Nudges from school children and electricity conservation: Evidence from the “Project Carbon Zero” campaign in Singapore

Abstract

Can children effectively nudge their parents to change their energy consumption behavior? This study sets up a quasi-experiment using the “Project Carbon Zero” campaign, an energy-saving contest in Singapore, to empirically test the effectiveness of school children nudges in bringing electricity conservation messages home and influencing behaviors of their families and neighbors. Based on the 2km (km) home–school distance as an identification, our results show that families living within 2km from participating schools (treatment group) used 1.8% less electricity at the block level than other families outside the 2km school zone (control group) during the contest period. The electricity savings effects are persistent with an estimated marginal savings 1.6% in the post-campaign months. The results imply that policy makers and advocates for energy conservation could use school children nudges in public campaigns, instead of pecuniary interventions, to drive home behavioral changes in electricity conservation of families.