Sub-Metering and Data Analytics for Behavioural Change

17 December 2021

While several operational and strategic changes can be implemented to improve a business’s energy efficiency, in many cases, building occupiers must also play a role. By engaging building occupiers, including employees and customers, you can encourage their support of the business’s net-zero commitments and ESG strategy and help reduce the financial and environmental cost of energy waste.

An effective way of involving building occupiers in your energy efficiency strategy can be to help them visualise their energy usage.

A unique combination of cost-effective monitoring control and data analytics, CODA can provide granular sub-metering for buildings and their assets and create an interactive dashboard to display real-time energy usage insights. This digital display gives users an immediate snapshot of how much energy each asset requires and of the building’s overall energy efficiency.

Under Nudge Theory, highlighting this information could be considered a “nudge” for employees. Nudges are used to influence the behaviour of a group of people without removing any of their options. Therefore, by providing building occupiers with a greater understanding of how their actions impact the business’s energy usage, it may lead to behavioural changes that improve energy efficiency.

CODA can be used to quantify the impact on energy usage when an occupier undertakes a positive action, such as turning the lights off at the end of the day, or adverse action, such as leaving the lights on overnight. Showing how these activities impact energy consumption levels through visualisation from sensors and sub-metering data will help influence occupier behaviour and inspire more energy-efficient decisions.

Businesses can benefit from savings of between 10 and 15% due to changes in employee behaviour. Displaying the carbon cost of boiling a whole kettle, leaving lights on in unused rooms or using a lift for a short journey could encourage minor changes that can add up to create a significant impact.

CODA can also be used to help building occupiers visualise the building’s overall journey to net-zero and gain insight into their contribution to this crucial cause. By highlighting and celebrating critical milestones in the building’s progress to carbon neutrality, users may be further encouraged to make concerted efforts to drive this forward. The system could even be used to set specific targets for teams of staff or departments to add an element of fun to the process.

---

If you would like to know more about how CODA can help with your energy metering and behavioural change activities, please get in touch with the team at info@codacloud.io or call us on 0345 241 2889.