Can Efficient Devices Erode Efficient Behaviors?

I've attached a report that summarizes the evidence for what is called in the literature a "Rebound Effect." Hope you find it helpful. Please note for those who read this post via the daily digest, attachments associated with forum posts are only viewable online.

Doug McKenzie-Mohr
Environmental Psychologist
McKenzie-Mohr & Associates Inc.
Canada
http://www.cbsm.com

It may even be worse than the classic rebound effect (sometimes discussed as Jevon's Paradox -- that as usage becomes more efficient, overall consumption _increases_ to reflect the lower cost of usage) suggests.

A while ago I posted a story that discussed a study that had been done on the effect of adding healthy foods (salads, e.g.) to a fast food menu: the bizarre result was that the consumption of the french fries increased just by adding the "good foods" to the menu. The authors theorized that people acted as though simply choosing restaurants where there were healthy food options was enough -- they didn't have to actually make healthy choices; in fact, they were giving themselves a "reward" for having made the healthy choice (choosing that restaurant) anyway!

Applied to natural resource use, I've seen troubling signs of this same effect -- the more we try to institutionalize better choices (labeling programs to give consumers information about energy consumption, e.g.) the more oblivious people seem to be about their part. I think there's a similar effect going on: when people are shopping in the stores where there are low energy products touted, they seem to think that's enough, and they buy the 60" plasma TV anyway.

John Gear
United States
http://lovesalem.blogspot.com/

The report "Durable goods and residential demand for energy and water" available at www-personal.umich.edu/~lwdavis/cw.pdf describes a household production model in which energy efficient appliances cost less to operate so households may use them more. One specific example is an HE washing machine.

In addition, a Penn State study found that 31% of low-income homes that were weatherized then saw a 20% increase in the amount of power they used. (John Singler, Long Term Study of Pennsylvanias Low Income Usage Reduction Program: Results of Analyses and Discussion, Consumer Services Information System Project, Penn State University, January 2009.) There is a link to the report on this Webpage: http://liheap.ncat.org/news/mar09/liurp.htm.

A USA Today article discusses how the Snackwells effect plays out in energy efficiency. Consumers buy Snackwells (low-fat cookies) and believe that because the cookies are low in fat, they can eat more of them. Traci Watson, Consumers Can Sabotage Energy-Saving Efforts, USA Today, March 24, 2009, which can be found at http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2009-03-22-energysavings_N.htm.

I hope this helps.

Jennifer Allen
United States

I think this is one of the most important issues because the administration and seemingly everyone else insists that increased energy efficiency will lower national energy use. Those of us who study the resulting behavior realize that this is not true. A new book is excellent on this subject The Jevons Paradox and the Myth of Resource Efficiency Improvements. It is coming out in paperback. I have been collecting what hundreds of people have written about efficiency and posted it on my website www.efficology.com.

Also, I presented a paper to the Presented to the North Central Sociological Association April 2, 2004 in Cleveland, OH on the same topic. I have posted this paper on my other website http://andrewrudin.com/Files/Papers/NCSApresentation.pdf


Andrew Rudin
United States

This has been a fascinating discussion to me! Thanks to everyone and the great resources. Chris

Chris Hammer
Sustainable Design Resources
www.greenclips.com/sdr

I'm just catching up with this after being away & yes it is fascintaing. Thankyou Doug for posting the Rebound Effect Report, it makes fascinating reading (not that I fully understand it all!) and goes some way to help me understand how it is that when households install a heat pump - a popular investment in NZ over the last year or so - many people complain how much more they are spending on electricity, despite the mooted energy efficiency of these appliances. Undoubtedly some of this will be due to poor installation in some cases, but maybe part of the increase in power consumption is because people are now keeping their houses at a more comfortable temperature in the winter. NZ houses are typically too cold in winter for good health outcomes, so there is a 'shortfall' that needs to be made up before energy consumption will level off. This is sobering in terms of the implications for GHG.

Barbara Hammonds
Taranaki Regional Council
New Zealand

There's an interesting opposite effect that we might be overlooking here, and that an article reminded me of today (http://rss.sightline.org/daily_score/archive/2009/07/24/riding-the-bus-cause-julie-is-cool) --

The "good example" effect. Probably a real bear to measure and model, and thus easy to overlook. But undoubtedly (by me, anyway) real.

So it seems that we need to understand the overall change -- not only in the person who adopts the more efficient device but also in how that change affects others in their social group. If person A ends up using MORE energy as the result of purchasing more efficient appliances, it might be that persons B, C, D, and E (seeing A's purchase) make up for it when they start to think that "everyone's being more energy conscious now, look at A."

John Gear
United States
http://lovesalem.blogspot.com/

John, I loved this article. This has been my hope for years, that change will happen through competition or through trying to be cool. If you get any more material in this matter, please do let me know. Nicoletta

nicoletta landi
ealingsustainable.wordpress.com

It's disappointing to see people disparaging resource efficiency - do we really believe that using resources wastefully is better than using them efficiently? There is a lot of rubbish written about the rebound effect, suggesting that efficiency gains lead to more resource use than the starting point - the so-called 'superbounce' theory. Why speculate about this when there is plenty of quantitative analysis - read Energy Policy for example - they did a whole edition that focused on this issue in 2000 - see http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6V2W-4090S0W-3/2/f5019fd9a329ba590a238e3be3cd3029 - abstract only for free, unfortunately.

The amount of rebound is a function of a) the underlying demand for energy (or other resource) services and b) the income effect and any policies designed to influence this. If you improve the efficiency of a cold house, for example, by insulating it, you don't get energy savings you get a warmer house - ie, more energy services. By the way, you also get improved health outcomes. But if you provide additional insulation for a house that is already warm, you get energy savings not an even warmer house. People don't want to live in a sauna.

In the second case but not the first, the homeowner may now have more money to spend (due to energy cost savings), but remember that they may have to finance the insulation, and only after that do they have a real increase in disposable income, some of which might be used to purchase additional goods and services that use energy - leading to a rebound effect. If you increase energy taxes, or if you price carbon, you can take away that income effect altogether. On average, the literature suggests around 20% of the energy savings will be taken up by a rebound effect - although there are plenty of higher and lower examples.

The Jevons paradox is no paradox at all - it's called economic growth. If you want to focus on living sustainably, that's your target, not resource efficiency. In a sustainable, steady-state economy, we will need to use resources as efficiently as possible, as one of an integrated set of sustainable behaviours.

Phil Harrington
Australia