IGEE Proceedings

Article

Climate Action for Balanced Regional Development: Exploratory Youth Preferences for Renewable Energy Policy Using Conjoint-Informed Scenario Ratings: Sujin Kim, Dain Jin, Sihyun Jung; Received February 4, 2026 Accepted October 12, 2026 Published online October 20, 2026; DOI: https://doi.org/10.69841/igee.2026.021 [Epub ahead of print]

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Background
Korea's Renewable Energy 3020 Implementation Plan targeted a 20% share of power generation from new and renewable energy by 2030, yet such sources supplied only 10.6% of electricity in 2024. This implementation gap highlights social acceptance, community governance, and youth civic participation as important barriers alongside technology and finance. Quantitative evidence on which specific policy design attributes shape young Koreans' willingness to participate in renewable energy initiatives remains limited, and the mechanism by which educational engagement translates into pro-environmental behavioral choice has not been directly examined in this population.
Methods
The study employed a two-phase sequential design. Phase 1 consisted of an on-site preliminary field study at the Yeongdeok Renewable Energy Exhibition Hall (November 2025), involving direct observation of operational infrastructure and structured engagement with local cooperative stakeholders to ground subsequent instrument development in real-world context. Phase 2 was a one-group pre-post quasi-experimental online pilot study (N = 50, ages 18-29) in which participants completed a five-stage integrated protocol: a baseline awareness survey, a 15-minute educational video, four gamified learning modules linked to an Energy Coin (E.C.) reward system, a simulated cooperative online market transaction under experimentally induced point-budget constraints, and a post-survey incorporating an exploratory conjoint-informed scenario-rating task across six policy scenarios defined by four attributes (installation location, economic benefit type, participation mechanism, and governance structure). The six profiles are reported explicitly and treated as a burden-reduced profile set for main-effect exploration rather than a fully orthogonal conjoint design. Sample size was determined via G*Power 3.1 analysis of the paired awareness comparison (93% power at n = 50 for a medium within-person effect); the same n is not sufficient for regression-based attribute modelling, so the attribute results are reported as exploratory.
Results
Renewable energy awareness increased significantly from M = 4.2 to M = 5.7 on a 7-point scale (t(49) = 8.34, p < 0.001, Cohen's d = 1.18). Because the six-profile set cannot identify a full dummy-coded specification, attribute effects are reported as marginal means. Governance structure showed the widest spread (design-dependent relative importance 47.8%; cooperative joint ownership M = 5.69 vs. expert-managed M = 3.92, Δ = +1.77, 95% CI [1.27, 2.26]), followed by economic benefit (26.0%) and installation location (22.2%, Δ = +0.82 for farmland/idle land, 95% CI [0.37, 1.27]); the six scenario profiles accounted for 24.9% of the total variance in ratings (η² = 0.25). Participation mechanism accounted for 4.1% and was not significant; inferential claims are treated cautiously because ratings were repeated within participants, the profile set was small and nonorthogonal, and preferences were measured immediately after the educational intervention. In the only pair of scenarios that differed on governance structure alone (S6 vs. S4), the cooperative joint-ownership profile was rated 1.59 points higher than the expert-managed profile (95% CI [1.08, 2.10]). Energy Coin accumulation was associated with ecofriendly product selection (r = 0.42, 95% CI [0.16, 0.63], p = 0.002), although this association is descriptive because the same E.C. score also determined participants' simulated purchasing budget.
Conclusion
Governance architecture emerged as the strongest observed preference signal among these young Korean university participants, but the finding should be interpreted as exploratory and post-intervention rather than as a stable national estimate for Korean youth. A two-phase design combining field exposure with gamified online simulation was associated with large immediate awareness gains and simulated pro-environmental choice under explicit point-budget tradeoffs, offering a scalable evidence-generating approach for youth-centered climate policy research while requiring replication with more diverse regional and socioeconomic samples.; Summary

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