energies Article Energy-Related Behaviour of Consumers from the Silesia Province (Poland)—Towards a Low-Carbon Economy Sylwia Slupik 1, * , Joanna Kos-Lab ˛ edowicz 2 and Joanna Trz˛ esiok 3   Citation: Slupik, S.; Kos-Lab ˛ edowicz, J.; Trz˛ esiok, J. Energy-Related Behaviour of Consumers from the Silesia Province (Poland)—Towards a Low-Carbon Economy. Energies 2021, 14, 2218. https://doi.org/10.3390/ en14082218 Academic Editor: David Borge-Diez Received: 21 March 2021 Accepted: 14 April 2021 Published: 16 April 2021 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). 1 Department of Social and Economic Policy, University of Economics in Katowice, 1 Maja 50, 40-287 Katowice, Poland 2 Department of International Economic Relations, University of Economics in Katowice, 1 Maja 50, 40-287 Katowice, Poland; joanna.kos@ue.katowice.pl 3 Department of Economic and Financial Analysis, University of Economics in Katowice, 1 Maja 50, 40-287 Katowice, Poland; joanna.trzesiok@ue.katowice.pl * Correspondence: sylwia.slupik@ue.katowice.pl Abstract: The issue of energy behaviour among Polish consumers, and especially the motives and attitudes they manifest, is relatively under-researched. This article attempts to identify individual attitudes and beliefs of energy consumers using the example of the residents of the province of Silesia (Poland). The authors conducted the expert segmentation of respondents in terms of their motivation for saving energy, based on the results of their proprietary survey. The second stage of the study involved using a classification model that allowed for the characterisation of the obtained groups. Psychological and financial factors were of greatest significance, which is confirmed by the results of other studies. Nonetheless, the obtained results explicitly indicate the specificity of the region, which requires transformation towards a low-emission economy. Despite the initial stage of changes both in the awareness of the consumers and the public interventions of the authorities, it should be emphasized that a majority of the respondents—at least to a basic extent—declared taking energy-saving measures. Financial motives are predominant among the respondents, although pro-environmental motives can also be noticed, which might translate into increased involvement and concern for the environment and climate. Keywords: energy behaviour; low-carbon economy; Silesia province; energy consumer segmentation; financial motives; pro-environmental motives; classification tree 1. Introduction Energy efficiency is an important issue from the perspective of sustainable and respon- sible development, reducing CO 2 emissions to the atmosphere and energy consumption in line with EU-adopted objectives for 2020 and 2050. Energy behaviour is a complex issue, hence household electricity consumption pat- terns are essential for shaping low-carbon economy, especially in the light of the observed climate changes [1,2]. This is critical for the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, such as Poland, where many years of negligence in the field of environmental and climate protection force decisive actions by both central and regional authorities. According to Central Statistical Office (GUS) data from 2018, Polish households accounted for over 18% of domestic energy consumption (compared to a EU average of 17.2%), with an average of 21.3 GJ of energy consumed per capita. Furthermore, the share of energy from renew- able sources in the domestic household consumption in Poland was relatively low and amounted to only 13.7% (EU—17.5%) [3]. The presented data and the fact that Poland is the leader in household hard coal consumption (hard coal consumed per capita in Poland was tenfold higher than in EU countries) [3] proves the exceptional significance of the addressed issue. It is extremely important to shift the behaviour of consumers towards energy-effective consumption, among others, through increasing the awareness among Energies 2021, 14, 2218. https://doi.org/10.3390/en14082218 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/energies