Altruism, self-interest, and energy consumption.

How can we encourage greater energy efficiency? Estimates that take account of behavioral plasticity—the ease with which actions can be taken—indicate that the United States could reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions by 7% if households adopted simple and money-saving efficiency actions (1). However, most households are not taking these actions despite the benefits for the environment and for household budgets. By engaging key factors that influence household energy consumption, Asensio and Delmas shed light on unrealized energy efficiency (2). Their results provide useful insights for the design of programs to encourage energy efficiency; in doing so, they hone our understanding of environmental decision making. The analysis of Asensio and Delmas uses real-time energy consumption data at the appliance level for 118 apartments in southern California over 9 mo. During the study, the authors provided two kinds of feedback to encourage efficiency. Some randomly assigned households were given weekly feedback on their annual dollar cost-savings compared with the most efficient 10% of their neighbors. The other households received weekly feedback about their consumption in the metric of reduced air pollution emissions rather than as dollar costs to the household. That is, one group received information about how efficiency was serving their self-interest and the other about how efficiency was contributing to the common good of reduced air pollution. The results are intriguing. Households who received the air pollution message reduced their electrical consumption by 8.2% over the 100-d experimental monitoring period. Those in this group who had children changed their behavior even more dramatically, achieving a 19% reduction in consumption. Information about air pollution reductions reduced consumption in all but the 10% of households with the smallest energy use. In contrast, the households that received the monetary messages actually increased their consumption, and that increase was greater for households with children and for those in the highest use categories.