The Effect of Providing Monetary Information on Energy Savings for Household Appliances: A Field Trial in Spain

M. del Mar Solà (), A. de Ayala () and Ibon Galarraga
Additional contact information
M. del Mar Solà: Scientific Campus of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU)
A. de Ayala: Scientific Campus of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU)

Journal of Consumer Policy, 2021, vol. 44, issue 2, No 6, 279-310

Abstract: Abstract Energy labels are one of the most widely used policies in the European Union for increasing the energy efficiency of household appliances. However, their effectiveness in promoting energy-efficient purchases has sometimes been called into question. One of the reasons for this is that consumers may have difficulties in fully understanding the energy consumption information provided on labels (in kilowatt-hour per year). Some authors argue that to avoid this problem energy consumption information should be converted into monetary information. We analyse whether providing monetary information on lifetime energy savings can significantly increase purchases of energy-efficient appliances. To that end, a field experiment was carried out with small retailers in Spain. The experiment involved three types of appliances: washing machines, fridges and dishwashers. The impact of monetary information on actual purchases of appliances was tested in different ways: (i) by including a monetary label to display energy savings during the lifetime of the product; (ii) by the monetary information provided by sales staff; and (iii) by combining (i) and (ii). We find that the effectiveness of providing monetary information depends on the appliance and the specific way in which the information is provided. For washing machines, providing monetary information through a monetary label seems effective in promoting the purchase of highly energy-efficient appliances. However, for fridges, both monetary information provided by staff alone and the combination of the monetary label and information from sales staff seem to be effective in promoting purchases of A+++ fridges. Surprisingly, no effect is found for dishwashers.

Keywords: Energy efficiency; Monetary label; Household appliances; EU energy efficiency label; Field trial (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10603-021-09483-3 Abstract (text/html)
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:kap:jcopol:v:44:y:2021:i:2:d:10.1007_s10603-021-09483-3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... es/journal/10603/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10603-021-09483-3

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Consumer Policy is currently edited by Hans Micklitz, John Thøgersen, Lucia A. Reisch, Alan Mathios and Christian Twigg-Flesner

More articles in Journal of Consumer Policy from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().