A dynamic structuration approach to information for end-user energy conservation

Panel: Panel 6. Dynamics of consumption

Author:
David L. Goldblatt, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH)

Abstract

Levels and patterns of energy consumption in industrialized countries are multiply determined by past and present choices on personal, social, technological, and institutional levels. Assuming that the ecological reform of Northern societies’ consumption trajectory requires change on all of these levels, energy information approaches and tools oriented around householders should include both bottom-up (individual) and top-down (structural) dimensions. This paper describes the experience of deploying an energy information tool for householders based on this rationale in an interview setting. Quantitative comparisons and discussion of the relative impacts showed in each case where it pays to initiate personal conservation measures and where rather the emphasis should be placed on the greening of energy-relevant technologies, social practices, and consumption infrastructures. Overall, people’s experiences in the sessions slightly reduced their view of the efficacy of individual conservation measures compared to top-down technological interventions. However, direct energy consumption in sectors like diet and air transport was seen to be highly personally determined. The three groups of subjects that emerged from the data showed themselves to be clearly differentiated in their use of energy-consuming devices and services, in their direct reduction potential, in their recognition of the role of factors higher up on production-consumption chains and networks, and in their possible willingness to participate in the greening of these networks and social practices. These experiments in bringing technological and social systems into a dynamic interplay with householders’ individual behaviours set out a novel information approach to the energy consumption problem.