IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - January/February 2018 - 28

Sustainable Energy Behavior
and Quality of Life
The motivation for moving to a sustainable energy system is driven largely by two concerns. one is to protect the
environment and the biosphere. The other is to enhance human
well-being. There are inherent ethical reasons for protecting
the biosphere, but it is also clear that reducing environmental
problems such as anthropogenic climate change is of benefit
to humans. However, many perceive that the current fossilfuel energy system enhances quality of life for the majority
of the world's population and presume that behavior changes
needed to achieve a sustainable energy transition will threaten
rather than enhance human quality of life as such behavior is
seen as requiring greater financial expenditures, more time,
more hassle, and less comfort. for example, traveling by public
transport is seen as less pleasurable than traveling by car, and
turning down the heat or air-conditioning can make a home
less comfortable. some of these perceptions are influenced by
how society defines social ideals such as "home." if a good
home is normatively defined as a roomy stand-alone house in
the suburbs, moves toward sustainability, such as living in a
smaller attached home closer to the city, will be perceived to
entail a lower quality of life.
various sustainable energy behaviors may enhance an
individual's quality of life. for example, most shifts toward
higher energy efficiency have substantial economic benefits
both to households and nations. Moreover, sustainable technologies, such as light-emitting diode lights or mass transit,
can be designed to match hedonic expectations.
More importantly, these examples reflect a limited view of
what constitutes a good life. sustainable behaviors may not only
be pleasurable as reflected in the examples above (enhancing
hedonic well-being) but also meaningful (enhancing eudaimonic well-being, that is, meaning in life and self-realization).
sustainable energy behaviors are a potent source of eudaimonic
well-being; such behavior benefits nature, the environment, and
the well-being of others, including future generations. indeed,
acting sustainably is perceived as virtuous behavior, leading
to a positive self-image, which yields positive feelings and
enhances quality of life. The relationship between energy sustainability and hedonic and eudaimonic well-being deserves
more research, especially around ways to design a sustainable
energy system that enhances well-being.

Summary
The current fossil energy system is in transformation. This is
not only a technical problem that will challenge engineers but
also a problem of human behavior that will challenge social
scientists. interdisciplinary collaborations are required:
the technologies that will be most effective at driving the
energy system toward sustainability are likely to be those
that use knowledge from both engineering and the social sciences. Key elements of design criteria could take into account
factors facilitating the adoption and effective use of the
new, more sustainable technology. such design would take
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into account not only the elasticity of the technology-the
reduced use of fossil fuels that will come with it-but also its
plasticity-the features that will assure its support and rapid
uptake by the public. such designs will require new forms of
collaboration between engineers and social scientists.
significant and wide-scale changes in behavior are needed
to achieve a sustainable energy transition. People acting as
consumers affect the uptake of efficient and renewable energies, technologies, and overall energy use. as citizens, they
play an important role in supporting the implementation of
policies that aim to encourage sustainable energy behaviors.
efforts to encourage behavior change for a sustainable energy
transition will be more effective when they target important
individual and contextual factors of relevant behaviors and
remove significant barriers to new ones.
We can enable sustainable behaviors by changing the context for actions so that the costs and barriers for action are
lowered. at the same time, we can encourage behaviors by
targeting individual factors influencing behavior, including knowledge and motivations. Many factors, in addition to
price and economic self-interest, motivate people to engage
in sustainable energy behavior, including environmental considerations, affect, status and identity considerations, and
social norms. The approaches used will be more effective
when they are tailored to the motivations and constraints of
those being asked to change. sustainable behavior and lifestyle changes, particularly when such changes are mandated,
should enhance rather than degrade individuals' quality of
life. acting sustainably can enhance quality of life as people
feel meaningful when engaging in behavior that benefits others and the environment.

For Further Reading
T. dietz, g. T. gardner, J. gilligan, P. c. stern, and M. P.
vandenbergh, "Household actions can provide a behavioral
wedge to rapidly reduce Us carbon emissions," Proc. Nat.
Acad. Sci, vol. 106, no. 44, pp. 18,452-18,456, 2009. doi:
10.1073/pnas.0908738106.
issc and Unesco, World Social Science Report 2013:
Changing Global Environments. Paris: oecd and Unesco Publishing, 2013.
l. steg, "values, norms and intrinsic motivation to act proenvironmentally," Annu. Rev. Environ. Resource, vol. 41, pp.
277-292, 2016. doi: 10.1146/annurev-environ-110615-085947.
l. steg, g. Perlaviciute, and e. van der Werff, "Understanding the human dimensions of a sustainable energy transition," Front. Psychol., vol. 6, article 805, 2015.

Biographies
Linda Steg is with University of groningen, The netherlands.
Rachael Shwom is with rutgers University, new brunswick, new Jersey.
Thomas Dietz is with Michigan state University, east
lansing, Michigan.
p&e

january/february 2018

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