Status consciousness in energy consumption: a systematic review
Open accessAbstract
Access to energy is a precondition for a decent standard of living. Some household decisions on energy consumption are however motivated to maintain or improve status, resulting in social zero-sum games, with environmentally harmful outcomes. Here, we review evidence relating status to energy consumption, elucidating consequential opportunities for climate change mitigation. To achieve this, we comprehensively collate and analyse existing published work that links status to household consumption decisions and behaviour across all end-use sectors, screening 2662 papers found with systematic search queries, identifying and fully reviewing 53 papers that comply with our criteria. We develop a systematic map of the literature and review quantitative and qualitative analysis relating energy end-use to status consumption. We identify 23 distinct (albeit some of them closely related) theories, with the literature most frequently referring to Veblen’s theory of conspicuous consumption. We also detail estimations of status-related energy consumption and identify ten studies that quantitatively relate status to energy saving behaviour or decisions, and four studies that relate status to increased emissions. Status can explain up to 20% change in consumption levels or the willingness-to-pay for carbon reducing consumption. Surprisingly, we find that major status-related consumption decisions, such as for housing and big cars, are hardly captured by the literature that relates status consumption to energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. This is a considerable gap in the literature, omitting major sources of status related decisions with high carbon footprint. We conclude that framing energy saving behaviour as high status is a promising strategy for emission reduction. Progressive taxation of status items, such as floor space and vehicle size, can effectively internalize the positional externalities and signal social undesirability, but also reduce emissions.
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Visible solar photovoltaic panels and digital tools for energy saving are related to belonging and self-efficacy, thus contributing to the social domains of well-being.
“visible solar photovoltaic panels and digital tools for energy saving are also related to belonging and self-efficacy 75,76 , thus contributing to the social domains of well-being.”
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Flagged first, then by citations
- Authors
- Ramakrishnan, A., & Creutzig, F.
- Affiliations
- Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Ramakrishnan, Anjali
- Venue
- Environmental Research Letters
- Publisher
- IOP Publishing
- Published
- 2021-05-01
- Volume
- 16
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 053010
- ISSN
- 1748-9326 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W3138021590
- Cited by
- 20
- References
- 93
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 1
- FWCI
- 0.14
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Environmental Research Letters (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Publication Database PIK (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- German Academic Exchange Service New Delhi
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Energy › Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment › Energy, Environment, and Transportation Policies
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law › Environmental Education and Sustainability
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Climate Change Policy and Economics
- Keywords
- status consciousness, energy consumption, conspicuous consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, climate change mitigation, housing consumption, car ownership
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