Wood heating and moral licensing: a survey study

A rebound effect occurs when an energy efficiency improvement results in less energy savings than expected. Usually, this phenomenon is attributed to a price effect, as improvements in the energy efficiency of a technology reduce its cost of use, thereby encouraging increased usage. Recent studies taking into account environmental preferences suggest that the rebound effect is not only due to a price effect. A behavioral phenomenon, called moral licensing effect, may also lead users of a more efficient technology (often less damaging to the environment) to feel less guilt to use it more, and thus to increase the rebound effect. We conducted a survey involving 1,510 French households to explore the moral licensing effect in the context of heating behavior. First, we show that most people declare they would increase their heating consumption if it had a lesser environmental impact. Second, we show that wood heating is perceived as a heating fuel with less environmental impact than oil, gas and electricity. Based on these results we conclude that policies promoting wood heating as a more environmentally friendly energy source may indeed induce a moral licensing effect, leading people to increase their heating usage and potentially counteracting expected environmental benefits of wood heating.