Increasing wellbeing through energy demand reduction for net zero: Citizen perceptions of co-benefits of local measures

Energy demand reduction options can make an important contribution to a Net Zero transition for climate change mitigation, and also offer multiple social, economic, and environmental ‘co-benefits’. However, these co-benefits are often insufficiently accounted for in policy making, which tends to focus on direct economic costs and benefits. Applying Multi Criteria Mapping and survey methods, the paper investigates how citizens in two UK regions value a range of energy demand reduction options in relation to indicators of wellbeing. This analysis shows that citizens place high value on a range of co-benefits of energy demand reduction options, whilst also valuing fairness including environmental intergenerational concerns and accepting the need for some restrictions on individuals' lifestyle choices. This provides support for recent analysis, based on evaluation of expert opinion, that demand-side mitigation measures are consistent with high levels of citizens' wellbeing, and suggests that energy policy assessment needs to take these co-benefits into account in decision-making processes. This is consistent with moving towards a wider ‘wellbeing economy’ approach, compared to a narrower assessment based only on economic costs and benefits.