New UK research exploring the effect of energy labels on consumer shopping decisions

In autumn 2021 the Behavioural Insight Team (BIT), unofficially known as the “Nudge Unit”, conducted research through experiment, survey and interview to see whether the information on appliances’ energy labels influenced the consumer’s choice of product. The research was undertaken for the UK Department for Energy Security & Net Zero.

The experiment examined the difference in consumer choices when presented with labels displaying for example:

• ‘lifetime running cost’ and ‘average lifespan’ versus kWh/annum
• water consumption in ‘litres/annum’ versus water and energy consumption in ‘litres/annum’ and kWh/annum

The survey asked participants:

• how they shop for appliances and other energy-related products
• the barriers to purchasing energy efficient products
• the reasons and enablers to purchasing energy efficient products

Qualitative interviews with 10 individuals further explored how consumers interact with energy labels while purchasing electrical household appliances.

Some key conclusions

• in the survey participants placed higher importance on upfront cost than running or recuperation costs. However in the interviews they responded well to the ‘running cost’ information on energy labels, increasing the uptake of energy efficient products by between 5-14% in the experiment
• understanding of energy label information was low, especially the kWh information. Survey and interview participants said they understood the A-G colour rating scale better, and that they relied on that to interpret the overall meaning of the energy label
• overall, participants knew where to find energy labels when shopping in store or online, but almost all interviewees said they did not focus on the labels when making purchasing decisions

The report is available here.

External link