NRP71: Promoting energy-sufficient behaviour in cities
At a glance
- Project leader : Dr. Corinne Moser
- Deputy of project leader : Dr. Yann Blumer
- Project team : Vivian Frick, Prof. Dr. Bettina Furrer, Dr. Carmen Kobe, Evelyn Lobsiger-Kägi, Dr. Roman Seidl, Prof. Dr. Michael Stauffacher, Uros Tomic
- Project status : completed
- Funding partner : SNSF
- Project partner : Stadt Zug, Stadt Baden, Stadt Winterthur, ETH Zürich, USYS TdLab
- Contact person : Corinne Moser
Description
Cities will be key agents of change in the upcoming energy turnaround in Switzerland. They promote technical efficiency measures and behavioural change for saving energy, both as role models and by addressing consumers. A crucial question is how cities can best motivate private consumers to change their behaviour, i.e. to become more energy sufficient.
Project goals:
In order to guarantee reduced consumption, efficiency measures
should be combined with sufficiency-oriented forms of behaviour.
The project aims to identify activities that cities can promote to
reduce private energy consumption (including campaigns, promotion
of specific technologies, incentives), as well as to better
understand and test the role of formal social groups in addressing
private consumers. Specifically, it aims to examine whether formal
social groups such as sports clubs and district associations can
function as multipliers of communal energy-sufficiency activities.
It does not address energy consumption directly. Instead, it
focuses on practices linked to energy use, such as transport to
training facilities, showering, etc. A multiplier effect is
anticipated, as behavioural changes adopted in the context of
formal social groups could spill over into private activities. A
series of psychological real-world experiments form the core of the
project. The key idea is that an activity promoting energy
sufficiency developed by the city authorities could differentially
affect energy-efficiency behaviour, whether it addresses people
directly or through formal social groups.
Relevance:
This study supports efforts of municipal authorities to promote
energy-sufficient behaviour. The results comprise an
energy-sufficiency strategy for cities, which can be defined as a
set of sufficiency activities in a city over time. They show how
cities can use formal social groups to promote energy-sufficient
behaviour by private consumers. Close collaboration with
Winterthur, Baden and Zug throughout the project will foster the
applicability of the findings and ensure that the insights of this
study will find their way into policy-making.
Further information
Publications
-
Moser, Corinne; Blumer, Yann; Seidl, Roman; Carabias-Hütter, Vicente; Furrer, Bettina,
2015.
Multiplying energy-saving behaviour in cities through formal social groups [paper].
In:
Laitinen Lindström, Therese; Borg & Co, Stockholm, Sweden, eds.,
eceee Summer Study proceedings : eceee 2015 Summer Study – First fuel now.
ECEEE 2015 Summer Study «First fuel now» Toulon/Hyères, France, 1-6 June 2015.
pp. 2133-2141.