A psychology perspective of energy consumption in organisations: The value of participatory interventions

Abstract

This paper provides a psychology perspective on the human factors that should be taken into consideration when designing behaviour-based energy-saving interventions for non-residential buildings. We review psychological theories used to explain energy-related behaviours and discuss their limitations as well as additional hindrances that interfere with employees' energy conservation. Furthermore, we highlight the features that distinguish residential from non-residential buildings and discuss how these factors may affect peoples' efforts to save energy. In conclusion, we argue that it is ineffective to promote energy-saving behaviours through top-down communication (e.g. information campaigns) but that decision-makers should rather rely on participatory designs, since these facilitate consumers' involvement, increase intrinsic motivation to save energy, take consumers' social environment into account, establish new energy-consumption norms, and encourage overt commitment of individuals to energy savings. Furthermore, we outline how participatory interventions could be strengthened by using motivational interviewing (MI) techniques, a conversation style that could be utilised to evoke users' motivation to engage in energy-conversation behaviours in non-residential buildings. Since basic MI skills can be learned within few days, we recommend that energy managers receive such a training in order to conduct in-house participatory MI-based interventions.

Diamond Model of Green Commitment and Low-Carbon Travel Motivation, Constraint, and Intention

“…This study uses green commitment as an early cause of low-carbon travel motivation and low-carbon travel constraint. Endrejat, et al [ 41 ] argued that consumers have more commitment to environmental behavior and they have a stronger environmental motivation. Al-Swidi and Saleh [ 42 ] clearly pointed out that environmentalists are more motivated to purchase environmentally certified products.…”

Sustainable development and requirements for energy efficiency in buildings – The Korean perspectives

“…in heating. 89–91 Building management system encompassing the use of timers and sensors could also contribute to energy saving. 92–95…”

Advanced Strategies for Net-Zero Energy Building: Focused on the Early Phase and Usage Phase of a Building’s Life Cycle

“…There have been various studies that analyzed energy-saving through behavioral change caused by providing the energy-related information to end users of a building [159][160][161][162][163][164][165][166][167][168]. Anderson et al (2017) conducted a study to analyze the behavior change over two years caused by sending a message regarding the energy consumption for students living in a dormitory complex on a university campus in Seoul, South Korea [162].…”

“…Kemp-Hesterman and Glick (2014) investigated the effects of human behavior on the electricity consumption, and the optimal solution to reducing the electricity consumption by inducing human behavior change using mixed methods (e.g., interviews) [164]. Endrejat et al (2015) provided the factors (e.g., motivational interviewing) to consider when trying to induce human-behavior-based energy-saving in a non-residential building from a psychological viewpoint [168]. The studies mentioned above are significant in that they analyzed building energy-saving through human behavior change, but they had restrictions as their analyses were conducted based on energy data over weekly, monthly, or annual units rather than on real-time data.…”