ABSTRACT
… we discuss possible implications of climate policy for households. Households are considered to be a difficult target group for environmental policy. Each individual household makes only a marginal contribution to the climate problem. The social-dilemma paradigm indicates that households are not inclined to accept individual sacrifices for the common good of a climate-neutral society. Rejecting a skeptical attitude towards the household sector (resulting in a withdrawal from addressing citizens as conscious and responsible consumers), this chapter presents an alternative view in which households can steer society in a climate-neutral direction through their consumption. With a demand-side approach (differing fundamentally from the common supply-driven approach) households can engage in processes to improve their environmental performance while maintaining their quality of life. From this perspective we will investigate the potential for, as well as the obstacles to, change in household consumption patterns and we will evaluate the opportunities to enlarge this potential and to mitigate constraints presently impeding climate-relevant changes in household consumption patterns.
