Green Hypocrisy? : Environmental Attitudes and Residential Space Heating Expenditure

In the UK, the largest proportion of household energy use is for space heating. Popular media make claims of a green hypocrisy: groups which have the strongest attitude towards the environment have the highest emissions. This study examines whether environmental attitudes and behaviors are associated with space heating energy use using data from the British Household Panel Survey. Results find that environmentally friendly attitudes generally do not lead to lower heating expenditures though environmentally friendly behaviors are associated with lower heating expenditure. Also, the effect of these attitudes and behaviors do not change as income increase