The link between environmental attitudes and energy consumption behavior

This paper examines the connection between household environmental attitudes and real energy consumption behavior using a data set of electricity use by 612 households in Wyoming, USA, along with survey on their opinions, perceptions, and attitudes to several environmental issues. The statistical analysis suggests that attitudes about environmental issues are associated with lower energy consumption. Environmentally concerned households tend to be more conservative on energy use. Contrary to the rather mixed results reported by previous studies, these results suggest that the link between household environmental attitudes and patterns of energy consumption is relatively strong. (C) 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.