Energy Conservation Behaviour of Individuals: A New Age Imperative for Sustainable Development

Abstract

Role of human behaviour in mitigating climate change, controlling Green House Gas (GHG) emissions, reducing carbon footprint leading to sustainable development, is at the centre of all policy discussions across the globe, thereby tailoring human behaviour is considered imperative by contemporary scholarship. This study attempts to understand the psycho-social interaction of individuals that promote such a human action. Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) framework has been used to predict human behaviour assuming human behaviour for energy conservation is one of the pro-social low-cost behaviour. Value orientation of individuals, energy conservation beliefs, subjective norms, perceived behaviour control, and energy conservation attitude have been measured to gauge the behavioural intention, along with capturing the socio-economic realities pertaining to households and individuals therein. Awareness towards energy conservation efforts and social interaction are found to be key behaviour influencers, whereas energy conservation intent is found to be gender neutral. Study implies the underlying necessity to explore mediating and moderating models in order to decipher complex inter-play among key variables for predicting energy conservation behaviour intent.

Keywords: Energy Conservation Behaviour, Theory of Planned Behaviour, Sustainable Development

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