Energy efficiency concerns the entire workplace and a cooperative approach is important for achieving ambitious energy reduction targets. Despite this, many organisations still mainly regard energy efficiency as a technical issue involving just a few specialists. A focus on the social relations and processes that shape work on energy issues is lacking. The aim of this paper is to illuminate and explore social relations between the staff driving energy issues and their co-workers. The analysis presented is based upon two features shaping their mutual engagement for reducing energy use: the communication strategy on energy issues undertaken by the workplace and the support for energy efficiency and conservation among the staff. The study provides insights gained from an interview study done in a Swedish organisation as well as from social science research in the field. The result is a conceptual framework that describes four relationships between the drivers of change and their co-workers. These relationships are characterized as active, passive, non-existing and conditional engagement in energy efficiency and conservation. The framework can be used as a tool for identifying social constraints and possibilities for reducing the use of energy at workplaces as well as in other contexts. © 2019 Elsevier Ltd

En effektivare användning av energi och minskat resursslöseri är viktigt för att begränsa klimatförändringar och arbeta mot en mer hållbar utveckling, inte minst inom bostadssektorn. Bostadens energianvändning är beroende av både de professionellas och hushållens agerande. I dag finns teknisk kunskap om hur vi utvecklar och producerar energieffektivaoch smarta energilösningar till bostäder och till den teknik som hushållen använder. Det finns också forskning om hur hushållen agerar och bör agera för att spara och effektivisera användningen av energi i hemmet. Ett mer angeläget problem är hur dessa grupper ska samverka med varandra så att energieffektivisering och besparing också genomförs. Det gäller såväl kommunikationen mellan professionella och hushåll, som de senares interaktion med den energiteknik som de professionella tillhandahåller.Syftet är att undersöka hur kommunikationen mellan professionella och hushåll kan utvecklas för att uppnå en hållbar energianvändning i bostäder. Rapporten baseras på en sammanställning av beteende- och samhällsvetenskaplig forskning som på olika sätt har behandlat kommunikation om energiteknik, energibesparing och effektivisering. Vi har även genomfört intervjuer med olika professionella aktörer vid ett energibolag. Avsikten har då varit att undersöka hur energibolaget kommunicerar om miljö- och energifrågor med hushållen. Vår bakgrundsförståelse utgår från tre olika kommunikationsstrategier; informations-, respons och medverkansstrategier, som grundar sig i delvis olika sätt att förstå vad kommunikationenmellan professionella och hushåll kan innebära.Resultatet från kunskapssammanställningen pekar på vikten av att, i kommunikationen med hushåll, utgå från deras egen energianvändning, energirelaterade vanor och val av energiteknik, liksom deras intresse och motiv till att spara energi. För att kommunikation om energifrågor ska upplevas som relevant och meningsfull för hushållen så räcker dock inte detta.Man bör även identifiera och/eller skapa adekvata tillfällen för kommunikation och sträva efter att budskapet liksom kommunikationen kan anses som trovärdig. För att nå fram är det också av vikt att tänka igenom hur man talar eller skriver om energifrågor, exempelvis att det som sägs och skrivs är tillräckligt begripligt. De professionellas kommunikation medhushållen sker även via tekniken. Att designa tekniken för god användbarhet och effektivare energianvändning är därför viktigt.Resultatet från intervjuerna med professionella aktörer på energibolaget VMEAB visar på olika former av kommunikationsaktiviteter såsom allmänt informationsmaterial som skickas till hushåll, digital kommunikation, reklam, evenemang och personlig kontakt. Intervjupersonerna lyfter fram vikten av att det som kommuniceras är begripligt för hushållen och att den information som ges ut varken är för omfattande eller knapphändig. Personlig kontakt medhushållen är eftersträvansvärt, men det är resursmässigt svårt att tillgodose. Energibolaget har en ambition att ytterligare utveckla kommunikationen med hushållen för att öka deras intresse och medvetenhet för energianvändningen. Insatser som då nämns är att synliggöra energianvändningen via en personlig hemsida, utveckla funktioner som ska ge direkt återkoppling mellan kund och bolag, samt se över möjligheten att vara mer informell i kommunikationen med hushållen.

