Energy is a critical resource that we make decisions about on a daily basis. Think about turning off the lights before going to bed, or switching off appliances after use. Improved access to energy has been a crucial stepping stone toward the economic and social well-being of humanity, leading to a global upgrade in our living standards. However, unsustainable energy consumption becomes a significant cause of environmental pollution worldwide, especially in India, where access to electricity has grown from only 60% to nearly 100% in the last two decades alone. This begs the question: how can individuals contribute to reducing their own usage?
Behavioral scientists have already attempted to design interventions that tackle the issue of energy overconsumption. One prominent approach is information-based solutions, such as feedback provision and goal setting, that nudge households to reduce their reliance. This class of interventions is highly dependent on providing timely and context-specific information about an individual's consumption. However, the way in which information is presented—whether that be a straightforward text with percentages or a funny meme—is pivotal in determining our response. What’s more is that our perception of interventions is subject to cognitive biases, leading to unexpected reactions across different contexts.
We also currently don’t know much about how the placement of messages plays a role in encouraging energy-saving behaviors. Previous work in this domain suggests that energy-related interventions are especially effective when implemented in a way that minimizes the time, money, and effort required for individuals to respond to an intervention. Part of this comes from carefully altering the placement of intervention material, so that it is timely and salient for the decision-maker. Creating a reminder system for day-to-day activities to turn off appliances when not in use can help instill sustainable practices within homes—but only if they are timely (as the “T” from Sunstein’s FEAST framework suggests). For instance, imagine being cuddled up with your favorite book late into the night, only to receive a text reminder to turn off the lights in another room. Identifying which room, along with actually extracting yourself from your comfortable position, takes additional cognitive and physical effort, which decision-makers typically resist putting in.
In sum, while it’s clear that reminders are critical, we don’t often know how and when to deliver them to activate desired behaviors. This leaves us wondering, What kind of reminders work best to get us to put effort into turning off the lights? Should the reminder come before we’re already settled in another room, or when we are just about to leave the room?
Today, we’ll explore how the placement of interventions within decision environments is essential for nudging pro-environmental behaviors through a pilot study conducted among households in Pune city. Our study suggests that putting up posters inside the home, at places where it is easy for a resident to turn off a running appliance like air conditioners, is most effective at promoting energy-saving behavior.
Energy Consumption in India
According to the India Energy Outlook in 2021, 80% of India’s energy needs are met by conventional energy sources, such as coal and oil. Households are the second-highest consumers of electricity after industry. Pune, the second-largest city in the state of Maharashtra, is home to numerous technology companies and educational institutions—and yet families are still major consumers, contributing about 450,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions each year. As a typical Punekar sees summers that reach 40°C or 104°F, getting households to turn off their air conditioners and other appliances may be challenging. This makes energy conservation a significant issue for its over seven million inhabitants who are jostling to keep themselves comfortable, therefore increasing demand pressures on the local power grid.
The good news is that households, while consuming such a large share of electricity, also have the capacity to engage in sustainable practices and minimize energy consumption. A policy that targets the day-to-day activities of families to help them reduce energy wastage has the potential to promote eco-friendly habits, leading to a greener city overall.
What was the experiment?
We conducted a pilot study on households in the city of Pune to understand the role of timing and location in reminders to conserve energy. To start, we selected nine households who agreed to participate over a two-month period.
Households were randomly assigned to one of two groups. Group One households had reminder mechanisms in the form of posters placed at strategic locations throughout the home, such as next to the light switch or by the bathroom door, similar to the one found below.
Example of posters used for Group One (Source: Poorva Kulkarni)
Meanwhile, Group Two received weekly information, infographics, and memes on WhatsApp, reminding them to save energy, as pictured below.
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Example of an energy-saving meme used for Group Two
(Source: https://www.memedroid.com/memes/detail/1183274)
The main difference between the two types of intervention is that in Group One, the posters were placed at close proximity to where the energy-saving actions needed to take place. Meanwhile, in Group Two, the images were delivered through a text message, regardless of the receiver’s location or timing. For example, in Group Two, you could receive a text message to turn off the lights when you were in the office or at school, meaning that you could not take immediate action after receiving the message. However, in Group One, if you saw the poster asking you to switch off the lights, it would be right next to the switchboard, prompting you to act right away.
Our objective was to determine which group exhibited a higher reduction in consumption, as well as a change in their attitude toward energy conservation.
In Group One, with six households, we put up posters priming families to:
- Be proud of their energy-saving behavior,
- Turn off all appliances before leaving the house (placed near the door), and
- Switch off the lights in specific locations (such as the bathroom).
These posters were placed at salient locations, making the desired behavior potentially feel more intuitive in the moment. Placing the posters close to the physical place where they could take the intended action, like next to light switches, helped make the message more timely and simple to act on.
In Group Two, with three households (which were originally five, but two dropped out), we carried out a messaging-based intervention by:
- Sending participants infographics once a week (such as tips for saving energy and strategies to reduce consumption)
- Providing information on how much our appliances consume on a group chat with all of the household members, and
- Distributing text messages, which may not be as salient as the physical presence of posters in Group One.
In the case of Group One, the reminder for saving energy is placed in the same context, at strategic locations, as opposed to Group Two, where the context of reminders often varied. With all other conditions remaining the same, one might expect a stronger impact from more salient interventions as compared to those that are delivered through the online medium. This is because asking someone to turn off the lights when they are right next to a switch is much easier for them to undertake that action than if they were sitting in another room (or even location) and receiving a text message about it.
What did we find?
Throughout the course of two months, all households reduced their overall consumption, suggesting promise for both types of interventions. However, a greater share (50%) of the households from Group One showed a reduction in their electricity consumption, relative to Group Two (33.3%, or just one household), especially in terms of using electrical appliances like air conditioners. This may be on account of posters within the household being salient reminders to optimize energy consumption, compared to the WhatsApp reminder messages—which may have targeted energy-saving behaviors, but were not delivered with the goal of achieving a specific action.
With this in mind, we argue that WhatsApp messages are less effective than posters, simply because they are not connected to a specific action at a specific time (i.e., switch off the lights when you are leaving the room). The findings from our pilot suggest that keeping the context of reminder and decision-making aligned has a much stronger impact on energy conservation behavior.
Some of the challenges that come with interpreting this finding relate to its small sample size, the highly specific cultural context (even within India), and the fact that there was no valid control group for comparison. Since the study was not designed to statistically show that a particular type of intervention worked within an experimental setting (or, as experimental economist John List would say, at a high voltage), our research only provides some indicative evidence of where and how context matters.
We also present one potential way to implement behavioral interventions that are more salient within the household. For instance, it is not, in practice, difficult to put up posters inside housing units (especially at new housing units), but it would be challenging to prevent residents from removing, defacing, or objecting to them. To overcome this, regulators can collaborate with real estate companies and potential homeowners to identify suitable locations for such messaging. Policymakers and researchers could also assess the efficacy of such interventions by comparing the change in energy consumption to that of previous years.
Changing environmental habits is tough, especially when households are expected to carry the weight of fighting climate change on their own. Policymakers should start by recognizing and measuring household intentions to save energy (“I want to switch off that light!”) before moving toward using in-situation interventions that are cognizant of time and physical space in which decisions are made, such as the ones we suggest. Reminder messages, though powerful, still need to be at the right place and time to nudge energy-saving behavior effectively.
