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This case study has a slightly different format to the others in the SEE Library, as it is drawn from the second SEE Policy Booklet - Realising Sustainability and Innovation through Design: Making it Happen in Communities, Industry, Public Sector & Policy-Making (May 2010).

The social innovation and sustainable development challenges facing society require behavioural changes from all players, beginning with citizens, households and communities. According to the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), ‘Whilst 90 per cent of people know that drinks cans can be recycled, only 50 percent say they've actually ever done it.’ Research into attitude change commissioned by DEFRA revealed that big publicity campaigns rarely lead to lasting changes in action and that a new, comprehensive approach is needed that includes real-life examples that people can relate to.  More creative and imaginative strategies are required for engaging and empowering citizens in order to create the conditions for a sustainable mindset. Design is proving to be a tool for stimulating a long-term shift in behaviour trends as it aligns the user experience with sustainable solutions. This is achieved by employing creative, ethnographic and multidisciplinary techniques. This is demonstrated in the following case study, where design becomes a powerful catalyst for changing habits and entrenched assumptions.

The Californian utility company Sacramento Municipal Utility District ran a pilot programme, developed by the energy group Opower, that employed design techniques to encourage electricity users to change their consumption habits. The pilot involved sending electricity bills to customers that compared their energy usage with that of similar-sized neighbours and against local sustainability targets. The bill even assigned a happy or sad face depending on the household’s ranking and prescribed one easy-to-implement energy-saving action. Over time the programme delivered an average energy reduction of 2.8%  by those people receiving the newly designed bills, which equates to a saving of 9.5 billion watt-hours or the electricity use of 1,000 average homes for a year. The effect on heavy users was even more impressive, with the largest energy consumers decreasing their usage by 6%. Through low-tech solutions (i.e. mainly an investment in design) the programme motivated large-scale action across targeted individuals that enabled them to make smarter lifestyle choices and deliver energy savings on an unprecedented scale. In this case, design was used for facilitating citizen engagement and spurring individuals to take action.

For more information visit: www.opower.com

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