Hi,
Does anyone have any evidence of the degree of success of household energy/environmental audits in actually changing the behaviour of the household? I'm hearing anecdotal evidence of households not actually going through with the whole process even after an audit, and am wondering how prevalent this is,
David Meiklejohn
Link between Household Audits and Change in Behaviour
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Hi David,
The Moreland Energy Foundation Ltd (MEFL) delivered free home energy audits in our patch for a few years, and the results were quite mixed. Some of our early evaluation showed that a significant proportion of households reduced their energy use by around 15-30% following the audit, usually just by implementing the most simple behavioural and low-cost actions. The mix of people who actually requested audits was really quite diverse - some of the most common groups were:
- "Green" households who were already quite engaged in energy efficiency and just wanted to know that they were on the right track
- People who were relatively new to the idea of climate change and energy efficiency and were keen to make changes but didn't know where to start
- People who weren't necessarily interested in climate change but wanted to save money - usually following a large winter heating bill - or improve comfort
- People who were about to undergo renovations and wanted specific advice
- People who were experiencing a major lifestyle change, e.g. bringing home a new baby, and had noticed subsequent changes in their energy bills. Ability and willingness to change behaviour varied a lot between different types of households, and it was often quite difficult to gather follow-up info. The most reliable data is a mix of qualitative and quantitative, and we struggled to find the human resources to collect, collate and analyse a useful amount of info. I can tell you more about this if you like. We have since switched to a workshop approach
- auditing households gave us a strong understanding of the common barriers and opportunities to energy efficiency encountered in our municipality, and the workshops are a way for us to take that knowledge to a much larger group of people with much less use of staff time. All workshop participants receive basic retrofit kits and we're currently conducting phone and email surveys to find out whether people have actually made behavioural or structural changes since the workshops. Remind me in a month or two and I'll let you know the results.
More than happy to chat further off-list.
Anna Strempel
Household Program Coordinator
Moreland Energy Foundation Ltd
PO Box 276 Brunswick VIC 3056
Ph: (03) 9381 1722
Fax: (03) 9381 1733
www.mefl.com.au
From the toilet upgrade POV-
San Antonio and other cities report that giving residents coupons for free or discounted low flow toilets has not had a good follow through rate. We have seen the same response by giving them coupons for drip systems, etc. that's why Phoenix chose to actually install free toilets for residents with older homes. We are currently looking at giving residents drip kits at a class on irrigation BMPs.
Laurence Budd
Urban water conservation
Water Efficiency Magazine
Hi David
You could have a look in the section 'Energy/Greenhouse audits' in the report I did for the AGO a few years ago. I summarise the research available at the time on how to make energy audits more effective. The key point is to make them vivid, concrete and personalised - more information here http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/local/motivating/info.html#informationstrategie s . To find more up to date research, you could look up articles that cite the articles I cite. You could also find this useful: Moreland Energy Foundation (2002). Home Greenhouse Audit Manual, Cool Communities, Australian Greenhouse Office. http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/local/publications/audit.html
All the best
Michelle
Michelle Shipworth
Research Fellow
School of Construction
Management and Engineering
University of Reading
Whiteknights, P.O. Box 219,
Reading, RG6 6AW, UK
Email: [email protected]
Tel: +44 (0)118 378 8205
I've no direct evidence on the topic. However, theories of change typically say the person needs to first become aware of the need for change. An audit would certainly create an awareness of energy loss and could be the trigger for an intent to change. An element in many theories of change is the importance of realizing the benefits of change, since change is often costly. An audit could provide estimates of the positive results from changing in measureable dollar amounts. Another element of theories of change is that the person needs some assistance in figuring out what to change. An audit presumably would point out the areas where energy losses were occurring, thus illustrating to some degree what needs changing. Change theories also seem to agree that mapping out steps to change and thinking of change as a series of manageable increments instead of one large shift is a good way to foster change. Presumably an audit assesses and reports on discrete elements. The audit report could serve as a list of discrete items to tick off (first caulk the windows, next replace the incandescent bulbs etc) and serve as a plan for progress. If audits do not typically lead to change, then one question might be how to restructure the way audit results are reported to those audited so that the audit becomes a more potent tool to instigate change. Another might be whether some folks who choose to get audited are doing so because they feel pressured etc and really have no intention of changing. If so, could the resources used on those audits be put to better use with a better upfront screening tool to focus audits on customers most likely to implement audit results?
Low-flow toilets are certainly better than the other kind, but that's only one stop on the wasteful waste stream road. The sewage infrastructure (the second largest infrastructure in the country after the equally disastrous interstate highway system), aided and abetted by the Clean Water Act has a chokehold on local environmental (e.g., toxic sludge) and muncipal expense efforts (e.g., property tax). This is one of many issues where size matters, and relocalization is important. Likely the best solution for sewage is composting toilets, but talk about resistance to behavior change! Attend to one's natural functions without the deeply inculturated closure of the "flush" - unthinkable (although there are composting toilets with low-water flushes). Not to mention resistance of all the wealthy industries with vested interests in our wastes. On the other hand, if individually we were paying the full costs of our compulsive flushing the behavior change might be easier. Plus, instead of waste the end result is cheap and recyclable earth-feeding nutrients for the community gardens.
Cheers,
Adam ---