Abstract:

Energy consumption is one of the main drivers of environmental problems. Individual energy conservation is crucial for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and consequently global warming, air and water pollution, depletion of energy and water sources. The first aim of this paper is to examine energy conservation behavior of Turkish consumers, the effects of attitudinal, demographic and residential factors on usage of specific conservation methods. The second aim of the paper is to propose a short but still comprehensive conservation scale. Data was collected through a survey from 305 consumers living in Yalova, Kocaeli and İstanbul. Analyses revealed that , generally speaking, conservation behavior is not very strong and it mainly focuses on electricity conservation. The effect of economic concern on conservation behavior is stronger than environmental concern. The prominent demographic factor is age since the younger consumers put less effort on energy and water conservation than their older counterparts. Finally, it was found that a multi-dimensional conservation scale is acceptable for measuring Turkish consumers’ general conservation behavior. 

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