Alternative scenarios of green consumption in Italy: An empirically grounded model

  • Authors:

  • Giangiacomo Bravo;Elena Vallino;Alessandro K. Cerutti;Maria Beatrice Pairotti

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Social Studies, Linnaeus University, Universitetsplatsen 1, SE-35195 Växjö, Sweden and Collegio Carlo Alberto, Via Real Collegio 30, 10024 Moncalieri, Italy;Department of Economics and Statistics, University of Torino, Lungo Dora Siena 100A, 10153 Torino, Italy;Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Food Sciences, University of Torino, Via Leonardo Da Vinci 44, 10095 Grugliasco (To), Italy;Department of Management, University of Torino, Corso Unione Sovietica 218 Bis, 10134 Torino, Italy

  • Venue:
  • Environmental Modelling & Software
  • Year:
  • 2013

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Abstract

Any transition towards a more environmentally sustainable world will strongly depend on people's willingness to adopt the best available practices. We present here the Consumption Italy (CITA) model, an empirically grounded agent-based model designed to represent household consumption in Italy and to estimate the related greenhouse gas emissions under different environmental policy scenarios. We explored the effect of a price increase for high impact goods and services (e.g., because of the introduction carbon taxes) and of a change of agents' environmental concern (e.g., because of information campaigns). We found that both kind of actions can orient people consumption in the desired direction. However, their target and intensity should be carefully calibrated to produce significant effects at an acceptable cost.