Data comprises: demographics, including whether participants have managerial responsibitilites, size and sector of organisation worked for; anticipated affect; preferred sanctions for individuals who overuse energy; behavioural intentions for energy use; motivations to save energy at work and at home; concern about climate change and energy security; experience of black outs. Reducing energy use is a key way in which we can help to reduce carbon emissions in the UK. Communal environments, such as shared offices, consume a large amount of energy. It is therefore important to examine people's perceptions and motivations to use and save energy. This study examines motivations to save energy at work and at home and the likely reactions to different cooperative scenarios around energy use. This project will investigate innovative ways of dividing up and representing energy use in shared buildings so as to motivate occupants to save energy. Smart meters (energy monitors that feed information back to suppliers) are currently being introduced in Britain and around the world; the government aims to have one in every home and business in Britain by 2019. One reason for this is to provide people with better information about their energy use to help them to save energy. Providing energy feedback can be problematic in shared buildings, and here we focus on workplaces, where many different people interact and share utilities and equipment within that building. It is often difficult to highlight who is responsible for energy used and difficult therefore to divide up related costs and motivate changes in energy usage. We propose to focus on these challenges and consider the opportunities that exist in engaging whole communities of people in reducing energy use. This project is multidisciplinary, drawing primarily on computer science skills of joining up data from different sources and in examining user interactions with technology, design skills of developing innovative and fun ways of representing data, and social science skills (sociology and psychology) in ensuring that displays are engaging, can motivate particular actions, and fit appropriately within the building environment and constraints. We will use a variety of methods making use of field deployments, user studies, ethnography, and small-scale surveys so as to evaluate ideas at every step. We have divided the project into three key work packages: 'Taking Ownership' which will focus on responsibility for energy usage, 'Putting it Together' where we will put energy usage in context, and 'People Power' where we will focus on creating collective behaviour change. In more detail, 'Taking Ownership' will explore how to identify who is using energy within a building, how best to assign responsibility and how to feed that back to the occupants. We know that simplicity of design is key here, as well as issues of fairness and ethics, and indeed privacy (might people be able to monitor your coffee drinking habits from this data?). 'Putting it Together' will consider different ways of combining energy data, e.g. joining this up across user groups or spaces, and combining energy data with other commonly available information, e.g. weather or diary data, so as to put it in context. We will also spend time considering the particular building context, the routines that currently exist for occupants, and the motivations that people have for using and saving energy within the building, in understanding how best to present energy information to the occupants. Our third theme, 'People Power' will focus on changing building user's behaviour collectively. We will examine how people interact around different energy goals, considering in particular cooperation and regulation, in finding out what works best in different contexts. The project then brings all aspects of research together in the use of themed challenge days where we promote specific energy actions for everyone in a building (e.g. switching off equipment after use) and demonstrate the impact that collective behaviour change can have. Beyond simply observing what works in this context through objective measures of energy usage, we will analyse when and where behaviour changes occurred and speak to the users themselves to find out what was engaging. These activities will combine to inform technical, design and policy recommendations for energy monitoring in workplaces as well as conclusions for other multi-occupancy buildings. Moreover, we will develop a tool kit to pass on to other companies and buildings so that others can use the findings and experience gained here. We will also explore theoretical implications of our results and communicate our academic findings to the range of disciplines involved.

We conducted this national survey of the United Kingdom using data obtained from an online panel hosted by a social research company (Final N = 1585) between 12 August and 20 August 2016. We gained a quota sample approximately representative of the UK in terms of age, gender, social grade, and location. Quotas for sampling were set according to data obtained from the Office of National Statistics. The online panel was an actively managed panel recruited through sources including newsletter campaigns, banner placements and affiliate networks; the panel used a double opt-in email verification to ensure that participants are interested in panel membership and are contactable. Quotas achieved were monitored daily while the survey was active and further emails were sent to specific panellist groups to achieve a broadly representative quota. Participants were provided with points for their participation in the survey, which could be used to gain shopping vouchers. Recruitment emails provided participants with a broad description of the study as a “research study to look at people’s attitudes and beliefs about the use of energy in the workplace”; details of estimated completion time (15-20 minutes) and incentives points offered were also provided. Participants were first randomly assigned to one of six scenarios about a situation where they shared an office with other people and they had to reduce their energy use at work. In half of the scenarios, the office had an energy display that shows average usage, and in half of the scenarios, an energy display that showed individual usage with names. In a third of the scenarios, there was no Free rider (i.e., person who uses more than the others), in another third, there was a Free rider, and in the last third of the scenarios, the free-rider is legitimate (they have a legitimate explanation for using more). Then participants were asked to fill in questions about how they would react in such a scenario. The rest of the questionnaire asks about motivations to save energy at home and at work, behaviour intentions, concern about climate change, and experience of blackouts.