This was originally published as a Policy Studies Institute blog in March 2016
Smart Energy GB and DECC: the
two policy worlds of domestic energy demand reduction policy
I spent Tuesday 22 March, 2016 at two policy events. Ostensibly, these
were related meetings, both held in support of the UK government’s objectives
relating to the role of energy consumption feedback – presented on the in-home
displays provided with smart meters – in domestic energy consumption reduction.
However, this is where the similarity between the two events begins and ends.
In fact, the two events couldn’t have been more different. Given the importance
of energy demand reduction and the huge amounts of money that are being spent
on smart meters, I found this lack of integration very frustrating, so I
thought I would write a very short paper in the hope of prompting some
integrative and collaborative action.
In the morning, I was in the company of Smart Energy GB – set up by the
government to manage the communications and engagement around the roll meter
rollout – at their large-scale and glitzy event on behaviour change. This event
featured talks by economist Tim Harford and behavioural scientist David Halpern,
about the ways in which behavioural science and economics can deliver behaviour
change in the context of smart meters and domestic energy demand reduction.
Here the talk was of automation, data, incentives, cues, defaults, testing and
randomised-controlled trials (RCTs). In disciplinary terms, we were in the
territory of behavioural science and behavioural economics; since the
audience’s questions were mediated by the Smart Energy GB hosts, even these
remained firmly within the behavioural frame.
A couple of hours later, I was with DECC’s [now BEIS] smart meter implementation
team, researchers from Ipsos MORI and others, at a workshop to hear about and contribute
to progress on the development of materials to support smart meter installers
in providing in-home energy efficiency advice to householders. By contrast, the
discussion here was all about relationships, trust, know-how, information, householders
and their needs, qualitative research and even ethnography. The disciplinary
setting for this meeting was much more sociological and – due to the emphasis
on information – social psychological. Given that I have had quite a bit of
success with this in-home energy efficiency advice approach in my own research
and that DECC is actively pursuing it, it was pretty dismaying to hear David
Halpern dismiss it earlier in the day on the basis of a single RCT in Newcastle
a couple of years ago.
As someone who has been working on domestic energy consumption
reduction since 2009, these contrasts were but the latest manifestation of a
long-standing (if rather one-sided) debate between approaches from behavioural
science, social psychology and sociology. Not much of the relevant material is
open-access, but Elizabeth
Shove has presented a pretty combative sociological view (to which Lorraine
Whitmarsh has responded from a social psychology perspective). Meanwhile, Charlie
Wilson, Tim Chatterton and Yolande Strengers have all presented perspectives
– to which I would largely subscribe – which are certainly sociological but also
recognise the value of other approaches, and that the distinctions between
approaches can become blurred the closer you get to interventions in the home. It
is notable that behavioural scientists have not entered into these debates.
At its heart, and this is a gross over-simplification, the sociological
critique of the behavioural approach has two elements to it. The first is that
the challenge of climate change is so profound that it requires systemic or
structural societal change, and behaviour change not only represents a
relatively small part of this, but also obscures and depoliticises the broader
challenge. The second is that, even within the more limited remit of changing how
things are done in the home, the behavioural approach is relatively narrow in
scope and is determinedly overlooking many of the valuable insights that
sociologists are producing. For instance, it is surely curious that behavioural
science is relatively incurious about: how patterns of energy consumption have
come to be the way they are (might this offer some clues about how they can be
changed?); what happens in people’s homes in general, how do they live their
lives, and what is the place of energy in their lives?; and, more specifically,
what actually happens in people’s homes (beyond changes or not in consumption) in
the context of interventions designed to reduce consumption (this might help us
to improve and refine interventions, for example)? Sociologists – using
qualitative and ethnographic methods that are a million miles from the
superficial works/doesn’t work binaries of RCTs – are producing varied and
valuable insights into these issues. It struck me as particularly ironic that a
discussion between Tim Harford and David Halpern concluded with a call for
research on energy consumption reduction to be funded by government! I suppose
they specifically meant their beloved RCTs, but this comment made me wonder
what I have been doing for the past seven years (and others have been doing for
longer), and it made me worry at the apparent influence of people who appear to
know little or nothing of this research.
In the remainder of this paper, I’d like to comment on a couple of
insights from my own work that are relevant to the behavioural approach. Behavioural
scientists in the UK are keen to highlight areas of success – for example,
enrolment in pensions, payment of income tax, vehicle tax and court fines and
simplification of application processes – and they should be congratulated.
However, on the basis of talking to many householders about energy and energy
demand reduction, my own research and that of others suggests that energy
consumption is very different to these issues. Two key aspects to this can be
readily identified.
What are we trying to change?
First, these areas of success might be described as single and one-off
(or, typically, infrequent) actions, and as actions that are relatively
discrete from other aspects of our lives. For example, once you enrol in a
pension you stay enrolled, and enrolling in a pension is not overly tied up
with other aspects of everyday life. By contrast, energy consumption is the
outcome of many or even most actions around the home, and these actions are both
interlinked and endlessly repeated in the daily patterns of people’s lives.
This is why I would suggest that, when it comes to energy, it is not behaviour or
even behaviours (or even practices!) that we need to act on – but instead a rather
more complex thing, that we might call everyday
life.
Hard work?
In addition, the actions in these areas of success are relatively easy
to take. To put this another way, people typically know how to, for example,
pay their road tax. By contrast, in my own research, people typically tell us
that they do not know how to reduce their energy consumption, and that the
advice they are given is typically unhelpful because it is not relevant to specifics
of them and their home. This means that they have to spend a lot of time
researching and experimenting before they hit upon what works for them in their
home. This is one of the reasons I refer to energy consumption reduction as
‘hard work’ that is time-consuming for householders (and a key reason why
in-home advice is so helpful). Another reason that energy consumption reduction
is hard work is that, while one person in a household can decide and act on
paying their road tax, my own research and others’ shows that energy
consumption is the social outcome of actions that are negotiated among
household members. In this context, energy consumption reduction often becomes
a matter of conflict within households, and this is understandably a constraint
on change. ‘Thermostat wars’, as described by a participant in one of my
workshops, are a good example of this phenomenon.
My intention here is not to dismiss behavioural science and its
methods, but rather to ask behavioural scientists: are your insights and
methods alone equal to this rather
different and challenging task. I would appeal to behavioural scientists to try
to take a broader perspective and to appreciate the value of other approaches
and methods. I think it would be extremely valuable if DECC and Smart Energy GB
could collaborate on a major event designed – in its content, form and conduct
– to promote greater understanding and collaboration between proponents of
behavioural, social psychological and sociological approaches to energy demand
and demand reduction. It’ll require a lot of energy, but I think it would be
worth it.
Contact Kevin at: kevinwburchell@gmail.com
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