Abstract
In a number of European countries, local municipalities, housing cooperatives, and citizen-based initiatives have been training energy coaches to help citizens improve the sustainability of their homes. These local volunteers offer an analysis of a citizen’s home to advise on how to make it more sustainable, comparing citizens’ consumption patterns with similar others’. While energy coaches are widely employed, evidence on the effectiveness of energy coaches and their approach is lacking. We collaborated with a housing cooperation that trains and provides tools for energy coaches in the Netherlands, comparing the electricity and gas consumption of households before the visit of a local energy coach and their consumption 1 year later. Our results suggest that the visit of an energy coach was associated with a reduction in energy consumption, but only for those who were told by the energy coach that they were consuming more energy than comparable others.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 42 |
| Number of pages | 15 |
| Journal | Energy Efficiency |
| Volume | 16 |
| Issue number | 5 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Jun 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2023, The Author(s).
Funding
This study is part of the research program Sustainable Cooperation – Roadmaps to Resilient Societies (SCOOP). This study is part of the research program Sustainable Cooperation – Roadmaps to Resilient Societies (SCOOP). The authors thank the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) and the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW) for funding this research as part of the 2017 Gravitation Program (grant number 024.003.025).
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Ministerie van onderwijs, cultuur en wetenschap | 024.003.025 |
| Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek |
Keywords
- Boomerang effect
- Energy coach
- Energy consumption
- Social norms
