Driving Sustainable Behavior in the Mainstream Consumer: Leveraging Behavioral Economics to Minimize Household Energy Consumption
Abstract
This project reviews and evaluates the effectiveness of behavioral economic interventions
on household energy consumption, as utilized by non-intrusive energy monitoring services
such as our client company, PlotWatt. Through our assessment of the landscape of relevant
academic literature and interviews with experts within the fields of behavioral economics
and environmental psychology, we identify five principles of behavioral economics
that are most salient for this sector: awareness, learning, social norms, goal setting,
and framing. These five principles are examined through six case studies of companies
within the client’s peer group: OPOWER, Earth Aid, Microsoft Hohm, Google PowerMeter,
Wattvision and GreenLite Dartmouth/TELLEMOTION. In each case study, particular attention
is paid to how effectively the behavioral economic intervention is implemented and
best practices are highlighted. The paper concludes with tailored recommendations
for PlotWatt. Our research suggests that a few behavioral economic tweaks to the
user interface and reporting systems could lead to unique, measurable and significant
behavior change that not only saves money for the household but also, in some case,
motivates a deeper interest in conservation and curtailment of energy consumption.
Type
Master's projectPermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/3605Citation
Boomgard, Elizabeth; & Snook, Jennifer (2011). Driving Sustainable Behavior in the Mainstream Consumer: Leveraging Behavioral Economics
to Minimize Household Energy Consumption. Master's project, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/3605.Collections
More Info
Show full item record
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Rights for Collection: Nicholas School of the Environment
Works are deposited here by their authors, and represent their research and opinions, not that of Duke University. Some materials and descriptions may include offensive content. More info