Sustainable Behavior among Romanian Students: A Perspective on Electricity Consumption in Households

Vasile Gherheș,Marcela Alina Fărcașiu

doi:10.3390/su13169357

Abstract

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimates that the environmental pressure from households will increase significantly by 2030. Sustainable consumption means making consumers aware of the social and environmental impacts of the goods and services they use. In this respect, special attention must be paid to electricity consumption since its generation affects the environment. The present research aims at capturing electricity consumption behaviors among students, after having applied an online questionnaire between March and April 2021, recording 816 responses. The results of this research highlighted the fact that for seven out of fourteen statements, percentages of over 50% for the “always” and “often” answer variants were recorded, but cases when the highest percentages were for the “rarely” and “never” answer variants (e.g., “You read the hours on the light bulb packs before purchasing them”, “You put your mobile phone in the power saving mode so that you don’t have to charge it so often” and “You unplug the electrical and electronic equipment that you do not use”) were also observed. Decrypting consumer behaviors is a key point for building strategies that will lead to consumers’ awareness of conserving electricity in households and, thus, to a reduction in their environmental impact.

Highlights

Every day, the XXIst century’s humans have to make choices that may seem difficult when it comes to standing for a lifestyle that we should adopt in order to live sustainably in a healthy and clean environment
As hasmentioned been mentioned in the methodology, ordercomprehend to better comprehend behaviors been in the methodology, in order toinbetter behaviors that conserve that conserve electricity in the household, some suggestions that promoted the of electricity in the household, some suggestions that promoted the idea of sustainableidea behavsustainable behaviorfrom werespecialized pinpointed from specialized
The analysis aims at providing an “X-ray” of electricity consumption behaviors in daily life, a photograph of this reality without elaborating on these behaviors, as a detailed analysis will be performed in a future piece of research

Summary

Introduction

The XXIst century’s humans have to make choices that may seem difficult (but that are very easy) when it comes to standing for a lifestyle that we should adopt in order to live sustainably in a healthy and clean environment. These choices were encompassed under the key term of sustainability, a term which was used for the first time in 1987 in the Brundlandt Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development of the United Nations [1], which emphasized the necessity of finding some long-term measures to protect an already seriously damaged environment.

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion