Industry
Using Behavioral Science to Drive Efficiency and Sustainability in Industry
Industry
Using Behavioral Science to Drive Efficiency and Sustainability in Industry
Helping Industry Lead the Way
Business and industry can be highly impactful when they take action to reduce energy waste and mitigate climate change. They have numerous means of acting, and BEAR Hub can help encourage most of them. These can include nudging businesses to invest in reducing their emissions or in encouraging them to support climate change legislation. The Hub can help increase the uptake of a utility-run energy efficiency program for industry and business. It can also help enterprises encourage staff to change behavior internally, spot efficiency opportunities, and reduce energy consumption. An effective strategic energy management program is one example of this type of program.
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Case Studies
Increasing school applications for electrification programs in NJ
The New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA) asked BEAR Hub for help increasing participation by schools in its NJ Cool program, a program that issues grants supporting electrification, refrigerant replacement, solar, and energy efficiency upgrades.
Key Takeaways
Provide schools program eligibility guidance, technical calculations, and engineering support long before a bid is put out to contractors for energy system replacement.
Increase awareness by integrating partners that can help schools and conduct targeted outreach to architects, engineers, facilities staff, and school business officials.
Create a mechanism to pre-qualify school project scopes before bidding.
STEP 1: IDENTIFY A SPECIFIC BEHAVIOR TO CHANGE
Our partners' broad behavioral goal was to increase the number of eligible schools successfully applying for NJ Cool funding. Instead of focusing broadly on awareness, the project examined the specific actions and decisions schools must complete to submit an NJ Cool Application. Identifying the specific actions and the potential leverage points for influencing those actions was the focus of this project.
STEP 2: IDENTIFY BARRIERS & BENEFITS FOR THE TARGET AUDIENCE
To better understand where schools encounter friction in this process as well as the other behavioral barriers at play, BEAR Hub conducted qualitative interviews with program participating contractors and key intermediary organizations. These interviews helped clarify how school capital projects move from early planning through procurement and application, and where the NJ Cool application creates additional barriers for schools compared to other applicants.
A central barrier for school participation is the public procurement process. New Jersey school districts are legally required to use competitive procurement for most large capital projects like HVAC upgrades. Given that NJ Cool-eligible projects are typically large, complex, and building-specific, NJ Cool projects will rarely fit within cooperative purchasing contracts and are likely to always exceed the statutory bid threshold. Therefore, in most cases, HVAC improvements are going to be procured through a lowest-responsible-bidder process using fixed, project-specific specifications.
Under this structure, districts have limited ability to change the project scope, technology, or system approach after bids are received. Key technical decisions including system type and cost parameters must therefore be addressed before the bid is issued.
This creates an important implication for NJ Cool: the program cannot function effectively as an add-on introduced after bidding. NJ Cool requirements have to be incorporated during early project planning and scope development so they can be reflected in the bid documents. Districts may therefore need early eligibility guidance, technical calculations, and engineering support to encourage program participation early in the process, long before a bid is put out to contractors.
STEP 3: BRAINSTORM, PRIORITIZE & RECOMMEND BEHAVIOR CHANGE STRATEGIES
BEAR Hub translated the diagnostic findings into a detailed customer journey map and a set of actionable recommendations for NJEDA. The full map is available here.
To increase awareness early enough to shape project development, BEAR Hub recommended formally integrating a nonprofit intermediary as a scoping partner and messenger, improving program messaging, and conducting targeted outreach to architects, engineers, facilities staff, and school business officials before projects reach procurement or board approval.
To reduce schools’ uncertainties in the application process, BEAR Hub recommended creating a mechanism to pre-qualify school project scopes before bidding, providing program-backed technical and engineering support for required energy and emissions calculations, and developing a standardized NJ Cool-ready procurement toolkit. In addition, BEAR Hub recommended aligning outreach and assistance with school capital-planning and budgeting cycles so that NJ Cool eligibility, technical requirements, and funding considerations can be explored in a way that is timely with capital budget planning.
NOTE: The NJ Cool program was discontinued before BEAR Hub recommendations could be implemented and evaluated.
“The New Jersey Economic Development Authority’s participation in the BEAR Hub program has been very valuable as we continue to operate and expand our NJ Cool grant program to support building decarbonization retrofit projects. Reuven and Grace have been a pleasure to work with as they helped us to make our program more customer friendly, while also assisting us to look at our application and program design from a fresh perspective. They provided both general helpful tips for keeping the user experience top of mind, while also diving deep with us into tackling specific barriers that may be preventing further program participation. We look forward to continuing to implement their suggestions as we develop future iterations of the NJ Cool program. Participation in BEAR Hub has not only helped the NJ Cool program, but also reframed our team’s thinking as we work on other clean energy initiatives. ” – Sean Sonnemann, Clean Energy Manager at NJEDA
Changing Culture and Reducing Energy with Strategic Energy Management
Healthcare buildings face many of the same energy management challenges as buildings in other industries or sectors. Atrium Health worked with the ACEEE Behavior, Health and Human Dimensions Program to decrease its energy use. The team developed a holistic behavioral and social intervention alongside physical building upgrades that successfully increased energy savings.
STEP 1: IDENTIFY A SPECIFIC BEHAVIOR TO CHANGE
Atrium Health’s goals were to significantly reduce energy use in its medical buildings and shift the internal culture toward embracing effective energy management. In-depth workshops with facilities, maintenance, and engineering staff revealed that building operators were the best place to start the program. The workshops also pinpointed several specific behaviors, such as changing room temperature setpoints, that have significant energy impacts.
STEP 2: IDENTIFY BARRIERS & BENEFITS FOR THE TARGET AUDIENCE
Surveys and interviews with building operators revealed circumstantial barriers to changing behavior (e.g., a lack of a process for monitoring and resetting temperature setpoints) and psychosocial barriers (e.g., a lack of motivation or understanding to tackle energy challenges proactively).
STEP 3: BRAINSTORM, PRIORITIZE & SELECT BEHAVIOR CHANGE STRATEGIES
The team worked with staff and management to identify feasible and impactful strategies to reduce energy consumption and shift the internal culture of the organization toward an energy-saving mindset.
STEP 4: IMPLEMENT THE BEHAVIOR CHANGE STRATEGIES
Several interventions were implemented. For example, a process was implemented to tackle the small but impactful behavior of checking and resetting temperature setpoints. Staff were also provided the opportunity to participate in training to better understand and manage energy systems within their buildings—a chance to improve knowledge and provide motivation to building operators.
STEP 5: EVALUATE THE PROGRAM TO ITERATE AND IMPROVE
Surveys and energy assessments were conducted after implementing the program. In its first two years, the program saved roughly 5,510,266 kWh (US $307,136) across six original sites (2.5 kWh saving per square foot of building per year). Building operators also reported having more frequent conversations about energy savings, and they felt more supported by the organization to do energy-saving tasks
Importantly, the intervention was an enjoyable challenge and helped motivate building operators to act, helping shift the overall culture in the organization. It also spurred a movement among management toward systematic planning rather than reactive problem solving (supporting energy upgrade planning) and an improvement in employee engagement, satisfaction, and empowerment as they learned to manage energy effectively in their buildings.
(More details about the program and how it was evaluated are available here, here and here).
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- implementation support
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