X
In line with its commitment to energy policies at national and European level, and in an effort to improve energy efficiency through consumers’ energy friendly behaviors, Cittadinanzattiva - through its EU branch Active Citizenship Network - is actively participating to the NUDGE Project, whose objective is to systematically assess and fully unleash the potential of behavioral interventions towards achieving higher energy efficiency, paving the way to the generalized use of such interventions as a worthy addition to the policy-making toolbox.
The NUDGE project is funded by the EU’s funding programme for research and innovation Horizon 2020. More specifically, the project addresses EASME’s call LC-SC3-EC-4-2020 on “Socio-economic research: non- energy impacts and behavioral insights on energy efficiency interventions” and specifically scope (b) - Behavioral insights for energy efficiency interventions.
The project, which has a planned duration of 36 months, is carried out by a multidisciplinary team of 10 partners and trials take place in 5 different EU countries. Taking into consideration the Italian situation with regard to matters concerning renewable energies and also given the EU’s position on the importance of energy efficiency, Cittadinanzattiva decided to join the NUDGE consortium as the only Italian participant.
The online survey linked to the EU Project “NUDGE” is currently available in several languages! Click on the link to fill it in and let us know how you consume and save energy at home! Deadline is 31 of May!
Survey description:
One of the first steps of the project is to profile consumers by considering a variety of psychological (e.g., self-efficacy, value priorities, attitudes, outcome expectations) and contextual variables (household size and composition, economic incentives, technologies in use). This will be accomplished through the employment of surveys – realized through online structured questionnaires or interviews – aimed at capturing consumers’ perceptions of their own behavior and their original disposition against specific interventions conceived to diminish energy consumption.
The first phase of the project thus deals with pre-pilot user profiling based on survey data and aims at collecting and statistically evaluating survey-type data on a diverse set of consumers across Europe. These surveys will be used to record and evaluate the running behaviors of the pilot participants about energy-efficiency measures and actions; analyze the reactions of end users to the various behavioral interventions and derive predictive models of their energy-related behavior; classify different groups of end users on the basis of their energy-related behavior and explore their generalizability across pilots.
Aim of the survey:
The survey is used to gather information about the following aspects at household level:
- Household characteristics, building characteristics, and level of environmental conscience.
- Consumer behavior with respect to the energy consumption aspects
- Their intentions and perceptions with regard to the adoption of measures that enhance the energy efficiency
- Major obstacles to the adoption of more energy efficient behaviors.
Read more about the target audience of the survey!
The EU ambitiously aims to increase energy efficiency and mitigate the negative impacts of climate change by gradually reducing net greenhouse gas emissions and become climate-neutral by 2050. To achieve this and similar goals, much effort has been devoted to the development of digital infrastructure which allow energy consumer to monitor their energy consumption more accurately and efficiently. Nonetheless, energy efficiency requires radical behavioral changes in the energy-related behavior of consumers, starting from every-day activities such as the way people use heating and electric appliances.
The project “NUDging consumers towards enerGy Efficiency through behavioral science” (NUDGE) seeks to analyze the behavior of European citizens with concern the energy consumption and to consequently design and test nudging interventions on different segments of the population. Pilot projects will indeed be carries out in households, energy communities, and schools in five EU countries (Greece, Belgium, Germany, Portugal and Croatia). The research and experimentation of the NUDGE project also aims to develop recommendations tailored to each country and design more general policies at European level.
The project, deeply rooted in behavioral science methods, will investigate individual psychological and contextual variables underlying consumers’ attitudes in order to customize the design of behavioral interventions for them.To do this, it takes a mixed approach to the consumer analysis and intervention design with tasks combining surveys and field trials. The designed interventions are compared against traditional ones in field trials (pilots) in five different EU states, presenting remarkable diversity with regard to innovative energy usage scenarios, demographic and socio-economic variables of the involved populations, mediation platforms for operationalizing the intervention (smart mobile apps, dashboards, web portals, educational material and intergenerational learning practices).
More information:
The overarching goal of the NUDGE project is to examine and unleash the potential of behavioral interventions for long-term changes in energy efficiency behaviours, paving the way to the systematic application of such interventions as a worthwhile contribution to policy making. This will be achieved through behavioural interventions; a solid expertise in behavioural science; (mobile) user interface and policy design; synergies between different stakeholders (energy providers, co-operatives, and communities; consumer associations; and technology providers); as well as an extensive network of experts and industrial/consumer associations amplifying the potential for tangible impacts on policy making at all levels. In its effort to achieve its ultimate goal and improve energy efficiency, as well as to overcome the challenges resulting from the implementation of nudging techniques in the energy sector, the project has four major objectives:
- Objective 1: Tailor the design of behavioural interventions to individual psychological and contextual variables;
- Objective 2: Execute extensive field trials (pilots) that address multiple instances of consumer behaviour, implementing different mixes of behaviour-based and traditional interventions even across participants of the same pilot;
- Objective 3: Develop a systematic core and contextual research protocol to continuously measure the impact of the implemented behavioural interventions;
- Objective 4: Consolidate the findings of pilots into recommendations towards policy makers and relevant stakeholders.
