Área de sección transversal del tronco

“Achieving energy efficiency through behaviour change: what does it take?” is the title of the EEA Technical report (European Environment Agency 2013) that expresses together with a growing body of evidence in academic literature that there is significant potential for energy savings due to measures targeting the human factor and behavioural change (Clarity Sustainability 2015). Indeed, a large number of energy efficiency strategies implemented involve technological interventions, but should equally rely on raising user awareness and adjusting their energy consumption behaviour (Figure 1.1-7). Behavioural change strategies have been recognized as a low-cost and highly efficient measure to reduce building energy consumption, and consequently related environmental impacts and operational costs. Building occupants oftentimes are not truly aware of how their behaviour and interactions with the built environment (negatively or positively) affect energy uses and their own environmental comfort (Judd et al. 2013). The role of occupants in reaching the net-zero target and the importance of institutional behavioural change to enhance building performance is crucial since frequently passive building strategies developed for high performing buildings require that occupants are engaged to actively and smartly interact with the proposed solutions.

Promoting and achieving energy-conscious behaviour among householders is a key issue for reducing energy consumptions in the residential sector (Wood and Newborough 2003). Results from domestic energy awareness campaigns in Italy (D’Oca et al. 2014) and worldwide (Pothitou et al. 2016) verified the energy saving potential (on average among 15 to 20%) of improving occupant behaviour at home.

Figure 1.1-7. Energy Savings: Technological interventions vs. behavioural change, adapted by (Clarity Sustainability 2015) .

Engaging behavioural change in commercial buildings and offices is more critical, since the effects of energy (and cost) saving is often not “paid back” to the employees in monetary terms (savings on energy bill). Motivation for employees to engage in energy efficiency behaviours is therefore very different and must rely on corporate and social responsibility objectives and reinforcing societal norms. Moreover, the nature of competition between individual colleagues or different offices can be a more powerful driver than financial gain. Studies focusing on energy engagement in office settings report energy savings ranging from 4 to 10% (Gulbinas et al. 2014; Orland et al. 2014). Most likely for this reason – at the time- being - a larger amount of studies have focused on residential buildings (Ueno et al. 2006; Ueno et al. 2005; Ouyang and Hokao 2009), while fewer investigations have been done for the non-residential sector (Matthies et al. 2011). Efforts related to behavioural change incentives have been done also in the higher education sector (Macarulla et al. 2015) in order to reach the keystone for sustainable development also in university campuses.

Existing literature highlights that most of the user awareness campaigns stimulate behavioural change by providing feedback on the electricity usage and related costs (Brounen et al. 2012). These approaches oftentimes do not consider or leverage on psychological, anthropological, physiological needs or health aspects of the occupants (Darby 2006; Herring 2006). Indeed, motivating occupants to change their behaviour can become a challenging task, especially if they are expected to internalize and adopt the new behaviour on a long term. This means that information and feedback provided to the occupants must be stimulating, easy to understand, and easy to adopt in the daily routine. Further research is necessary to explore the effectiveness of motivational triggers (health and well-being of the occupants) in leading to a behavioural change on a long term (behavioural persistence), also after the conclusion of the engagement campaign. Next to the feedback content itself, it is also crucial to deploy a successful communication strategy with the engaged users. In the field of persuasive technology, various innovative solutions have been realized for leveraging behavioural change, such as

ambient displays that show real-time energy consumption (Wood and Newborough 2007), mobile or web applications with the most variate functions, or even serious games that are aimed at changing behaviour with an added pedagogical value of fun and competition (Orland et al. 2014). To address the above-mentioned shortcomings, the European Union introduced several measures to ensure better engagement of the citizens and in which the awareness of the building occupant is a key to achieving the remaining tasks (European Commission 2017). Among other initiatives, the European Commission funded several projects under Horizon 2020 programme aiming to achieve a behavioral change towards energy efficiency through ICT-based solutions. In 2014, the European Commission funded the following projects: EnerGAware, ENTROPY, OrbEEt, GreenPlay, Tribe. In 2015 further projects kicked off, such as PeakAPP, GAIA, and ChArGED, whereas the most recent projects (2016) within this scope are enCOMPASS and MOBISTYLE (European Commission 2018).

In the context of the Intelligent Energy Europe Programme from the European Commission, Dahlbom et al. (2009) developed guidelines for Behavioural Change Programmes and provided an overview of lessons learnt in 41 cases in Europe over the past years. The authors highlight that interventions aimed at changing the behaviour of the occupants are only effective if they are set up in a systematic way and according to a planning and evaluation model. The exploration of methodological frameworks to set up and evaluate effective engagements is therefore a key aspect to reach desired outcomes in terms of energy saving and long- term behavioural change and still needs to be thoroughly explored.

In this context, Chapter 6 is aimed at demonstrating the development of energy engagement programs that have been part of this doctoral research. Focus is put on (i) innovative approaches that involve new triggers such as health-related aspects and well- being of the occupants (ii) the development of methods for setting up and evaluating an effective engagement campaign.