Workplace Speaker

1A: Lightning: Workplace Moderator: Edward J. Wisniewski, CEE Speaker: Douglas Miller, Rocky Mountain Institute Behavioral Opportunities for Energy Savings in Office Buildings: A London Field Experiment Barring a transformational breakthrough in the near future in investment for and the use of non-fossil fuel energy sources, energy efficiency serves as a crucial climate change mitigation strategy. Office buildings are a major and growing source of energy consumption and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Unlike physical improvements to buildings, behavioral strategies have the potential to reduce energy consumption in office buildings to be adopted promptly and at relatively low costs. In order to contribute to needs in the emerging field of research on the role of behavior change in office buildings to reduce energy use and related greenhouse gas emissions, a controlled field experiment including about 1,100 participants was conducted from July to August 2013 in five organizations across four office buildings in London, UK. The aim of the field experiment was to evaluate the effectiveness and ‘stickiness’ of behavior change interventions in private, public, and university office building settings that facilitate new expectations among employees – i.e. workplace norms – and therein modify the individual decision making context. The specific objective involved in the experiment was to increase the number of computer monitors turned off by employees during non-working hours. The change in behavior was therefore – in the literal sense – within an arm’s reach of employees: pressing the power button on monitors. The behavioral intervention sought to modify the choice context by creating new expectations and norms through invoking either public commitment or social comparison. Data was collected in the form of observational (proportion) data from on-site visits of the number of monitors left on/turned off during non-working hours and in the form of electricity meter readings. The results of the experiment suggest that the facilitation of new expectations and workplace norms among employees significantly increases the adoption of energy saving behavior in office buildings. To evaluate the observational data results, a quasi-binomial generalized linear model was used and demonstrated that the behavior change intervention led to a statistically significant increase in the monitors turned off during non-working hours. Public commitment and social comparison were equally effective in facilitating behavior change. Differences in the impacts of the intervention across private, public, and university buildings as well as within organizations were insignificant. To evaluate the electricity meter readings, a general linear model was used and as expected – due to the relatively small amount of electricity consumed by computer monitors – the behavioral intervention did not significantly affect overall building electricity use. Even so, the meter readings highlighted the significant role of energy efficient technologies and materials in reducing office building energy use during non-working hours. The experiment provides insights that potentially can be applied to other and larger sources of energy use in office buildings. With a minimal set of conditions being met, small interventions can compel dramatic increases in energy saving behaviors. Recommendations are offered for policymakers to spur the adoption of energy saving strategies in office buildings and thereby better capture the low-hanging fruit of mitigation opportunities to reduce the scale and scope of impacts expected from climate change. 1A: Lightning: Workplace Moderator: Edward J. Wisniewski, CEE Speaker: Russell Barnett, University of Louisville INSTITUTIONAL BEHAVIOR CHANGE AND SUSTAINABILITY Public institutions have made commitments, organized, and implemented programs with the goal of being more sustainable. Efforts to become more sustainable, however, too often focus on technology, and any focus on behavior is typically on changing individual behavior. Working within an existing collaborative partnership between the City of Louisville, the local school district, the local community college and the University of Louisville, the Partnership for a Green City has developed strategies for the four partners to change institutional behavior. Specific behavior changes were prioritized by each partner. The focus areas identified were in energy use, employee and student health, waste and recycling, and alternative transportation. Behavior change teams were identified by each partner. Two University classes focused on the psychology on behavior and sustainability provided academic assistance to the teams to identify opportunities for each partner to pursue. Research has identified eight principles necessary for institutions to change behavior: provide a social network and communications on those behaviors desired to be sustainable; provide multiple motivations; provide visible leadership; make definitive, public commitments to change; provide actionable information and feedback; set desirable social goals and empower employees and students; and plan for continuous change. The Partnership has used these principles to identify how the lack of institutional support has not supported behavior change. The behavior change teams from each of the four institutions have identified specific behaviors for change and developed programs to support behavior change. 1A: Lightning: Workplace Moderator: Edward J. Wisniewski, CEE Speaker: Mary Beth Deline, Cornell University Framing Resistance to Energy at Work Although the IPCC has identified the commercial energy sector as one with the most likelihood to significantly reduce consumption and emissions, there is still a systemic lack of research into socio-cultural influences on organizational energy behaviors and decision-making. This study begins to address this gap. It is an exploratory case study that examines how frames and social roles contribute to resistance interpretations on the part of implementers during the implementation of an energy conservation campaign in the workplace. Frames and social roles are theorized to act together as forms of socio- cultural influence within workplace organizations in making interpretations. Frames are the shared expectations used by different groups or collectives to interpret situations and social roles are socially expected behavioral performances. Implementation decisions in particular, as opposed to adoption decisions, are understudied; this is problematic given implementation failure rates in general as high as 70%. Essentially we know what behaviors bring about change, but still do not understand how to successfully encourage implementation of these behaviors. Practitioners and researchers traditionally ascribe these failures to employee ‘resistance’, rather than viewing the coping behaviors employees undertake when confronted with an implementation as a form of engagement. (Coping behaviors are actions related to the change. For example, one such form of coping behavior is information seeking). This suggests a conflict between employee and implementer interpretations of resistance that might be key to better understanding implementation processes within workplaces, and subsequent ways to improve it. In order to better understand this process, research questions for this study include: 1) What are the differences between implementer and employee frames of energy conservation at work?; 2) How do energy and conservation behaviors fit or not fit into worker’s and implementer’s social roles at work?; and 3) What are the frames that implementers use when making resistance interpretations of employee coping behaviors in relation to energy conservation programs? In particular, this work investigates an educational organization in the Midwest that recently implemented a conservation program with a 42% participation rate. Respondents, who were self-selected, ranged from active to less active conservation participants. Data collection reached saturation through qualitative semi-structured interviews with 35 employees, including 39% of the program implementers. The study uses constant comparative analysis to identify key frame and social role categories used by the participants and implementers when putting the program in place. The findings are enriched with pre and post survey data and participant behavioral data provided by the conservation program. This topic necessarily requires an approach that integrates organizational energy behavior, implementation communication and decision research. Addressing gaps in these areas provides several benefits. First, the research shows how socio-cultural influences structure energy behaviors within organizations. This extends the decision-making approaches that have, to date, been used within the energy research field. In addition, the paucity of such socio-cultural research constrains evidence-based efforts to reduce energy consumption. This research leads to specific recommendations for implementation communication strategies regarding energy conservation in particular and eco-innovations in general. 1A: Lightning: Workplace Moderator: Edward J. Wisniewski, CEE Speaker: Michael Bobker, Building Performance Lab, City University of New York Operator Effectiveness with Building Automation: Information and Action Our research explores the relationship of building operator decision-making with new data environments through an on-going series of engagements in surveys, interviews,

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