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Luis Mundaca

Luis Mundaca

Professor

Luis Mundaca

Behavioural insights for sustainable energy use

Author

  • L. Mundaca
  • Xianli Zhu
  • Markus Hackenfort

Summary, in English

Behavioural insights are increasingly shaping the design, implementation and evaluation of energy policies. This Special Issue aims to broaden and strengthen the evidence base, and policy value of behavioural insights in the context of sustainable energy use. It showcases a plethora of behavioural issues that can help to improve our understanding of the decision-making ‘black box’ of energy users and the contexts in which behaviours take place. Our editorial focuses on five cross-cutting themes, namely: interdisciplinarity, policy experimentation, non-economic factors, the diffusion of low-carbon innovations, and digitalisation. Findings across these themes reveal various challenges (e.g. timescales of energy behaviours, scaling of policy experiments, heterogeneous treatment effects) and four overarching areas are identified when policy implications are examined horizontally: ambition, integration, cooperation and ethics. We conclude that the application of behavioural insights to sustainable energy use provides a rich body of evidence and approaches to support our understanding of complex policy issues. It is an interdisciplinary and resource-intensive process that can effectively assist policymaking by encouraging behaviour change via more integrated, (cost-) effective interventions. Knowledge exchange between social scientists and policymakers is crucial for behavioural insights to realise their full potential. Ethical considerations call for good research practices and improved governance.

Department/s

  • The International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics

Publishing year

2022

Language

English

Publication/Series

Energy Policy

Volume

171

Document type

Journal article (comment)

Publisher

Elsevier

Topic

  • Social Sciences Interdisciplinary
  • Energy Systems

Keywords

  • Behaviour change
  • Behavioural insights
  • Energy behaviours
  • Heterogeneity
  • Interdisciplinarity
  • Nudge
  • Policy experimentation

Status

Published

Project

  • Hard-to-Reach Energy Users

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0301-4215