Consumption Behaviour in the Context of Sustainable Energy: Theoretical Approach

Increasing production and consumption have a growing environmental impact. The challenge for all countries is to decouple economic growth from the environmental impacts of consumption, resource use and waste generation. The economic sectors with the highest environmental impacts are electricity, gas and water supply, transport services and agriculture. It is there-fore becoming important to improve energy efficiency and invest in innovative and resource-efficient technologies, recognising the need to change consumption patterns and behaviours. The Sustainable Development Strategy focuses on sustainable production and consumption. Although historically the focus has been on production and the associated environmental problems and solutions such as pollution control, cleaner production and recycling. Production and consumption as interdependent indicators have only recently come into focus as researchers have realised that production and consumption are highly interrelated. Sustainable Development Goals have stressed the importance of promoting consumption and production that have the least possible impact on the environment and are able to meet the basic needs of humanity.