Addressing human behaviour in assessments of energy efficiency in buildings

Panel: 9. Consumption and behaviour

This is a peer-reviewed paper.

Authors:
Maria Johansson, Environmental Psychology, Dept of Architecture and Built Environment Lund University, Sweden
Lena Neij, IIIEE
Lund University

Abstract

People’s daily life has a significant effect on the outcome of any policy implemented or technology introduced with the aim to increase energy efficiency in buildings. Human behaviour should constitute a key factor in evaluations of such initiatives. This paper focuses upon how research in environmental psychology can contribute to strengthened evaluations of human behaviour in relation to the introduction of interventions to increase energy efficiency in buildings. The aim is to identify key questions to further develop an interdisciplinary evaluation framework with regard to the evaluation of user behaviour and behavioural change. Based on reviews of environmental psychology research on human pro-environmental behaviour and energy use, five overarching questions that could be added to such an evaluation framework are proposed. The questions concern the use of theory to explain human behaviour, operationalization of the behaviour studied, considerations of individual and social characteristics of the target group, potential antecedents of the behaviour, and the definition of the intervention and its motivation for behavioural change. Moreover, the importance of alignment between theory, target group, behaviour, antecedents and intervention in the evaluation is stressed. The relevance of the five questions was tested in a pilot-sample of 15 evaluations carried out on interventions in buildings in Nordic countries. All questions captured large variations between studies with regard to the identification, definition and assessment of behaviour, potential antecedents, and psychological processes of behavioural change. It is concluded that the proposed questions could support thorough evaluations of interventions targeting user behaviour by pointing at strengths and weaknesses in evaluations of interventions aimed to reduce energy use in buildings by changing human behaviour.