Which factors inhibit householders from energy saving investments?

To counteract the negative consequences of global warming the Dutch government encourages householders to undertake energy saving investments. Energy saving investments reduce carbon dioxide emission and yield also privately attractive returns. However, although it’s privately and socially beneficial to undertake energy saving investments, the adoption of energy saving investments in the Netherlands is lower than desirable (Vringer et al., 2014). I estimate a linear probability model to determine the empirical relevance of several factors that might discourage householders to undertake energy saving investments. The results show that lack of information, principle agent problems like landlord-tenant issues and expected savings are important barriers to energy saving investments. Transaction costs don’t influence the intention to invest. The existence of several barriers to energy saving investments and the need to achieve the European climate goals in 2020 imply that more stringent policy options to encourage energy saving investments are desirable.