Technical and performance related uncertainties that come with an increased number of components and system complexity are often thoroughly examined and tested in demonstration buildings. On the contrary, and despite the energy research literature stressing the importance to understand the requirements and context of the users, the uncertainties that occupants encounter while adapting to new energy efficient buildings are seldom examined and identified in depth.This paper will highlight the usefulness of seeing the technologies for buildings from the users' point of view. From a social practice perspective and the concept of domestication the paper examines various types of uncertainties encountered by occupants when managing technologies for buildings, such as bedrock heat pump, photovoltaic panels and LED-lighting, in a new energy efficient house.The result demonstrates that it is demanding and tiresome to tackle uncertainties and learn how to handle technologies for building, as well as to contact professionals for support. It might in fact be more convenient to "leave it as it is", with the consequences that no one is managing the technologies. Instead of assuming that carrying out this practice is straightforward, it would be better to work on an approach where this is not the case. In fact, the later approach creates much better conditions for extended learning and product development than the former.

This article claims that the contents of energy conservation information policy instruments must be better adapted to household members’ everyday life experiences in order to capture their interest and transform information into action. The article elaborates on how to ground energy policy information in the everyday doings and strivings of households. Using two time-geographical concepts, i.e. activity and project, we investigate how people understand and define their energy-related activities as parts of overarching everyday projects with a focus on the constraints on energy conservation. The analysis is empirically based on interview data from a case study of households’ use of renewable heating technologies. The results illustrate how peoples’ heating activities are related to everyday projects such as reducing environmental impact, comfort for a convenient daily life, the household budget balance, learning about and/or maintaining home technologies and hobbies. One conclusion is that information instruments focusing solely on one or two such projects might hamper the translation from information to action and also limit the number of people interested in or able to access the information. Another conclusion is that the growing use of energy efficient technologies might influence new habits and perceptions of the everyday use of energy, making common economic motives for saving energy less useful. Anchoring energy-related information and support in the everyday activities and projects of households would facilitate the translation process. If this is achieved, information could prove a useful instrument in the broader reorganization of societal institutions in a sustainable direction.

Many energy consuming household activities are collectively organized, while in information campaigns for energy conservation they are regarded as planned and performed by individuals in isolation. This article aims at scrutinizing this mismatch by analytically examining how energy-consuming activities are allocated and organized among household members and explore the implications for energy consumption. Time-geographic concepts ground for the investigation and empirical illustrations are taken from a uniquely rich historic Swedish pilot study on time-use from 1996. The pilot offers time-diaries from members of the same households which allow analysis on activity allocation in the households. We present a conceptual framework with two overarching principles of activity allocation; project division and project sharing. Visualizations of daily activity sequences from time-diaries in the pilot study are used to analyze the household project providing meals. The overall result indicates that the ways households allocate and coordinate energy consuming activities matter to energy use. Consequently, it is important to consider the household with its members for understanding daily energy consuming activities and people’s possibilities to conserve energy. If reconfigured to fit into the interlinked everyday life activity sequences of household members, energy advice and information campaigns might improve the opportunities to reach their targets.

Energy-efficient technologies are not just objects that might enable households to carry out more sustainable practices; they are tools, and using them effectively requires certain skills and knowledge. Households' difficulties in handling home heating and hot water technologies in particular have been highlighted as an obstacle to meeting energy conservation objectives. This has given rise to calls for improved support based on how the households define their activities and handle these technologies. By deploying a socio-cultural theory of learning and using in-depth interviews with households that have recently purchased renewable heating systems, this paper examines various situations in which people have learnt to use the technologies, and it discusses lessons learnt that may be useful for developing support. The results demonstrate three common learning approaches and identify situations where the learning process runs smoothly and where it does not. The conclusions suggest strategies for helping households overcome the resistance embedded in the interaction with the technologies, and they highlight the importance, when developing support, of starting with what creates meaning in various situations.