Status consciousness in energy consumption: A systematic review

Abstract

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.