Scalable Strategy for Heat Pump Adoption: Community-Based Events with Behavioural Design
This paper demonstrates how behaviourally designed community events activate heat pump adoption at scale by closing the intention-action gap. It examines two complementary interventions designed to accelerate heat pump adoption in Germany through behavioural communication strategies. The "Week of the Heat Pump" (WdWp) campaign reached 50,000+ citizens across 550 events, generating 23,720 additional funding applications (€687.9–€901.4 million private investment from €4 million public budget). The "Heat Pump Info Days" format across 10 municipal events (5,750 participants, 2,542 survey responses) achieved +28% average knowledge gain (n=2,542), 91.2% average post-event conviction rate, and 92.5% action readiness in single 2-hour sessions. With 75.6% preevent conviction, the primary barrier is not persuasion but activation: participants lack actionable knowledge (especially on subsidies) and a clear path to action. Systematic communication combining municipal anchoring, manufacturer neutrality, and behavioural science principles closes this intention-action gap at scale.