Understanding the limitations of eco-feedback: a one-year long-term study

For the last couple of decades the world has been witnessing a change in habits of energy consumption in domestic environments, with elec tricity emerging as the main source of energy consumed. The effects of these changes in our eco-system are hard to assess, therefore encouraging researchers from different fields to conduct studies with the goal of understanding and im proving perceptions and behaviors regarding household energy consumption. While several of these studies report success in increasing awareness, most of them are limited to short periods of time, thus resulting in a reduced knowledge of how householders will behave in the long-term. In this paper we attempt to reduce this gap presenting a long-term study on household electricity consump tion. We deployed a real-time non-intrusive energy monitoring and eco feedback system in 12 families during 52 weeks. Results show an increased awareness regarding electricity consumption despite a significant decrease in interactions with the eco-feedback system over time. We conclude that after one year of deployment of eco-feedback it was not possible to see any significant increase or decrease in the household consumption. Our results also confirm that consumption is tightly coupled with independent variables like the house hold size and the income-level of the families.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Social norms based eco-feedback for household water consumption

Physical water scarcity is a growing threat to people’s lives around the world. Non-pecuniary interventions that encourage water conservation amongst households are an effective tool to promote sustainable consumption. In a randomised field experiment on 3461 UK households, a social norms based eco-feedback intervention was found to reduce water consumption by around 5.43 L a day or by 1.8% over 29 months. This effect did not persist for the 10 months after the intervention was stopped suggesting a lack of habit formation. Unlike previous studies, households with low consumption at baseline reduced their consumption the most, while high consumers did not. Heterogeneity was also found across quantile treatment effects, where households in the top and bottom quantiles increased their consumption. These results further contribute to the growing evidence on the effectiveness of combining social norms and eco-feedback as an intervention for conservation

Identifying Peer Groups in a Multifamily Residential Building for Eco-Feedback Design

Most residential energy saving strategies require occupants’ participation because they control building and mechanical systems and pay their utility in general. One effective way to increase their participation is to motivate them to change their behaviors by providing relevant information and benefits in their interests. This paper presents baseline energy consumption characteristics in a multifamily housing for eco-feedback design. Although previous studies have proven the energy savings of eco-feedback and smart technology, the results were often mixed or weak because the building, mechanical, geographical, and demographical characteristics were different among houses to make a solid comparison, and the collection of detailed information in residential houses was not available in most cases. Multifamily housing provides a unique opportunity to observe the direct impact of interventions on energy consumption and related behaviors by excluding the effect of building and mechanical characteristics. This paper introduces a non-intrusive experimental setup by using off-the-shelf products to monitor detailed behavior-related information. In addition, we present various classification rules to formalize energy-related behavior such as thermostat-related actions, occupancy detection, and energy normalization. Finally, the use of the collected information is presented, which enables the design of personalized eco-feedback

Eco-visualisation: Combining art and technology to reduce energy consumption

Artworks that display the real time usage of key resources such as electricity offer new strategies to conserve energy. These eco-visualisations-or artworks that creatively visualise ecologically significant data in real time-represent a substantial contribution to new knowledge about dynamic feedback as a tool to promote energy conservation and environmental site-based learning in this interdisciplinary project that expands and builds on prior findings from the fields of art, design, environmental psychology, and human computer interaction (HCI). The aims of this research endeavor were to locate answers to the following questions related to energy conservation in various public contexts. Might dynamic feedback from data-driven artwork create a better understanding of resource consumption patterns? Which environments are best for promoting eco-visualisation: borne, workplace, or alternative spaces? What kinds of visualisation tactics are most effective in communicating energy consumption data? These initial questions generated a four-year research project that involved an extensive literature review in both environmental psychology and art history that culminated in three different case studies, which targeted the effectiveness of eco-visualisation as an innovative conservation strategy. The three primary claims to be proven with supporting evidence from the literature reviews and case studies are: (1) eco-visualisation offers novel visual ways of making invisible energy data comprehensible, and encourages site-based learning; (2) eco-visualisation that provides real time visual feedback can increase environmental awareness and possibly increase the conservation behaviour in the viewing population; (3) eco-visualisation encourages new perceptions of linkages between the single individual and a larger community via site-based dialogue and conversation. Although the results of the three case studies are generally positive and prove the claims, there are larger social and environmental questions that will be addressed. How can eco-visualisation be productively integrated into the home or workplace without becoming a disposable gadget that represents a passing fad or fancy? Most importantly, how can energy conservation interventions be conceived to be as sustainable as possible, and non-threatening from a privacy perspective? These questions and more contribute to the discussion and analysis of the results of the three case studies that constitute the primary source of new knowledge asserted here in this dissertation

A review of gamified approaches to encouraging eco-driving.

