INDUCING HUMAN BEHAVIOUR FOR SUSTAINABILITY: EXPLORING PSYCHO-SOCIAL ASPECTS DETERMINING ENERGY CONSERVATION BEHAVIOUR Rutwik J. Gandhe*, Satish C. Pandey** * Research Scholar, School of Petroleum Management, Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University and Assistant Professor, Department of Social Work, The Bhopal School of Social Sciences (BSSS), Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India. Email: rutwik@bsssbhopal.edu.in **Associate Professor, School of Petroleum Management, Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University, Raisan, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India. Email: satishpandey2005@gmail.com Abstract: As the consensus has emerged across the globe to promote energy conservation for reducing green-house gas emissions worldwide, achieving low-carbon society and ensuring ecological sustainability have become primary objective for policymakers. To meet these energy conservation targets, energy scholarship has been asking to shift focus from promoting usage of energy-efficient appliances to reduce their usage, terming this as shifting from efficiency approach to curtailment approach. Promoting curtailment behaviour for energy conservation requires inducing pro-social behaviour among individuals, considering which, this study attempts to understand the psychosocial aspects those help determine individual’s behaviour towards energy conservation. In the backdrop of Theory of Planned Behaviour (TpB) framework, six psychometric variables, and to capture the socio-economic realities, five socio-economic measures from a representative sample of 550 individuals belonging to urban middle-class households of a city in Madhya Pradesh state of India were measured. Comparative tests to highlight differences in psychosocial measures among different socio-economic groups of individuals, tests to ascertain association between socio-economic and psychosocial measures, along with a linear regression analysis to predict behavioural intention were conducted. Study finds gender having no association with energy-conservation behaviour of individuals and points out certain threshold levels of age, household income, and energy expenditure, above and below which the performance of human behaviour towards energy conservation is likely to change. Further, mediating role of the values, beliefs, and subjective norms on the relationship between energy-conservation attitude and behavioural intention has been suggested along with discussing implications. Keywords: Energy Conservation Behaviour, Pro-social Behaviour, Sustainability Introduction Mitigation of climate change, reduced dependency on crude oil for energy, and reduction of Green House Gas emissions, aiming to promote sustainable development and energy conservation has become an imperative after the world experienced oil supply shocks of 1970s. To achieve it, pro- social altruistic behaviour has emerged as important vista for energy-conservation research wherein much attention is on promotion of a lifestyle less dependent on electricity and fuel. Pacifc Institute of Climatic Solutions (PICS, 2015) identifes four broad categories of motives that make individuals engage with energy-conservation behaviour out of which altruistic pro-social intent as one of the most promising one. American Council for an Energy Effcient Economy & European Environment Agency provide and encourage research focusing on human behaviour change for energy conservation as being one of the key strategy for sustainable human development. The impact of liberalization on the energy mix, energy tariff structures, and the rebound effect (More usage of energy-effcient appliances actually leading to relatively more use of energy than conservation of it) are counted among the prominent structural factors for achieving energy Article can be accessed online at http://www.publishingindia.com Journal of Strategic Human Resource Management 7 (3) 2018, 33-42 http://publishingindia.com/jshrm/