{"title":"Can app-based communities support energy sufficiency in households? Evidence from a one-year quasi-experiment in Switzerland","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.scs.2024.105771","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>App-based interventions are increasingly used to foster energy-sufficient household routines. Previous studies rarely measure whether the effect persists in the long-term, and for the few that have, the savings effects – often estimated without a control group – are not maintained over time. To favour long-lasting effects, we posit that (i) app users should be engaged in the app design, (ii) apps should focus on collective-level features that support community building (rather than individual-level consumption feedback only), and (iii) specific app features are needed in the long-term to resist relapse. We assess the overall effect of these strategies in the “Social Power Plus Community Energy Challenge”, an app-based intervention run in 2022 in Switzerland involving about 200 voluntary households. Quasi-experimental estimates under a weighted Difference-in-Differences approach show that on average the intervention produced nearly 5% energy savings over one full year. However, the effect was higher in the first quarter (up to 11% energy saving), becoming negligible in the last quarters. We reflect on how the three strategies did not ensure long-term effects and recommend future research to further explore the potential of community-based processes, focusing less on apps and more on collectively questioning dominant social norms around household routines.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":48659,"journal":{"name":"Sustainable Cities and Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":10.5000,"publicationDate":"2024-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2210670724005961/pdfft?md5=39def8593bdcf361d3e5ce797bb500ad&pid=1-s2.0-S2210670724005961-main.pdf","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Sustainable Cities and Society","FirstCategoryId":"5","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2210670724005961","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"CONSTRUCTION & BUILDING TECHNOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
App-based interventions are increasingly used to foster energy-sufficient household routines. Previous studies rarely measure whether the effect persists in the long-term, and for the few that have, the savings effects – often estimated without a control group – are not maintained over time. To favour long-lasting effects, we posit that (i) app users should be engaged in the app design, (ii) apps should focus on collective-level features that support community building (rather than individual-level consumption feedback only), and (iii) specific app features are needed in the long-term to resist relapse. We assess the overall effect of these strategies in the “Social Power Plus Community Energy Challenge”, an app-based intervention run in 2022 in Switzerland involving about 200 voluntary households. Quasi-experimental estimates under a weighted Difference-in-Differences approach show that on average the intervention produced nearly 5% energy savings over one full year. However, the effect was higher in the first quarter (up to 11% energy saving), becoming negligible in the last quarters. We reflect on how the three strategies did not ensure long-term effects and recommend future research to further explore the potential of community-based processes, focusing less on apps and more on collectively questioning dominant social norms around household routines.
期刊介绍:
Sustainable Cities and Society (SCS) is an international journal that focuses on fundamental and applied research to promote environmentally sustainable and socially resilient cities. The journal welcomes cross-cutting, multi-disciplinary research in various areas, including:
1. Smart cities and resilient environments;
2. Alternative/clean energy sources, energy distribution, distributed energy generation, and energy demand reduction/management;
3. Monitoring and improving air quality in built environment and cities (e.g., healthy built environment and air quality management);
4. Energy efficient, low/zero carbon, and green buildings/communities;
5. Climate change mitigation and adaptation in urban environments;
6. Green infrastructure and BMPs;
7. Environmental Footprint accounting and management;
8. Urban agriculture and forestry;
9. ICT, smart grid and intelligent infrastructure;
10. Urban design/planning, regulations, legislation, certification, economics, and policy;
11. Social aspects, impacts and resiliency of cities;
12. Behavior monitoring, analysis and change within urban communities;
13. Health monitoring and improvement;
14. Nexus issues related to sustainable cities and societies;
15. Smart city governance;
16. Decision Support Systems for trade-off and uncertainty analysis for improved management of cities and society;
17. Big data, machine learning, and artificial intelligence applications and case studies;
18. Critical infrastructure protection, including security, privacy, forensics, and reliability issues of cyber-physical systems.
19. Water footprint reduction and urban water distribution, harvesting, treatment, reuse and management;
20. Waste reduction and recycling;
21. Wastewater collection, treatment and recycling;
22. Smart, clean and healthy transportation systems and infrastructure;