Podcast – Changing people’s habits

In this episode, host Mathias Steck, Service Area Manager for Renewables Northern Europe at DNV, is joined by Filippos Anagnostopoulos, co-ordinator for a project called NUDGE, a European Union Horizon 2020 initiative.

Together they explore how behavioural science can be used to incentivize people to make positive changes in terms of their energy use.

They look at the different types of motivations or ‘nudges’ that people are influenced by when making decisions about their energy usage, including environmental, technological, financial and social concerns, and what this means for the energy transition on a global scale.

Two of the main messages are:

“New technologies that help visualize and automate are a great enablers. Visualizing energy use really improves our understanding. Our theoretical model predicts that an increase of energy knowledge, most of the time, has a positive impact on our efforts to save energy.”

Filippos Anagnostopoulos, IEECP

“A very strong indicator of intent is called Perceived behavior control – essentially the feeling that something is within our control to accomplish. So it is important to focus the messaging of nudges on practical aspects. Messages that can show it is possible to do something, and how to do it.”

Filippos Anagnostopoulos, IEECP