Consumer Awareness

Description:

consumer behaviour for the energy is quite an issue, as non of them has the awareness of how things are working and how we can improve the whole energy consumption habits, and how they can save energy during their normal habits and save money so it's a win-win situation for both the consumers and the suppliers. small flyers or social media influencers can really change the whole equation.

Enablers:

• prices of energy are getting higher
• less energy will be needed from suppliers.
• the saved money can be used on other stuff.
• win-win situation.

Inhibitors:

• there are no negative points from increasing the awareness of customers.

Paradigms:

thinking of the whole energy system in future is very important but, it doesn't have to come from just changing energy sources from dirty to clean (renewable) that is one part of the story but what if we could change the usage behaviour of customer in heating, cooling, lighting, use of solar energy, recycling, reduce waste etc... that will save us a lot of energy saving in the future.

Experts:

• United Nations
• EU
• Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
• Centraal burau voor de statistieken (CBS) for Dutch figures and trends

Timing:

• 2000: Trend identified
• 2005: Several parties and governmental institutions have done research on this matter and they all show that action is needed.
• 2010: Period in which the steepest increase of people turning 65 years or older is expected
• 2020 - 2025: One in five Europeans will be more than 65 years old.

Web Resources:

• Anti-aging Europe
• BusinessWeek - Global Aging
• McKinsey The economic impact of an aging Europe
• MGI The Coming Demographic Deficit: How Aging Populations Will Reduce Global Savings
• OECD
• The Economist - The economic power of women
• The Economist - Women and the world economy
• The New York Times - An Aging Europe May Find Itself on the Sidelines 1 2