Op-Ed

Technology Just One Piece

I just returned from the Behavior, Energy, and Climate Change conference (www.beccconference.org), so it was coincidental to see your article “Energy Dashboards, Using Real-Time Feedback to Influence Behavior” (see EBN Dec. 2008). I’m amused by yet another technological solution to conserve energy. I’m sure dashboards are an effective way to increase energy savings as building owners and occupants become aware of their real-time energy consumption. That’s a huge leap in awareness and knowledge. However I believe there’s a bias (in the U.S. only?) around technological solutions to conserve energy, with short shrift to changing human behavior. But then, I’m a sociologist! Thanks for a great article with “behavior” in the title.

Sustainable Design Resources

I just returned from the Behavior, Energy, and Climate Change conference (www.beccconference.org), so it was coincidental to see your article “Energy Dashboards, Using Real-Time Feedback to Influence Behavior” (see

EBN Dec. 2008). I’m amused by yet another technological solution to conserve energy. I’m sure dashboards are an effective way to increase energy savings as building owners and occupants become aware of their real-time energy consumption. That’s a huge leap in awareness and knowledge. However I believe there’s a bias (in the U.S. only?) around technological solutions to conserve energy, with short shrift to changing human behavior. But then, I’m a sociologist! Thanks for a great article with “behavior” in the title.

Chris Hammer, Principal

Sustainable Design Resources

San Francisco, California

 

Published February 26, 2009

Chris, H. (2009, February 26). Technology Just One Piece. Retrieved from https://www.buildinggreen.com/op-ed/technology-just-one-piece

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Comments

March 7, 2009 - 6:12 pm

Energy dashboards don't do magic by themselves -- the energy doesn't get saved until people read the dashboard and respond to it through their behavior. So they do represent an attempt to change behavior.

I suspect Chris means that too many of us may think that all we have to do is put the dashboards up, and that's a fair challenge. How oftent do we green advocates behave as if that was enough? And what other elements of program, information, evaluation, gadfly-ism, and so forth are needed to nudge behavior in good directions, and support it when it heads there?

Rob Knapp
Evergreen State College