Leadership toward behavioral change in energy consumption

Abstract

The aim of this research is to study the leadership toward behavioral change in energy consumption. This research also explores how behavior change could lead to substantial greenhouse gas emission reductions across European high-income countries. The highest-impact areas of existing greenhouse gas emission reductions by behavior change are reductions in automobile trips, flying, and meat consumption – activities that are prevalent among individuals and countries with higher incomes currently, even though automobile trips are recommended less frequently in public resources or in secondary school science textbooks than are other climate actions with modest impacts, such as reducing energy use. Our results demonstrate that energy consumption behavior could be improved by various organizational factors, including leadership styles, as well as green-friendly environments. Ongoing research in many countries might inform longer-term, deeper emission reduction strategies that incorporate behavioral changes, but most longer-term strategies currently fail to capitalize on this opportunity. In general, long-run climate strategies need to explicitly address the potential for behavior change in high-impact sectors (especially neglected areas like aviation and diet, as well as more commonly studied areas like transportation and energy consumption) in developing present and future policies for formulating the leading approaches to the leading sustainable economic development of nations worldwide.