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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Environmental Psychology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1364980
This article is part of the Research Topic How Do Behavior Science Interventions to Reduce Environmental Impacts Work in The Real World? View all 5 articles

Understanding users of online energy efficiency counselling: Comparison to representative samples in Norway

Provisionally accepted
Christian A. Klöckner Christian A. Klöckner 1*Alim Nayum Alim Nayum 2Stepan Vesely Stepan Vesely 1
  • 1 Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway
  • 2 University of Bergen, Bergen, Hordaland, Norway

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    To achieve substantial energy efficiency improvements in the privately owned building stock, it is important to communicate with potential renovators at the right point in time and provide them with targeted information to strengthen their renovation ambitions. The European Union recommends using one-stop-shops (OSSs), which provide information and support throughout the whole process, from planning to acquisition of funding, implementation, and evaluation as a measure to remove unnecessary barriers. For this paper, we invited visitors of two Norwegian websites with OSS characteristics to answer an online survey about their renovation plans and energy efficiency ambitions. The participants visited the websites out of their own interest; no recruitment for the websites was conducted as part of the study (N=437). They also rated a range of psychological drivers, facilitators, and barriers to including energy upgrades in a renovation project. Their answers were then compared to existing data from representative samples of Norwegian households regarding home renovation in 2014, 2018, and 2023, as well as data from a sample of people who were engaged in renovation projects in 2014, which was collected by the research team with a similar online survey. Furthermore, 78 visitors completed a brief follow-up online survey one year later to report the implemented measures. We found that visitors of the websites are involved in more comprehensive renovation projects and have substantially higher ambitions for the upgrade of energy efficiency compared to the representative samples. They also perceive stronger personal and social norms, as well as have a different profile of facilitators and barriers. The findings suggest to policymakers that OSSs should be marketed especially to people motivated to upgrade energy efficiency but lack information and are unable to implement their plans alone. Also, the construction industry might refer interested people to such low-threshold online solutions to assist informed and more ambitious decisions.

    Keywords: energy efficiency, renovation, One-stop-shops, counselling, Psychological drivers, Theory of Planned Behaviour, Personal norms, Facilitators

    Received: 03 Jan 2024; Accepted: 18 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Klöckner, Nayum and Vesely. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Christian A. Klöckner, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.