Unravelling the ‘ingredients’ of energy consumption: Exploring home-related practices in Belgium

To look at energy consumption through a different lens, we have developed the conceptual framework of habitual practices. The objective of the present paper is to propose an empirical application of this framework, with the aim of unravelling the constitutive ‘ingredients’ of energy-consuming practices. Therefore, we investigate whether discussing the relationship of people with their homes could help circumventing the methodological difficulties that inevitably arise when trying to approach less tangible (albeit crucial) elements such as norms and attached meanings. The empirical material comes from group conversations where participants discussed the extent to which a home has to be practical, comfortable and convivial in connection with a series of elements. The results confirm that this methodological setting generated useful insights for a finer understanding of energy-consuming practices and their underlying drivers. A related crucial finding is the role of key appliances – those with more contrasted use and attached meanings – which appear to mediate the interplay between comfort, conviviality, and practicality. A promising avenue for future research would thus be to further investigate the role of those key appliances as potential markers of wider tendencies in energy consumption and useful for designing segmentation strategies.