Behavior Changes Are The Ticket

The only way to reverse heavy energy usage in this country is through behavior modification. Simply stated everyone must become more conscious of energy usage. This includes better managing or eliminating the small electric heater under a desk as well as the huge quantities of reheat being consumed in the air delivery system above the ceiling.

Will turning out the lights help? A little. Adjust the thermostat up or down? Show me a sizable commercial office building that allows the tenants to adjust the temperature setpoint. In an open-bay area it simply can't happen. Thermostat adjustments are the Jimmy Carter solution.

So really there are two classes of behavior modification needed: (1) occupants and (2) building support staff. Both can help. The occupant, working from a desk with a heater running underneath to keep warm, needs to turn it off (at least most of the time). The building maintenance staff, operating the HVAC equipment, needs to change the way they treat the system operation. Both need to change their behavior.

And it's more than simple behavior changes too.

The building maintenance staff needs to understand that the desk heater is a symptom of an HVAC system or building envelope problem. This is the problem that needs to be corrected before the heater can or will be turned off. Remove the cold drafts and you remove the need to waste additional energy.

So behavior change for the building maintenance staff is one that moves from being complaint-driven to one where they are energy-driven. Solve the energy problem and you will probably solve the complaint at the same time. (I have seen offices where almost every women is wearing a sweater on a hot summer day - the Jimmy Carter solution in reverse.)

The solution - behavior modification - is clear. What isn't so clear is how to drive it.

At least part of the answer is in using energy-feedback to each occupant and maintenance person. Everyone needs to know where they stand in the energy equation of their building and the world at large. They need quantified numbers, in dollars and pounds of CO2, about the impact their behavior has on the environment - especially on coal burning power plants.

This is not a question of being a do-gooder. You don't have to believe Al Gore or any other climate doomsday sayer. You can continue to contribute to the save-a-forest effort somewhere on the planet. This is really about numbers. Everyone needs to know the numbers even if expressed in the impact of Hummers on (or not on) the road.

More on this in the next blog.