Household expenditure on domestic fuel and power in New South Wales, Australia.

• Author: Yusuf, Farhat
• Position: Report

1. INTRODUCTION

   The greenhouse effect refers to a natural process by which certain gases serve to contain heat within the Earth's atmosphere. While water vapour is the most common greenhouse gas, humans have the most impact on carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide through activities such as the burning of fossil fuels and land clearing. The Kyoto protocol and Australia's Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000 are examples of international and national initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

   Households produce one-fifth of Australia's greenhouse gas emissions (Australia, 2003a). They consume fossil fuels in the form of electricity, heating and cooking fuels and motor vehicle fuels (petrol, diesel and liquefied petroleum gas). From a usage segmentation perspective, the average household's energy consumption can be considered in two categories: transport, which accounts for 34% of greenhouse gas emissions; and domestic fuel and power which accounts for 61%. Domestic fuel and power refers to electricity, oil or gas used for activities such as water heating, lighting, cooking etc. The remaining 5% are a consequence of waste production and not associated with a particular product or use (adapted from Australia, 2003b, p3).

   Domestic fuel and power (electricity, oil and gas) is the major greenhouse emission related household consumption category; this paper analyses household expenditure on domestic fuel and power against selected demographic characteristics. The scope of this paper is limited to the state of New South Wales.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

   Environmental concern has increased substantially in Western countries over recent decades (see for example: Kalafitis et al., 1999). This environmental concern correlates well with consumers' stated intentions to purchase environmentally friendly products (Antil, 1984; Shetzer et al., 1993). However these intentions do not translate directly into changed consumer behaviour by way of the adoption of such products (Kleiner, 1991; Rowlands et al., 2002; Schlossberg, 1991). Some psychographic based research has identified consumers' perceived effectiveness of their actions as a significant determinant of environmentally friendly consumer behaviour (Ellen et al., 1991; Kinear et al., 1974; Straughan and Roberts, 1999; Weiner and Doescher, 1991). Despite the predictive utility of this and other psychographic measures, there is evidence that different environmentally friendly behaviours are not highly correlated (Laroche, 2001; Tracy and Oskamp, 1983-1984). As such behaviours cannot be readily generalised, there is a need to investigate greenhouse emission reducing behaviours separately from other environmentally friendly behaviours.

   Searches for scholarly articles in the EBSCO/Proquest and Emerald databases for the key phrases 'greenhouse', 'global warming' or 'climate change' in journals containing the words 'marketing' or 'consumer' in the title produced no relevant papers. While some authors have addressed aspects of greenhouse related environmentally friendly behaviours (see for example: Foxall, 1995) research specifically addressing greenhouse emission reducing behaviours appears to be very limited.

3. DATA AND METHODS

   The Household Expenditure Survey (HES) carried out by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 1998-1999 was the main source of data for this study. In this survey, a household was defined as "a person or group of persons living together and having common provision for food and...