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Did you behave as we designed you to? Monitoring and evaluating behavioural change in demand side management: from what to why

Panel: 8. Monitoring and evaluation: building confidence and enhancing practices

This is a peer-reviewed paper.

Authors:
Ruth Mourik, DuneWorks, The Netherlands
Luc van Summeren, DuneWorks
Sea Rotmann, SEA - Sustainable Energy Advice
Sylvia Breukers, Duneworks

Abstract

One of the key contemporary challenges facing energy Demand Side Management interventions is finding the right ways to monitor and evaluate the intervention and its actual and preferably longitudinal behavioural change impacts.

In this paper we will first briefly explain monitoring and evaluation, its current practice and importance to policymaking and how different disciplinary underpinnings of interventions influence this. The current focus on outputs instead of outcome in M&E practices of DSM interventions largely follows the economic and psychological underpinnings of most interventions in the field. However, the field increasingly develops more systemic, sociology-underpinned types of interventions, and this does require a rethinking of our current M&E practices.

In addition, there are many challenges one currently faces when attempting to monitor and evaluate behavioural change in DSM interventions in general. These challenges lead us to conclude that the traditional quantitative proxies used at present often do not correctly reflect the real behavioural changes that occur.

We reflect on how a learning process around M&E could look like that is relevant to end-users, ‘cost effective’, doable, measures actual behavioural change, focuses on both the individual and societal level, allows for different definitions of success and flexibility in changing goals and methods, and provides learning about the processes underpinning that change.

We conclude with proposing an alternative which challenges common beliefs, addresses new issues, and proposes innovative methods to the current mainstream approach. This includes a focus on double loop learning, allowing for different definitions of success and creating a more participatory approach focused on both process and outcome. In addition this new approach makes use of a combination of qualitative and quantitative metrics to evaluate a multitude of parameters for success. This process should be entered as a collective and collaborative learning process involving policymakers, funders, researchers, end-users, technology developers and other stakeholders involved in systemic DSM interventions.

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Download this paper as pdf: 8-393-15_Mourik.pdf