Information accessibility refers to providing specific information that helps consumers of energy products at purchase or use. Consumers often lack the knowledge to make well-informed decisions on how they consume energy or what products they choose to buy and use.
This can lead to choices and behaviours that are not energy or cost-efficient. Information that educates us about energy, emissions or other environmental impacts supports consumers in identifying sustainable product alternatives and is particularly well suited to influence purchasing choices of residential appliances.
Also, Information access can help individuals make systematic preferences to buy low-emissions technologies and equipment, including choosing electric vehicles (EV), purchasing highly efficient appliances, switching to cleaner and more efficient tools for cooking, or refurbishing a home with improved insulation or solar water heaters, beyond the choice of energy technologies.
Access to information on the energy sector can create citizen engagement through behavioural changes that reduce energy demand through adjustments in everyday life. These active and ongoing changes in consumer energy use ensure that equipment is used efficiently and reduces wasteful or excessive energy consumption.
While individual preferences influence sustainable consumption choices and behavioural changes, the impact of the broader context of economic incentives, infrastructure, and information surrounding individuals affects energy consumption choices.
The assumption that people’s lifestyles and consumption patterns will continue to change in a scenario of net zero emissions is arguably unrealistic. It risks ignoring the potential for individuals, via their choices and habits, to help steer the energy system onto a sustainable path.
Recognising that access to quality information can improve sustainable consumption choices and behavioural changes; policymakers can implement policies that make it easier for people to modify how they use energy. Governments can, for instance, introduce low-emissions zones in cities or support consumer investments in clean energy technologies such as efficient air conditioners, heat pumps, solar water heaters, or solar PV panels.
Finally, information access is very helpful and will cause individual behavioural changes and sustainable consumer choices to reduce annual CO2 emissions by almost 1.7 billion tonnes in 2030, putting the world on a pathway towards net zero emissions.