Impact of Japanese House Insulation Subsidy System on Home Owners' Energy-Saving Awareness

Achieving a massive reduction of carbon dioxide emissions in the household sector requires consumers being made aware of the underlying issue. In other words, if consumers update their energy-saving awareness and related behaviors, the energy-efficiency effect can be expected to endure. The Japanese government has addressed the issue of improving the thermal insulation performance of houses through various policy measures. For example, it provides subsidies and tax benefits directly to those consumers who consider a high level of insulation performance when they build their homes. This study investigates one such subsidy, the housing eco-points system, which has been in place in Japan since 2010, by focusing on its indirect effects. “Eco-points” is a Japanese–English term that combines ecological (eco) and reward (points) aspects. The basic premise of this study is that the subsidy not only directly affects the functionality of houses in terms of improving their insulation performance, but also indirectly affects consumers’ behaviors by improving their energy conservation awareness. This study thus analyzes the indirect effects of the housing eco-point system in Japan. To this end, it covers the introduction of the system from 2010 to 2012, which allows to accurately measure its newly generated indirect effects. We develop and examine three hypotheses related to the indirect effects of energy-saving consciousness: (1) consumers exposed to the learning effects would become more conscious about energy conservation (H1); (2) a subsidy system based on self-declaration enhances consumers’ energy-saving consciousness (H2); and (3) consumers living in existing houses develop greater awareness about energy saving than those living in new houses once they realize the benefits of performance improvement after insulation repairs (H3).