‘Watts in it for me?’ Design Implications for Implementing Effective Energy Interventions in
Organisations
Derek FosterShaun LawsonConor LinehanJamie WardmanMark Blythe
Overview
• Introduction & Background• Organisational Energy Workshops• Grounded Theory• Findings• Future Work
Electro-Magnates is a cutting edge carbon-reducing
sustainability project at the intersection of computer science, social media and behaviour change. The project involves displaying energy
feedback to universities and organisations to encourage positive behaviour change n energy
consumption.
Introduction - Electro Magnates Project
Introduction - Why Organisational Energy?• Large pubic and private sector organisations account
for 10% of UK emissions.• 45% of UK Business energy consumption is by SME’s.• Potential SME energy wastage costing in the region of
£1.1billion by inefficient practices can be tackled through behaviour change and raised awareness of green practices.
• Rising energy costs.• Carbon taxes.
Introduction - Previous Domestic Research • Two unique domestic energy studies delivering
socially mediated live energy feedback inside a Facebook application.
• Work presented here builds on findings of successful energy interventions that utilise social media attributes.
• Wattsup paper Nordichi’10: http://eprints.lincoln.ac.uk/3155/
• Power Ballads paper CHI’11: http://eprints.lincoln.ac.uk/4104/
Closed for snow in 2010 The weekend
Introduction – Employees aren’t just Noise
Workshops
• Workshops included participatory design and focus group methods to engender a user-centred approach in understanding energy consumption in the workplace.
• 3 day-long dashboard and organisational energy workshops run across 3 locations.
• 65 participants took part from 5 universities and a number of organisations, some from the energy sector.
• Job roles of participants included academics, administration, managers, marketing, engineering, librarians, IT support and institutional leaders .
Workshops
Workshops
• Workshop structure comprised:
• Quantitative and qualitative survey
• Energy intervention design challenge in groups
• Data Collection
• Video
• Audio
• Written and design accounts
Workshops
• Design task results formed core data analysis:
• Participants asked to design 12 month intervention
• Adopt technologies of their choosing
• Carried out in groups of 4-5 in 2 hours
• Information given for task reflection:
• Recruitment strategies
• Energy feedback
• Sustaining beyond intervention timescale
Workshops
Grounded Theory
• Why?
• Great for analysing large qualitative data sets
• Developing research hypotheses and direction from little understood domains
• Effectiveness when working with qualitative text or audio data
• Provides a fuller understanding of employee energy use practices
• Gives insight on employee interactions with their organisation
• The ‘theory’ is grounded in the data!
Grounded Theory
• First stage – Open Coding
• 631 codes grouped into 36 categories
• Codes at the granularity of word or sentence level:
“….hide the overall problem with metrics”
“rewards”
“senior management….”
Grounded Theory • Second stage – Axial Coding
OverallResponsibil
ity
Communication
Engagement
Incentives
Openness
LeadershipRole
Visualisation
Grounded Theory
• Final stage – Selective Coding
• Illustrative participant quotes are selected to form a narrative
• ‘Theory’ is developed that brings together the axial code categories
• Central theme selected – ‘Overall Responsibility’
Openness: “why am I doing this who am I doing it for?”
Engagement: “you can kind of reset the challenge by saying look this is atrocious you’ve slipped by 60%, shame on you in a slightly friendly way”.
Findings
• Developed Grounded Theory includes:
• Providing strong leadership and “management buy-in” to ensure all departments and employees are part of the initial outreach as well sustaining engagement long term.
• Promoting trust by ensuring that no part of the organisational structure is exempt.
• Ensuring transparency so that the reasons behind the intervention are clearly and openly communicated.
• Involving employees in setting energy consumption targets
• Negotiating incentives mapped to any energy savings made either at the departmental or organisational level.
Findings
• Contribution
• Transferable theory to design.
• Analysis relevant to HCI.
• Rich account of employee and management perspectives of energy usage practices and how to design effective interventions.
• Design of interventions must address corporate responsibility
• Prototype interface that embeds developed grounded theory.
Findings
Future Work
• Employee Energy Study
• Intervention built around open smart meter infrastructure
• Findings for design implications considered
• Multiple departmental recruitment
• Student Energy Study
• Socially mediated intervention using Facebook app
• Taps into contemporary ‘designing for coolness’
Future Work
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