Multiplying energy-saving behaviour in cities through formal social groups

摘要

Cities are key agents of change in the ongoing energy transitionin Switzerland. They promote technical efficiency measures andbehavioural change to save energy – both by being role modelsand by addressing consumers directly. A crucial questionis how cities can best elicit private consumers’ full potentialof energy saving through adapting their habitual behaviour orroutines, or in other words, how cities can promote energy sufficiency.This paper presents first findings of a transdisciplinary projectinvolving researchers from ZHAW, ETH Zurich and thethree Swiss cities of Winterthur, Baden, and Zug. The project’skey idea is that cities can promote energy sufficiency of privateconsumers through middle-actors. In particular, it examineswhether formal social groups (e.g., sports clubs) may functionas powerful multipliers for energy-saving activities.Thus, the aims of this paper are: i) to identify activities ofthe three analysed cities to promote private energy-saving, andii) to discuss the role of formal social groups in cities when addressingprivate consumers.We will present findings from three in-depth case studiesin the cities of Winterthur, Baden, and Zug. For each city, weidentify and structure currently applied energy-efficiency andsufficiency activities to promote energy-saving of private consumers(document analysis). Based on our findings we suggeststrategies how the three analysed cities may best address privateconsumers to achieve energy-saving. Special attention will begiven to formal social groups and their potential to motivatetheir members to save energy. This may concern activities thatare related to the purpose of the group (e.g., members of asports club use public transport instead of individual cars to goto away games) and potentially also members’ private activities(e.g., use of public transport instead of car for private leisure activities).As an outlook, we formulate first ideas for real-worldexperiments to systematically test the influence of formal socialgroups on individual energy-saving behaviour.