ABSTRACT In the residential sector, the substantial increase in household appliance ownership has significantly driven the growth of domestic electricity consumption. To address the environmental challenges associated with this rise, the Chinese government has implemented a series of regulatory policies aimed at encouraging consumers to choose higher‐level energy‐saving home appliances (HESHA). These measures are recognized as critical strategies for reducing the energy consumption impact of household appliances. Therefore, investigating the mechanisms through which various policies effectively influence consumer purchasing behaviour towards energy‐saving appliances is essential for guiding policymakers and marketing professionals in promoting high‐efficiency products. This paper developed a dynamic decision‐making model grounded in social network theory and the Consumat framework. Using simulation experiments, it evaluated the effects of various policy instruments on consumers' adoption of HESHA. The findings reveal that: (1) when individual policies or their combinations are enacted, consumers predominantly adopt behavioural strategies characterized by ‘self‐optimization’ and ‘social comparison’, with ‘imitation’ playing a secondary role. (2) Regarding single policy instruments, green technology innovation policies and public education policies exhibit a nonlinear, inverted U‐shaped effect; green subsidy policies show diminishing marginal returns. Infrastructure and support platform development policies demonstrate a temporal lag in effectiveness. Energy efficiency labelling policies have an immediate and significant positive impact on consumers' green purchasing behaviours. (3) Concerning the interaction of combined policy measures, the complementarity between green subsidies and energy efficiency labelling systems is minimal; conversely, there is a strong synergistic effect between infrastructure and support platform development policies and both green subsidies and public education initiatives; however, green technology innovation policies do not exhibit notable synergistic interactions with other policy instruments. (4) Additionally, consumers' preferences for green products moderate the effectiveness of policy implementation.
Peng et al. (Sun,) studied this question.