  Studies report that firms do not invest in cost-effective green technologies.
While economic barriers can explain parts of the gap, behavioural aspects cause
further under-valuation. This could be partly due to systematic deviations of
decision-making agents' perceptions from normative benchmarks, and partly due
to their diversity. This paper combines available behavioural knowledge into a
simple model of technology adoption. Firms are modelled as heterogeneous agents
with different behavioural responses. To quantify the gap, the model simulates
their investment decisions from different theoretical perspectives. While
relevant parameters are uncertain at the micro-level, using distributed agent
perspectives provides a realistic representation of the macro adoption rate.
The model is calibrated using audit data for proposed investments in energy
efficient electric motors. The inclusion of behavioural factors reduces
significantly expected adoption rates: from 81% using a normative optimisation
perspective, down to 20% using a behavioural perspective. The effectiveness of
various policies is tested.
