Green Hypocrisy?: Environmental Attitudes and Residential Space Heating Expenditure

Popular media make claims of a green hypocrisy: groups, which have the strongest attitude towards the environment, also have the highest emissions. This study examines whether environmental behaviours, beliefs and attitudes are associated with space heating energy use in the UK in order to test for evidence of a green hypocrisy. In the UK, the largest proportion of household energy use is for space heating. We find that environmental behaviours are negatively correlated with heating expenditures, while environmentally friendly attitudes and perceptions are not associated with lower heating expenditure. Further, the effect of these attitudes and behaviours does not change as income increase. There seems to be little evidence of a green hypocrisy amongst the UK public with respect to space heating.

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