Abstract
A common approach for understanding people’s domestic energy behavior is to study the influence of deterministic factors, such as attitudes, norms and knowledge, on behavior. However, few studies have succeeded in fully explaining people’s behavior based on these factors alone. To further the understanding of people’s everyday energy use, a goal-oriented approach based on activity theory has been applied to discuss energy conservation from a multiple goal perspective based on the findings from an interview study with 42 informants. The findings show that the informants used energy to fulfill goals linked to basic needs or desires related to their well-being. Even though the majority of informants had an explicit goal to reduce their energy consumption, many experienced conflicts with other competing goals, which often made energy conservation undesirable or challenging. The findings suggest that actions to reduce energy use will most often not be prioritized if they cannot be integrated into people’s daily life without jeopardizing their possibilities to achieve their primary goals and satisfy their everyday needs. It is thus vital to consider people’s everyday life and the many conflicts they experience when aiming to understand why people do, or do not, prioritize energy conservation during everyday activities.
Highlights
Due to a general increase in domestic energy consumption [1], many countries have set energy conservation targets and explored different ways of reducing consumption
The findings suggest that people, regardless of aspects such as attitudes or knowledge, often have a hard time prioritizing energy conservation measures during everyday activities due to the many conflicts they experience between competing goals
The findings presented in this paper imply that it is vital to consider people’s everyday conflicts between competing goals when aiming to understand why people do, or do not, prioritize energy conservation during everyday activities
Summary
Due to a general increase in domestic energy consumption [1], many countries have set energy conservation targets and explored different ways of reducing consumption. There is a need to move beyond considering solely deterministic factors and explore other perspectives for understanding why people use energy the way they do. One such perspective that has gained many supporters in recent years is social practice theory, which aims to understand social change by understanding how people’s practices are situated and transformed dynamically over time (see e.g., [7,8]). The findings of the study are presented from a goal-oriented perspective and discussed to highlight the implications and opportunities they may entail for understanding people’s energy use and for supporting energy conservation
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