Motivating Home Energy Action
Australian Greenhouse Office, 2002
Fact sheet 8 - Driving market changes
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- Download Motivating Home Energy Action - Driving market changes - Fact sheet 8
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This approach to home energy action identifies barriers to adopting energy efficiency measures in the market and develops strategies to overcome them.
To do this you need information on:
The structure of the industry for a particular product, including:
- the number and market share of manufacturers
- distribution channels, and
- the number of units flowing through each channel.
The decision-making process leading to an equipment purchase, including:
- who makes the purchase decision
- what factors are taken into account, and
- when the decision is made in the supply chain.
To find out about the decision making process in a market you can survey or hold in-depth interviews with:
- salespeople
- wholesalers
- manufacturers
- builders, and
- real estate agents.
To find out homeowners' needs and opinions you can:
- hold focus groups and surveys to determine preferences, and
- carry out small-scale experiments and in-depth interviews to determine which technologies or strategies are likely to succeed in your market.
This is how the industry structure and decision-making process for major kitchen and laundry appliances might look:
With this information you can decide:
- which purchasers and suppliers should be targeted
- where to focus your strategy
- how to market the benefits energy action can deliver, and
- how to develop energy actions and technology that will appeal to purchasers.
ESSENTIAL FEATURES OF MARKET STRATEGIES
Market strategies perform best when they:
- Promote quality
High quality strategies and technology are more likely to appeal to householders.
- Emphasise a suite of benefits
Focus on the benefits that the technology or strategy will give the householder, for example convey the idea energy efficient homes are high quality homes.
- Advertise
Advertising can improve the success of market transformation strategies.
- Promote trials
People are more likely to adopt a new idea or technology if they can try it first. Small-scale trials could include:
- giving away a low-cost energy efficiency product such as a device to restrict shower flow, and
- encouraging householders to take one low-cost, quick and easy energy action.
Effective trial strategies encourage householders to see themselves as concerned about saving energy, and can give them the opportunity to make their own discoveries about saving energy.
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