$$$ saving is not the most motivative way to get people to save energy

What's the best way to persuade people to save energy or choose energy saving products ?  We might think it is by calculating how much money can be saved. 

But according to a recent study on incentives and energy conservation by Asensioa and Delmas at UCLA, today's U.S. electricity prices (averaging 13 cents per kilowatt hour nationally) the amount of money consumers could save by cutting energy isn't high enough to be motivating. Reminders of the environmental health benefits of cutting electricity use are far more powerful motivation.

The study was conducted by installing smart meters and appliance-level monitoring technology in the homes of about 120 young Los Angeles couples and families in the randomized, controlled experiment. The households were sent weekly e-mails to test the power of different motivational messages.

The group that received reminders of how much money they could save by cutting back on electricity showed no net energy savings over the four-month trial. But a similar group cut energy use 8 percent after receiving e-mails about the amount of pollution they were producing, and how it has been shown to cause childhood asthma and cancer. The health message was most effective in the subset of households with children at home

The health effects of ambient air pollution from coal and natural gas-burning, the fuels that generate most of the world's electricity. Global health damage estimates already exceed $120 billion, as noted in the study.

References and more to read: 
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/01/07/1401880112
http://www.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/2015/01/energy-savings-health-benefits