Organizing People for Technological Change: System-Building in the Energy Efficient Mortgage Movement

Bryan E. Burke, Washington State University

Keywords

Abstract

Most energy-efficient devices have had little market success despite evidence that many are economically and technically sound. The problem is a lack of a well-developed sociotechnical system to support these technologies. The solution is to develop such a system, i.e., a interrelated set of consumers and producers, organizations, institutions, cultures, and technologies that facilitate the market success of a given technology.

Energy-efficient mortgage (EEM) advocates have been assembling such a system in the residential housing sector. As an institutional innovation, EEMs enable bankers to give better loan terms for energy-efficient homes and introduce homebuyers to a network of energy professionals. After home energy rating organizations assess the cost effectiveness of energy efficiency, bankers promote EEMs because the energy savings increase homeowners’ incomes, qualifying more people and larger loans.

This preliminary research suggests that a theory and method of system-building can be derived from the case of EEMs to further advance EEMs and alternative technologies in general. Also, criteria can be developed to help identify points of resistance in the development of emerging sociotechnical systems. Likewise, tactics, strategies, and policy solutions can be devised to remove these points ofresistance.