Consumption Feedback and Water Saving: A Field Intervention Evaluation in the Metropolitan Area of Milan

Stefano Clò (), Tommaso Reggiani () and Sabrina Ruberto ()
Additional contact information
Stefano Clò: University of Florence
Sabrina Ruberto: University Magna Graecia of Catanzaro

Environmental & Resource Economics, 2024, vol. 87, issue 9, No 4, 2259-2308

Abstract: Abstract This paper investigates whether informative feedback on consumption can nudge water saving. We launched a five-month online information campaign which involved around 1,000 households located in the province of Milan (Italy) with a smart meter. A group of households received monthly reports via email on their per capita daily average water consumption, including a social comparison component. The Intention to Treat (ITT) analysis shows that, compared to a benchmark group, the units exposed to the intervention reduced their per capita water consumption by around 6% (25.8 liters per day or 6.8 gallons). Being able to observe the email opening rate, we find that the ITT effect is mainly driven by complying units. Through an Instrumental Variable approach, we estimated a Local Average Treatment Effect equal to 54.9 liters per day of water saving. A further Regression Discontinuity Design analysis shows that different feedback on consumption class size differentially affected water saving at the margin. We also found that the additional water saving increased with the number of monthly reports, though it did not persist two months after the campaign expired.

Keywords: Water saving; Nudging; Field intervention; Online information campaign; ITT and LATE (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 H41 L95 Q25 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10640-024-00884-9 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:kap:enreec:v:87:y:2024:i:9:d:10.1007_s10640-024-00884-9

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... al/journal/10640/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10640-024-00884-9

Access Statistics for this article

Environmental & Resource Economics is currently edited by Ian J. Bateman

More articles in Environmental & Resource Economics from Springer, European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().