A micro-scale analysis of attitudes and behaviours towards sustainability and domestic energy saving in Italy

The international literature on energy consumption and sustainability covers a vast array of approaches, from technological issues favouring virtuous behaviour (e.g. tools, design, infrastructures, policies and laws) to the human factors that can actualize that behaviour (e.g. culture, values and norms, civic and political aspects). Although such approaches also exist in Italy, top-down approaches developed in engineering or economics have been privileged, often partly integrated with contributions from behavioural sciences focusing mainly on the individual level. The purpose of this paper is to establish the basis for taking a cultural approach to sustainable energy consumption in Italy. The first step is a review of the current Italian psycho-social scenario in the literature, to be conceived as a data baseline to enable future innovative policies on energy sustainability through communication, education and social commitment[5]. The second step is an exploratory study of the connection between attitudes towards sustainability and domestic energy consumption in Italy, aimed at producing contextsensible policy suggestions. This paper is the result of the collaboration between ENEA (Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development, Energy Efficiency Department) and the Università degli Studi di Milano (Department of Cultural Heritage and Environment – Social Psychology Research Group). It is the starting point of a path aimed at stimulating the energy transition by studying the psycho-social factors that are capable of triggering virtuous individual behaviour on a domestic micro-scale. The collaboration was launched under the framework of “Italy in Class A”, a national campaign for energy efficiency promoted by the Ministry for Economic Development.