Energy Saving can become habit forming ....

Energy use is an enabler for other things that we do in our daily lives. So we rarely think about the energy consequences of our daily actions. I turn up my radiators because I want to keep warm on a cold day, not because I wish to burn gas. Similarly I turn on the lights outside the house because I wish a visitor to find us at night not because I want to consume electricity. There are many daily decisions that lead to our using water, gas or electricity. But our decisions are rarely directly connected to our consumption patterns and with a consequent poor awareness of how we use our resources. The only time we notice the resource is when it is not there. “Oh the boiler has failed”, suddenly reminds us of our connection to the resources that we use. The other time perhaps is when we receive a utility bill and try to work out why it is so high.

One further aspect that we need to consider is that our own behaviours and the pattern of our daily lives are rarely configured around our use of resources. If it were to be, then it is very likely that we would find that our daily routines are frequently in conflict with efficient energy use. 

Habits are important to us however because they allow us to avoid rethinking repetitive decisions on a daily basis. But habits also present us with a daily challenge to break a pattern of poor behaviour and to persuade ourselves to adopt more efficient habits.

There has been a lot of research that supports these views. Franklin Energy’s residential energy use behaviour change pilot (April 2009) describes this problem and identifies that if we are to break and reform habitual behaviour, we require a process of decision-making and feedback to establish more alternative appropriate patterns of use.

That process involves a number of key steps:

1. Realise that there is a problem and the impact of current behaviour patterns upon the problem;
2. Awareness of the possibilities to influence the problem;
3. Consider the human factors and our own motives for wishing to change. This recognises that individuals have different personal, social, comfort and other motivations for desiring change;
4. Identify motives that conflict with efficient resource use;
5. Change behaviours.

It is very unlikely that we will achieve sustained change by willpower alone. Imagine how difficult it can be to change a deeply-formed habit such as smoking. No one element alone is likely to be effective long-term, however a number of elements combined can make a difference.

      So what might these elements be?

One element is real-time feedback of our resource usage. In-home devices are increasingly common and will tell you quickly how your immediate behaviour impacts upon use. Problem lies in significant drop-out rates and loss of interest, a lack of local context or link to a behaviour change;

A second element is feedback provided through energy reports. This offers consumers advice regarding their use, highlights their pattern of behaviours and those areas that would lead to effective change. However evidence shows that it is difficult to gauge the effect of a single behaviour change long-term amongst all the other changes that occur in your home environment;

A third element is to introduce an incentive that isolates a behaviour and rewards a consistent change in behaviour with some benefit (often financial) that is of interest to the consumer.

Whilst the impact of each element alone will yield a saving, it is more likely that in combination a higher saving is achieved over a longer period of time. The importance of the time period is to encourage repetitive positive behaviours to break the cycle of old behaviours and create new more appropriate ones.

As a simple illustrative example, a person habitually fills a kettle to the top, boils it and then uses one or two cups. Breaking and re-establishing this habitual pattern where they only half-fill the kettle, will not only yield beenficial outcomes that the water boils quicker but saves about £25 per year. It is a combination of :

• An awareness of this possibility,
• frequent reminder and incentive
• combined with an identified personal motivation that is likely to lead them to repeat this new action.

So what daily behaviours do you have that might unknowingly be contributing to unnecessary expense?

Can you identify one? And what personal motivation would encourage you to change?

What reminders would you need so that you wouldn’t forget and lapse back into the established routine?

There is some evidence to suggest that between 10% and 15% can be saved through an effective combination of the above elements; and in a few cases up to 20% has been achieved through individuals who are willing to make simple changes.