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Browsing by Author "Antunes, Dalila"

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  • Energy efficiency and appliance’s characteristics considered prior to purchase: Differences and similarities between the United Kingdom, Germany, Portugal, Greece, Poland, Spain and Italy
    Publication . Gaspar, Rui; Antunes, Dalila
    This article reports country differences in the consumer’s most considered characteristics when choosing electrical appliances, including but not restricted to the energy efficiency aspect. A survey was performed to store customers from 7 countries: the United Kingdom; Germany; Portugal; Greece; Poland; Spain; Italy. Results showed consistency between countries in the top three characteristics considered: cost; quality; and a balance between price and quality. Differences were found for reported environmental attitudes and behaviours, purchase motives, and store employees evaluation. The results may support national policies and store level energy efficiency interventions. Specifically, they can provide input for store employee’s training, in persuading customers towards the purchase of energy efficient appliances.
    2016Journal article Open access Show more
  • Sufficiency before efficiency: Consumers' profiling and barriers/facilitators of energy efficient behaviours
    Publication . Gaspar, Rui; Antunes, Dalila; Faria, Ana; Meiszner, Andreas
    Even if consumers have positive attitudes towards the environment and household energy conservation measures, and are seemingly motivated to implement them, there are factors that function as barriers to such behaviours. The literature is still insufficient in exploring variables with such negative influence and in identifying ways of shielding consumers against it. A first step towards the latter can be achieved through energy consumers' psychosocial profiles identification, i.e. configurations of consumer characteristics based on a set of psychosocial factors. To contribute in this regard, a nationwide survey of Portuguese householders aimed to identify: 1) psychosocial factors that may function as barriers or facilitators to energy conservation measures implementation; and 2) psychosocial consumer profiles defined based on facilitators, i.e. factors with a positive/facilitative influence over such implementation. Despite highly positive environmental and energy conservation attitudes, householders reported that what they did was “sufficient”. This perceived “sufficiency” functioned as a justification for not “doing more” which, in addition to consumption estimation biases, seemingly constituted energy conservation barriers. Additionally, a k-means Cluster Analysis identified specific configurations of psychosocial factors e consumer profiles e that may function as energy conservation facilitators. Applying procedures as exemplified in this study may therefore enable tailoring behaviour change interventions to the different identified energy consumer's profiles, in order to promote energy efficient household behaviours.
    2017Journal article Restricted access Show more