Background : Korean single-households in their 20s are increasing, but they are not aptly prepared for a sustainable future in the ecological and economic aspects due to their low interest in the energy saving for environmental protection and weak financial literacy of preferring consumption to saving. Financial services that proactively urge them to save on both natural and monetary resources are called for, but current personal finance apps only provide category budgeting functionality.
Methods : A service concept of expense tracking app, Eco², was proposed. It advises the consumers with two reference points: (1) expert-recommended energy spending goals for ecological sustainability, and (2) the peer group—i.e., consumers with similar age, income and household—spending average for economic sustainability. The differences between a consumer’s current spending and the two reference points are calculated and displayed to show how much energy–money he/she could have saved. The effectiveness of the Eco² was tested in a randomized trial with 140 single-households in their 20s. Mock Eco² UI screens were designed with an example of electricity consumption for running home appliances in the Rent and Utilities category. Two designs where two levels of information granularity—providing the reference points on the category level only (Exp1) and on the category and specific appliance levels (Exp2)—were compared in contrast to the control condition. The designs were hypothesized to affect the participants’ attitude towards energy efficiency when they shop for home appliances (H1), perceived effort-effect size of energy–money saving behavior (H2), and the number of energy–money saving tips they are willing to practice (H3).
Results : For H1, Exp1 and Exp2 encouraged the participants to consider energy efficiency with higher priority, and Exp2 was more effective than Exp1 for female participants. For H2, Exp1 and Exp2 were equally effective in changing the participants’ perceived effort-effect size of energy–money saving behavior. For H3, Exp1 and Exp2 increased the number of energy-money saving tips the participants are willing to practice; the increment was larger in the female Exp1 data than male, and larger in the male Exp2 data than Exp1.
Conclusions : The Eco² approach of advising the consumer with expert recommendations and peer group spending average as reference points was effective for both male and female participants, but gender differences exist in the reception of higher granularity information.