Abstract:

In recent years many times sustainability and renewable energy consumption have been set on the agenda. However, the pressing issue how to make people reduce their amount of energy consumed – or their switching  towards green alternatives – has received far less research attention. The academic discipline of behavioral economics has much to offer to this debate. In the presentation we will summarize prior research on the role of individual differences and various pricing and framing techniques that have proven to be helpful in making people switch to green energy. We will also address challenges and future directions in behavioral energy economics.

Bio:

Laurens Rook is Assistant Professor at Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands. He received his Ph.D. from the Erasmus University Rotterdam (in 2008), and his bachelor and master’s degrees from the  University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands (in 2001; MA Thesis on Mass Psychology in Fine Art and Advertising).  His research focuses on herd and imitative behavior in creative context, and is published in the Creativity Research Journal.  His second focus is on behavioral informatics. Laurens collaborates with the Learning Agents Research Group at Erasmus (LARGE). A recent paper on using social media apps to make people consume green energy  (together with University of Connecticut, USA) was awarded best poster  award (2nd prize, the 2014 Conference on Information Systems and Technology).  He lectures on Research Methodology,   Statistics, and Group Dynamics, but also is a graduated professional artist (Academy of Arts Rotterdam, 1997) with collected work in the Municipal Archives of Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and the National Art Collection of Ireland.