An analysis of the main driving factors of renewable energy consumption in the European Union Camacho Ballesta, José Antonio Da Silva Almeida, Lucas Rodríguez Molina, Mercedes Renewable energy Economic factors Social factors Energy transition Data panel European Union Funding for open access charge: Universidad de Granada/CBUA. The Ministry of Economy, Industry, and Competitiveness and State Research Agency of Spain, and European Regional Development Fund, No. CS02017-86975-R, which finances the project "Adaptation to sustainable energy transition in Europe: Environmental, socio-economic and cultural aspects (ADAPTAS)" that financed the obtaining of the data for elaboration of this paper. Climate change is a major global concern closely related to the strategies aimed at reducing energy consumption and increasing energy efficiency. Over the last decades, the interest in the development of renewable energy (RE) has grown exponentially. In the case of the European Union (EU), the Renewable Energy Directive sets rules to achieve a 32% of total energy consumption to be covered through RE by 2030. In order to achieve this goal, it is important to know what are the main driving factors of RE consumption (REC). This study aims to analyze the impact of economic and social factors on the share of REC in total energy consumption in the EU over the period 2001–2015. For doing so, we estimate a Panel Corrected Standard Error (PCSE) model. The results obtained show that economic factors have a negative effect on REC. In contrast, social factors like education exert a positive effect. This suggests that it is necessary to adopt a holistic approach that includes not only economic but also social aspects in order to foster REC. 2022-02-07T09:49:32Z 2022-02-07T09:49:32Z 2022-01-19 journal article Camacho Ballesta, J.A., da Silva Almeida, L. & Rodríguez, M. An analysis of the main driving factors of renewable energy consumption in the European Union. Environ Sci Pollut Res (2022). [https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-18715-z] http://hdl.handle.net/10481/72690 10.1007/s11356-022-18715-z eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/ open access Atribución 3.0 España Springer