Project Summary

Energy Cultures is a three-year, MSI-funded project that aims to develop a better understanding of the drivers of household energy behaviours in New Zealand and to support improved policy interventions designed to achieve more energy-efficient behaviours. The project is truly interdisciplinary, as the research team draws on backgrounds in the social sciences, physics, economics, marketing and law.

A novel ‘Energy Cultures’ conceptual framework underpins the research. This sets out that consumer energy behaviour can be understood at its most fundamental level by examining the interactions between cognitive norms (e.g. beliefs, understandings), material culture (e.g. technologies, building form), and energy practices (e.g. activities, processes). The framework has garnered significant international interest.

The Energy Cultures project is now in its third and final year. This year, the project will focus on developing an intervention to improve energy efficiency in the home; refining analysis of the data collected during the first two years of the project; and developing a set of policy recommendations to improve home energy efficiency in New Zealand.

To date, research has included around 100 face-to-face home interviews exploring links between values and practices; a nationwide survey and choice-modeling exercise of more than 2,500 New Zealanders; and the extension of the survey and choice-modeling to three case study areas (Pakuranga in Auckland; North East Valley in Dunedin; and Cambridge near Hamilton). The team also conducted a series of focus groups in these areas to dig beneath the survey and choice-modeling findings.

The project has an external advisory group that meets with the Research Team on a regular basis. The advisory group includes the New Zealand Government’s Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority, as well as the energy company, Mighty River Power.

For more information on this project, click here.