ENVIRONMENT AND BEHAVIOR / May 2002 Gatersleben et al. / PROENVIRONMENTAL CONSUMPTION MEASUREMENT AND DETERMINANTS OFENVIRONMENTALLYSIGNIFICANT CONSUMERBEHAVIOR BIRGITTAGATERSLEBEN,Ph.D.,isaresearchfellowattheDepartmentofPsy- chology,UniversityofSurrey,UnitedKingdom.Hermainresearchinterestsareenvi- ronmental risk perception, environmental attitudes and behavior, sustainable household consumer behavior, and sustainable transport. LINDASTEG,Ph.D.,isaresearchassociateintheDepartmentofPsychologyatthe UniversityofGroningen,theNetherlands.Hermainresearchinterestisinindividual and corporate behavior related to sustainable development from a multidisciplinary perspective.Herresearchprojectsfocusonenvironmentallysignificantbehavior,en- ergy use, car use, social dilemmas, and corporate responsibility. CHARLESVLEK,Ph.D.,isaprofessorofenvironmentalpsychologyintheDepart- ment of Psychology at University of Groningen, the Netherlands. His main research interestsareenvironmentalriskperception,mobilityandtransport,householdenergy savings, and sustainable corporate performance. ABSTRACT: Measures of proenvironmental behavior in psychological studies do not always reflect the actual environmental impact of a person or household. There- fore, the results of these studies provide little insight into variables that could be help- ful in reducing household environmental impact. In this article, an environmentally significant measure of household consumer behavior (i.e., combined direct and indi- rect energy use) is presented and compared with a common social science measure of proenvironmental behavior (based on popular notions of environmentally significant behavior). Two large-scale field studies were conducted among representative sam- ples of Dutch households. The results showed respondents who indicate they behave more proenvironmentally do not necessarily use less energy. Also, proenvironmental behavior is more strongly related to attitudinal variables, whereas household energy use is primarily related to variables such as income and household size. More multidisciplinary research seems necessary to identify variables that influence the actual environmental impact of household consumer behavior. 335 ENVIRONMENT AND BEHAVIOR, Vol. 34 No. 3, May 2002 335-362 © 2002 Sage Publications