Archive for August, 2010
The Greensense View® product suite is now registered under the National Solar for Schools scheme and will be installed in 51 schools across WA this financial year in partnership with a local solar provider.
Greensense View® will be used to monitor the green power generated by the solar installation at the school compared to the “black” power consumed from the grid as part of an education and awareness program delivered as part of the NSSP scheme.
Greensense View® is already being used by a number of other educational institutes include Curtin University, West Coast Institute of Training, Polytechnic West and the Industrial Training Institute arm of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
For more information on how Greensense View® can help your organisation understand and reduce energy and water use contact us.
Greensense View, our technology for real time monitoring of sustainability performance, has been built around a foundation that if building users have real-time, relevant information on their electricity, gas and water use, that information will drive behaviour change that results in greater resource efficiency.
A key part to this is the idea of behavioural change or behavioural economics. We believe that, while investment in technology and infrastructure are an important part of energy efficiency, a lot of benefit can be gained by engaging with your facility occupants and getting back to basic behavioural changes. Greensense View supports this by providing real time information that gives a baseline, and allows facility occupants to receive immediate feedback on how any changes impact energy use.
With that in mind — we want to introduce you to the Nudge. The Nudge was an idea originally conceived by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein. A Nudge is about self consciously moving people in a direction that will make their lives better. It is a mechanism to promote desirable outcomes while respecting individual choices. We have used the Nudge as a concept in Greensense View and supporting the energy efficiency initiatives we are involved in with our clients.
We present four types of nudges that we believe should be used in combination to achieve the desired outcomes. There are:
1. Fun: this is abut positively engaging with your building occupants and finding innovative and fun ways to drive change, often with incentives.
2. The Stick: this about using policy or punishment to drive change.
3. Compelled: this is about creating a social norm, where everyone changes because everyone else is moving that way.
4. Informed: this is about providing information that causes someone to change their behaviour because of a new insight to the situation.
Here are some great example of nudges that use some or all of the above techniques:
For more information on how the Nudge and Greensense View work together please contact us.
A recent study from Syracuse University found that improving peoples understanding of energy use and savings could pay large dividends.
The study found that most people don’t really understand the energy use associated with activities like switching off lights and appliances, and energy efficiency improvements, like switching to more efficient appliances. On average, participants in the study underestimated energy use and savings of common activities by almost three times, with larger underestimates for high-energy activities.
Greensense View Example Dashboard
We think part of the answer is providing people with real-time feedback on their energy use. That’s why we developed Greensense View. We’re holding an event on Tuesday next week on Smart Technologies and Behavioural Change, if you’d like to find out more.
You can download the full paper from this study (PDF) from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
