Influence of urban information availability on household energy consumption

Abstract

This paper investigates the impact of information in change individuals' behaviours and in particular their energy behaviour. The growth of population and moving towards overconsumption and over pollution are significant threats to the environment and therefore necessitate moving towards sustainability approaches. This paper discusses the influence of behaviour change in achieving sustainable development. Relying on social learning and social cognitive theories, it presents a comparative approach to motivate individuals to change their energy behaviour. A mathematical model is presented to quantify the impact of providing individuals with comparative information in their path through energy conservation. This paper offers an integrated conceptual mathematical framework to increase the effective capacity of energy systems under complex and unclear conditions, facilitate energy consumption problem solving, and improve individual psychological capabilities such as self-efficacy, and the ability to imagine and aspire to a better energy consumptions in the future.