Pro-environmental behaviour and other factors influence on energy consumption and CO2 emissions in the Lithuanian household sector

Energy consumed by the residential sector has grown significantly over the last thirty years and it is predicted that it will continue to increase in the future, not only because of urbanization, economic growth or the improvement of quality of life but also due to globalization that changes behaviour of the population. This sector also gains attention in EU energy and climate policy as one of the main energy consumers and contributors to climate change. The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of pro-environmental behaviour and other factors on energy consumption and CO2 emissions in the Lithuanian household sector. Survey was carried out to gather data on respondent’s environmental knowledge, attitudes and behaviour as well as on their household characteristics and energy bills. Energy consumption was recalculated from the bills using official energy prices and CO2 emission equivalent was recalculated using emissions factors from the literature review. Most of the respondents (55.4%) according behaviour were classified as browns, while greens presented 44.6% of the respondents. Regression analysis revealed that the energy consumption for heating was related with the respondent’s attitudes, housing area and the type of house; CO2 emissions depended on the housing area, type of the fuel and type of home heating (centralized). The use of electricity and CO2 emissions were determined by behaviour, type of house, number of children till six years old, family size and gender. The research results indicate that pro-environmental behaviour (being greens) positively influenced the use of electricity as well as the resulting lower CO2 emissions, but did not affect energy consumption for heating and its emissions, most probably because of dominant central heating (no possibility to regulate temperature) in the respondent’s households. This suggests that together with promotion of pro-environmental behaviour, to reach more significant results, multi-block house renovation with possibility for individual heat control is necessary to increase energy savings and CO2 mitigation in Lithuanian household sector.