Barriers and drivers to green buildings in Australia and New Zealand

Sandy Bond

Journal of Property Investment & Finance, 2011, vol. 29, issue 4/5, 494-509

Abstract: Purpose - Improving energy efficiency of buildings and appliances has been shown to be the most cost‐effective way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The aim of this research is to identify householders' lifestyle choices within homes that impact on energy use and their motivation to conserve energy. The results help to identify methods to increase the uptake of sustainability practices that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions in residential buildings. Design/methodology/approach - A postal survey was adopted as the quickest and most cost‐effective way of surveying a large sample of householders across Australia. The survey was sent to 2,500 randomly selected residents, 500 in each of the five largest Australian cities by population. Findings - The results identified that barriers to energy efficiency in households include: larger homes and smaller households; initial costs of sustainable features, and a lack of consumer information about benefits and savings from incorporating energy‐efficient devices. The most common reason why people are not acting in more sustainable ways is inconvenience or laziness. Research limitations/implications - The response rate was very low and retired persons were over‐represented, as they are the people with more time to answer surveys. Further research is warranted to achieve a larger, more representative sample. Practical implications - These results will be useful to Government policy makers as they help to identify methods to increase the uptake of sustainable features and energy conservation in homes. Originality/value - This study is the first attempt at a nation‐wide study of residential behavior to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions in homes.

Keywords: Sustainability; Energy efficiency; Greenhouse gas emissions; Residential homes; Householder perceptions; Global warming; Australia; New Zealand (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:jpifpp:v:29:y:2011:i:4/5:p:494-509

DOI: 10.1108/14635781111150367

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Property Investment & Finance is currently edited by Nick French

More articles in Journal of Property Investment & Finance from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().