental behavior, in particular, the energy conservation behavior (ECB) of university users in Kuwait. For this reason, this study creates a model whereby two variables, namely, environmental knowledge and awareness of consequences, are introduced and incorporated into the existing theory of planned behavior (TPB). The research data is acquired through questionnaires in keeping with Kuwait's social norms and culture. The extended TPB model is tested using numerical analysis problems in partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to investigate the following variables: energy conservation behavior, intention, subjective norm, attitude, perceived behavioral control, environmental knowledge, and awareness. Results show the indirect effects of the two above mentioned variables on conservation behavior. The results also reveal that societal pressure and cultures significantly affect the users' intention to engage in energy conservation behavior. The outcomes of this research suggest that there is a need to encourage energy conservation behavior changes in Kuwaiti academics' buildings by supporting the antecedents, as well as eliminating barriers to pro-environmental actions. Keywords: Energy Conservation, Environmental Behavior, Higher Educational Institutes, Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modelling, Theory of Planned Behavior JEL Classifications: Q49, P36, I230, Z130 DOI: https://doi.org/10.32479/ijeep.10407
Highlights
Kuwait vision 2035 encourages the implementation of a sustainable energy transition
The findings revealed that environmental awareness and environmental knowledge were a crucial predictor of proenvironmental behaviors (PEBs) in all of the countries studied, the influence of university education on pro-environmental behaviors (Bamberg and Möser, 2007; Bergman, 2016)
Environmental knowledge (EK): environmental knowledge, Awareness of consequences (AWC): awareness of consequences, I: intention, ECB: energy conservation behavior, ns=non-significant, **P
Summary
Kuwait vision 2035 encourages the implementation of a sustainable energy transition. This is why higher educational institutes (HEIs) should be held responsible for promoting the sustainable development associated with achieving these national transition goals. An observation of users’ behaviors in HEI buildings is a pathway towards identifying factors that drive and hinder their energy-environment motivations. These factors are fundamental in achieving environmental sustainability (Ashouri et al, 2019; Kollmuss and Agyeman, 2002; Steg and Vlek, 2009; Zhang et al, 2020). This is mainly because an inter-connected nature amongst HEI building users from staffs in all duties and capacities to students is highly contributory to an increase in energy intensity
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