Characteristics of the digital content about energy-saving in different countries around the world

Abstract

Environmental sustainability is fundamental for human well-being, and energy-saving behaviors are fundamental for promoting environmental sustainability. This paper explores the types of information consumed on the Internet concerning the topic of energy-saving. The qualitative study used digital methods to analyze, from 17 different countries, one-year of Google searches, 170 webpages, and 6800 images. The results demonstrated that (a) most topics related to energy-saving involved commercial products; (b) in countries from North America, Europe, and Oceania, Google's highest-ranked webpages were of a commercial nature, and in countries from Latin America, Africa, and Asia, webpages were of an educational nature; and (c) most images found in Google with the "energy-saving" query were related to lighting products. By and large, commercial interests were found to dominate the digital rhetoric around energy-saving, regardless of the countries' region.