Stop procrastinating, start renovating! Exploring the decision-making process for household energy efficiency renovations

Abstract

A tricky contributor to the “energy efficiency gap” is homeowners who fail to finalize a planned Energy Efficiency Renovation (EER) project, even after having received an offer from a contractor. However, there is a lack of evidence on drivers and barriers of homeowners' EER in the final stage of the decision process, including the role of the energy consultation and homeowners' perceptions of barriers and impediments that can potentially lead to procrastination, that is, to the postponement of tasks. This study contributes to filling this gap based on a survey of 609 Danish homeowners in the final stage of an EER decision-making processes. Through a comparative analysis of adopters and non-adopters, we find that procrastination is a common reason for non-adoption. First, we identify potential predictors that differ between adopters and non-adopters. Next, these variables are included in a structural equation path model (SEM) to estimate their direct and indirect effects on EER adoption. We find that homeowners' final implementation of EER decisions is complex and far from a simple weighing of monetary costs and benefits. Psychological factors such as expected hassle and interpersonal aspects of the consultation, as well as perceived difficulties and impediments, specifically related to how easy an EER offer is to understand and ultimately accept, are identified as core antecedents of EER adoption or procrastination. Implications for interventions to reduce procrastination in EER decisions are discussed, including financial support measures and interventions designed to make it easier for homeowners to implement their EER decisions.