Team Up with Eco-aware Everyday Things to Green Your Workplace!

Abstract

The lack of energy consumption awareness in public spaces is a fact. There, people do not receive energy consumption feedback nor do they pay a monthly invoice to electricity providers. Thus, there is practically a non-existent perception of energy waste, and hence, there is low motivation to reduce it. To tackle this problem we transform everyday shared electrical appliances which are placed in common spaces into collaborative eco-aware everyday things. These eco-appliances make people aware that they are not alone to save energy, but the everyday things can team up with them to achieve this task. Qualitative and quantitative results were gathered in three case studies performed with shared coffee machines at workplace. The objective was to assess the effectiveness of the proposed eco-aware design in terms of energy saving and the degree of affiliation between workers and the smart appliance to create a green-team relationship.