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Energy Insight: Energy efficiency and behaviour change
"...wider societal changes will be needed. [EI] Members emphasise the need for more engagement of energy consumers in the [energy] system. Adopting new technologies and shifting demand through behavioural change are seen as necessary on the consumers' side." Energy Barometer, Energy Institute..
International
Europe
UK Government
An introduction to Thinking about ‘Energy Behaviour’: a Multi Model Approach. DECC, December 2011 "The purpose of this paper is to set out a number of different perspectives that can be used to understand and interpret behaviour. It sets these out within a framework that demonstrates how each approach can contribute something valuable towards developing a broad view of behaviour"
UK non-Government
Demos
Carrots, sticks and sermons: influencing public behaviour for environmental goals. December 2003. This report from the think tank Demos "identified current thinking and best practice in the art of public influencing" and was designed to assist DEFRA.
Energy Consciousr Organisation (ENCO) "aims to engage, empower and equip organisations and energy professionals to enable significant energy savings through people."
Academic / Learned society / Trade Association
- Trends and patterns in energy demand Developing new ways of analysing the relation between the dynamics of end use practices and dynamics of energy demand, moving beyond reliance on aggregate patterns and averages.
- The dynamics of energy use in daily life Exploring how energy use is changing in relation to work, home and leisure activities.
- Adapting infrastructure for a lower carbon Looking at how infrastructure influences, or has influenced in the past, energy demand.
- Local smart grids Researching the management of energy demand and energy demand reduction in practice.
- Invisible energy policy Looking at how policies in healthcare, military and higher education can have knock-on effects on energy demand.
Energy Institute
Energy Aware - An innovative 30-minute online tool focussed on raising energy awareness in the workplace, certificated by the Energy Institute
Understanding your energy culture is a new tool adapted from the well-known Understanding your (safety) culture tool. The Energy Institute has adapted the research and learning behind improving safety culture to improve energy management performance.
The EI eLibrary (an EI member benefit) contains millions of resources including ebooks, scholarly journal articles, and other research relevant to energy, with a large subset discussing energy consumption behaviour.
ESTA (Energy Services and Technology Association)
Stanford University – Precourt Institute for Energy – Precourt Energy Efficiency Center
ETHOS - Searchable database of doctoral studies from UK universities, including multiple on energy consumption behaviour.
Energy company initiatives
Other organisations
RAC How to save fuel – the ultimate guide 14 Feb 2017 Reduce motor fuel consumption.
Other countries
Switzerland
USA
Hunt Allcott Social norms and energy conservation Journal of Public Economics, 2011, vol. 95, issue 9, 1082-1095
This paper evaluates a programme encouraging residential energy users across the USA to reduce their consumption by telling them what their neighbours consume - estimated to reduce average energy consumption by 2.0% but with a range of 6.3% to 0.3%.
(Originally published July 2017; updated and links checked April 2021)