Stimulating energy conservation The use of the opinion leadership process

Abstract While the US federal government, public utilities and oil companies, among others, have instigated programmes to educate the general public on energy conservation and to stimulate an energy conservation ethic, results of a number of surveys indicate that such efforts in promoting energy conservation have had only limited success. This may be particularly attributable to the low credibility ascribed by the public to energy information disseminating sources. This article investigates the feasibility of utilizing opinion leadership, an untried approach, to overcome the credibility problem in disseminating energy information to the general public.