Eco-driving is a style of driving that minimizes energy consumption, while gamification refers to the use of game techniques to motivate user engagement in non-game contexts. This paper comprises a literature review assessing applying gamification to encourage eco-driving. The Web of Science Core Collection and EBSCO Host platforms were searched in February 2022. Qualifying sources included peer review journal articles, conference proceedings papers, academic book chapters and dissertation reports. The final sample comprised 39 unique publications, of which 34 described gamification adjunct systems used during driving. Most were designed as smartphone apps, but some ran on bespoke in-car feedback displays. Alternatively, using game-based learning, 5 studies described videogames designed to encourage eco-driving. Popular gamification elements were: an eco-driving score; self-comparisons or comparisons with others via leader boards; rewards; challenges, missions or levels; and emotive feedback (e.g., emojis). One system aimed to discourage driving at busy times. While 13 studies assessed the efficacy of the various systems, these were generally of poor quality. This developing literature contains many good ideas for applying gamification to promote eco-driving. However, evidence for efficacy is largely absent and researchers are encouraged to continue to evaluate a wide range of gamification approaches to promote eco-driving

Vibrotactile pedals : provision of haptic feedback to support economical driving

The use of haptic feedback is currently an underused modality in the driving environment, especially with respect to vehicle manufacturers. This exploratory study evaluates the effects of a vibrotactile (or haptic) accelerator pedal on car driving performance and perceived workload using a driving simulator. A stimulus was triggered when the driver exceeded a 50% throttle threshold, past which is deemed excessive for economical driving. Results showed significant decreases in mean acceleration values, and maximum and excess throttle use when the haptic pedal was active as compared to a baseline condition. As well as the positive changes to driver behaviour, subjective workload decreased when driving with the haptic pedal as compared to when drivers were simply asked to drive economically. The literature suggests that the haptic processing channel offers a largely untapped resource in the driving environment, and could provide information without overloading the other attentional resource pools used in driving

Power ballads: deploying aversive energy feedback in social media

This paper reports on the pilot evaluation of “Power Ballads”, an evocative social media application which displays aversive feedback based on excessive household energy usage. Work by other researchers in persuasive technologies has previously suggested the use of aversive feedback should be avoided as it leads to a lack of engagement by users. This work evaluates whether punishment of non-desirable behaviour discourages users from engaging with a persuasive application. To this end we recruited 9 households to use the Power Ballads application over a period of 4 weeks. We found the use of aversive feedback did not act as a deterrent to regularly interacting with the application through evaluating user engagement

BALANCING FOOD VALUES: MAKING SUSTAINABLE CHOICES WITHIN COOKING PRACTICES

Within user-centred design and topics such as persuasive design, pleasurable products, and design for sustainable behaviour, there is a danger of over-determining, pacifying or reducing people’s diversity. Taking the case of sustainable food, we have looked into the social aspects of cooking at home, in specific related to the type of food that is purchased. This paper describes what it means for people to make more sustainable choices in food shopping and how that can be mediated while taking different ‘food values’ that household members have into account. In a design experiment, we developed a service for selecting daily dinner meals while supporting choices of sustainable food which reported on environmental impact, health and nutrition values, and purchase data. Through visualizations of alternative food choices, the experiment provided a space for households to negotiate food values, while opening up possibilities for changing cooking practices

Introducing eco-masculinities: How a masculine discursive subject approach to the individual differences theory of gender and IT impacts an environmental informatics project

In this paper I introduce the concept of eco-masculinities as a philosophical and critical project to understand the links between gendered and pro-environmental behaviour. The background of the feminist project, the sociology of masculinity, and the post-gendered world to which they both aspire, alongside a brief history of the project of ecofeminism, occupy the bulk of the paper. In the last section I briefly consider how these philosophical approaches might impact upon analysis of an EU Project entitled Digital Environment Home Energy Management System