Influencing energy and water use within a home system of practice

Abstract

Approaches that attempt to influence resource use in the home often consider the building system alone, without due consideration of occupants and their practices. However, occupants interact with technology and ultimately affect energy and water metabolism in the home. This research used an explanatory design mixed method approach to investigate the energy and water use in eight homes over a two-year period, before and after an intervention based on persuasive behaviour change. Each home was considered as a system of practice and results were analysed in terms of overall resource reduction, changes in practice and changes made to the building systems. It was revealed that five of the homes succeeded in reducing their resource use through the two years. Most changes were achieved through affecting technology as an element of practice. Automation was shown to enable the dis-interlocking of practices from aligned and interlocked routines and can be considered an effective solution to influence resource use in the home.

Household Energy and Water Practices Change Post-Occupancy in an Australian Low-Carbon Development

“…Previous research on personal hygiene has been conducted by [34,[65][66][67][68]. In examining the personal hygiene practices of residents in this research, a focus was taken on the meaning of performing the practice, as done previously in [38,43,44,57]. Personal hygiene practices were usually performed by showering, with a few residents also having infrequent towel washes.…”

Understanding Resource Consumption in the Home, Community and Society through Behaviour and Social Practice Theories

“…In the context of the home, changes in resource consumption have often been studied for individual practices [21,57,[68][69][70][71][72][73][74][75][76][77]. However, individual practices form part of the HSOP and should not be targeted in isolation.…”

“…Changing the skill of practices performed is also a way to target interventions on a community scale and can be achieved formally through education or social learning, such as through demonstration workshops or discussions amongst friends [69]. These groups can be communities of practice and be used as a targeted place to initiate practice and behaviour changes.…”

Shifting Home Energy Consumption Through a Holistic Understanding of the Home System of Practice

“…While occupants usually value information about their energy use, the practice of accessing the feedback system platform fails to become integrated in the HSOP and does not have significant lasting effects. Reasons can vary from lack of time and being busy, to forgetting about it (Eon et al, 2018b). technologies of the practices may remain the same; that is, the manner in which occupants perform specific practices to achieve a particular meaning may not be affected.…”

“…Affecting skills might therefore entail a shift in an individual's perception; which is also problematic to achieve in the short term. In contrast, the technology element of the practice can be more easily adjusted as it usually consists of a one-off change that does not affect the HSOP nor has a major impact on established habits and comfort (Eon et al, 2018b). This is supported by research that suggests that consumers are favourable to more efficient technologies but perceive convenience, practicality and cost as factors in take-up (Dolnicar and Hurlimann, 2010).…”