The project NUDGE is characterized by its unique multidisciplinary character, which combines different fields of expertise and capacities. These include knowledge and methods of behavioral science, digital platforms and tools, access to and engagement of heterogeneous user populations, as well as skills in formulating policy recommendations and the capacity to reach and influence policymakers. Therefore, the NUDGE consortium includes ten partners from seven different EU countries and with highly heterogeneous but remarkably complementary backgrounds for the project needs. The consortium is coordinated by the Institute for European Energy and Climate Policy Stitching (IEECP).
The NUDGE project recognizes the key role of citizens in the energy sector, as their behavior is crucial to promote energy efficiency and thus a low-carbon, climate resilient future. In order to attain Objective 7 of the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development , which aims at “ensuring access to economic, reliable, sustainable and modern energy systems for al”, not only energy sources need to become more ‘renewable’, but also consumers’ behaviours and choices. Since the energy transition starts from the citizens, they have to be directly involved in initiatives targeting their attitudes and everyday life. To encourage citizens’ participation, as well as to guarantee a significant participation of civic actors in the NUDGE project, Cittadinanzattiva has involved different external stakeholders, including civic and consumer organizations, but not only. These will assist Cittadinanzattiva and the other members of the consortium in the first phase of the project by helping translate the general profiling survey in their native language and disseminate it across their country.
More information:
In order to raise awareness of the NUDGE project and ensure the engagement of as many European citizens as possible, Cittadinanzattiva has also established different media partnership at international, European and national level. The media partners include The Innovation Platform, the peer review journal Resources and Environmental Economics, EKOenergy, and the Italian online magazine CanaleEnergia.
More information:
The transition to a sustainable and efficient economy requires radical changes in the consumption habits of our society and in the production models of our economy. Remarkably, the transition to a sustainable Europe has to be based on the commitment that "no one is left behind," and that everyone has to be involved in the achievement of this goal. “Leaving no one behind” also means empowering as many people as possible to play a positive and active role so that they can fully participate in the transition. For these reasons, the active participation of European citizens is pivotal for this transition.
The consortium hopes that the results of the NUDGE project will be taken into consideration by the European Institutions. Accordingly, the main outputs to the project will be presented to the Inter-Institutional Group “SDGs for well-being and consumers’ protection”, promoted by Cittadinanzattiva through its EU branch Active Citizenship Network (ACN), the European Consumers Union (ECU) and the Italian Alliance for Sustainable Development (ASviS). This group was indeed created to become a) an awareness raising catalyst across Europe for civil society, business, research, media, etc. at national and European level; b) a dialogue facilitator between the European institutions and stakeholders active in specific fields; c) an incubator of good practices in order to facilitate the process of exchange, contamination and dissemination of best practices experiences to enable EU citizens to make sustainable choices.
More information:
Active Citizenship Network (ACN), the European Consumers Union (ECU) and the Italian Alliance for Sustainable Development (AsviS) are glad to invite you to the digital conference “Making sustainability an easy choice for EU citizens”, during which will be presented the informal Inter-Institutional Group “SDGs for well-being and consumers’ protection” on February 16th, 2021 from 10:00 to 12:00.
The Inter-Institutional Group represents the desire of the civil society to contribute to the SDGs and the Green New Deal, aiming to discuss and raise awareness on how the individual can give her/his contribution. In fact, we strongly believe that citizen and consumer empowerment should be the pillar of the transition towards a more inclusive and sustainable Europe.
The initiative is already endorsed by the “SDGs Multi-Stakeholders Network”, that today counts 47 among National and European Associations, and is in line with European Commission’s initiatives as the European Green Deal, the “New Consumer Agenda” and the “Consumer Day”, organized last December by the DG for Justice and Consumers, titled: “Consumer policy in the service of the Sustainable Development Goals and the 2030 Agenda”. Click here to read the Conference’s programme. To join the conference, please register here
The idea to encourage an informal Inter-Institutional Group able to interconnect the goals of the Agenda 2030 with the consumer protection was announced by Cittadinanzattiva and the European Consumer Union on March 2019 during the event, held at the European Parliament, “Towards EU election: strengthening the European Union to a more effective consumers protection”. Later on, just after the 2019 European elections, Active Citizenship Network (ACN) - the EU branch of the NGO Cittadinanzattiva–and the European umbrella association European Consumers Union (ECU) have invited the civil society coalition Italian Alliance for Sustainable Development (ASviS) to co-promote this political initiative.
Cittadinanzattiva APS
p.iva: 02142701008
via Imera, 2
00183 Roma
Tel: (+39) 06.36.71.81
Fax: (+39) 06.36.71.83.33
Rue Philippe Le Bon, 46
1000 Brussels - Belgium
