Talk given to University of California School of Public Policy on how ehtnographies can be used to help make policy decisions in the energy field.

1. BEHAVIOR,
ENERGY, AND
CLIMATE
CHANGE:
ETHNOGRAPHIES
OF ENERGY AS
POLICY TOOLS
Susan Mazur-Stommen, Ph.D.
(UCR 2002)
Founder, Indicia Consulting

2. ANTHROPOLOGY OF ENERGY
• I am a practicing, urban anthropologist
• My goal is to make the world a better
place through improving resilience and
sustainability in both the built and
natural environments
• Humans affect, and are affected by,
both, and in most cases energy is a
root cause
• I see my work as contributing to an
anthropology of energy

3. • Susan Mazur-Stommen is a cultural anthropologist
who has researched culture, behavior, and sustainability
for over twenty years.
• Her work has included such high points as testifying
before Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley with bright
pink hair.
• Any given work day might find her:
• Hanging out in a metal fabrication shop in Chicago
for air pump leaks
• Eating goat burgers on a farm in rural Alabama.
• Taking pictures of people’s underwear drawers and asking
about laundry pain points in suburban SoCal.
INDICIA CONSULTING

4. • Indicia Consulting is a mission-driven social enterprise
• Our primary goal is an increase in sustainability via
engaging behavior through proven social science
insights and methods.
• We work in all areas concerning human behavior and its
environmental impact, including energy, water, food,
transportation, and pollution control.
• Our secondary purpose is increasing the general
understanding and value of qualitative theory and
methods, particularly from anthropology
• Our focus is on qualitative research, primarily using
ethnographic methods and theories.
INDICIA CONSULTING

5. HUMANS, BEHAVIOR, ENERGY
• In the realm of energy and environmental
behavior change policy, models and
metrics are king
• However, these have traditionally been
predicated upon the 'rational actor' model
• While these often work surprisingly well at
the macro level, more grounded research is
needed to understand what people are
doing at the level of individuals, families,
households, and neighborhoods

6. NO OFFENSE TO ECON GUYS BUT...

7. BEHAVIOR IN THE WHITE HOUSE
• During the Obama Administration, the ideas of
Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler, around
'nudging' and choice architecture, became
popular
• The Obama Administration created the Social
and Behavioral Sciences Team to use the tools
of a wider variety of social and behavioral
sciences to improve the efficiency and
effectiveness of the Federal Government
• Despite the rising profile of both behavioral
economics, and social psychology in policy
crafting, a major tool has until recently sat on
the sidelines…

8. ETHNOGRAPHY!
• Ethnography is called a 'grounded' method,
because it is based on direct observation
of behaviors in naturalistic settings
• Its empirical nature and large data sets
make it a good candidate for mixed-
methods research design, which combine
qualitative and quantitative data collection
and analysis to refine findings, and
subsequently improve outcomes for
evidence based policy

9. PROBLEMS STUDYING
ENERGY
• Energy is a terrible concept:
• It does not reflect the behaviors that intersect with it.
• It is invisible:
• Except for a delayed report, we do not experience
usage
• It is a set of goods and services:
• Used to clean, light, warm, lift, move, dry people, their
stuff, and their homes.
• It is a product and yet it is treated like a commodity.
• There are no brands. Not even a Techcroline.
• Unholy mess of distribution
• IOUS, Munis, and Coops in 50 states and a zillion
climates; urban, surburban, rural…

10. ENERGY EFFICIENCY EPOCHS
• Age of Engineers
• Utilities, which oversee, fund, and run programs in EE, tend to be dominated by
an engineering mind-set. This manifests itself in designing technologies to
reduce human interference in systems (e.g. buildings).
• Age of Economists
• The ‘second epoch’ of energy conservation brought in economics and the
rational actor, with an emphasis on pricing energy usage to change ‘behavior’
• Age of Psychologists
• Until recently, the role of psychology in studying energy was limited to devising
attitudinal surveys, and a focus on consumer ‘decision-making’
• Coming soon? The Age of Anthropologists/Sociologists
• Rare – strangely the people most used to studying ‘behavior’ empirically are the
least engaged in this field (though there are some great folks working in it!)

11. BEHAVIOR AND
ETHNOGRAPHY
• The idea that people do not always actually do
what they say they do has penetrated
• Surveying people has produced a gap between
statements and actions
• Grounded methodologies have gained in credence
• Our fieldwork project in CA is funded to the tune of
$600K

12. THREE ETHNOGRAPHIC PROJECTS
• Cool Roof Retrofits: The Role of Rebates (2009-2010)
• Designed and conducted ethnographic research in 2010. The purpose was to collect
insights into how and why consumers chose the cool roofing material they selected
• Trusted Partners: Everyday Energy Efficiency (2012-2013)
• Yearlong project with five research sites in five states. We conducted in-depth
interviews at sites in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana and intercepts at the
Great American Truck Show in Dallas, TX
• Cybernetic Fieldwork Across California (2015-2019)
• Multi-year project looking at how people affectively engage with personal technology
and energy consumption information. Based on previous research published in Recent
Results from Real-Time Feedback (ACEEE, 2012)

13. ETHNOGRAPHY OF
COOL ROOF RETROFITS
• Summer of 2010, ethnographic research
was conducted with nine households in the
Bay Area and Sacramento region.
• These nine households comprised fifteen
respondents, and their dependents
• They were selected from among a pool of
respondents to a mail solicitation of all
Sacramento Municipal Utility District and
Pacific Gas and Electric customers who had
received a rebate for their cool roof retrofit

14. COOL ROOF RETROFITS
• Goal was to collect data on how and why
consumers chose the cool roofing material
used.
• Ethnographic methods of fieldwork were
used, including:
• Semi-structured ethnographic interviewing
• Grand tour questions
• Participant observation
• Freelist techniques
• Photography

15. FINDINGS
• Findings about rebates
• Rebates did not drive decision-making by customers with
respect to material selection in cool roofs
• Rebates were an insignificant portion of cost incurred
• Rebates were always an after-thought
• Rebates were often applied for by the contractors and not
the consumers
• Roof retrofit costs varied wildly, and so did rebates
• Other findings
• Material selection is based upon factors like neighborhood
fit and aesthetics, rather than performance and cost
• There are a lot of policies around rebates, so understanding
them is critical to developing BETTER ones!

16. TAKEAWAYS
• Customers confront a complex universe of
decision points – therefore they rely on
contractors to ‘decide’ for them
• Consumers are confronted by a wide field of
products, materials, colors, features, benefits,
drawbacks, and price
• A cool roof is not an infrastructural upgrade, it is
a consumable, therefore decisions are made
based upon one’s identity and position vis-à-vis
other neighbors, than on technical specifications.

17. CONCRETE SHAKE
SMUD Territory – this housing
development had a HOA and
CCRs.
Social pressure to conform will
be backed up by legal pressure,
making decisions based upon
strictly technical specifications
meaningless.

18. TRUSTED PARTNERS: EVERYDAY
ENERGY EFFICIENCY IN THE SOUTH
• What it was:
• A multi-sited, qualitative research project on everyday energy practices across the
sectors of buildings, agriculture, and transportation.
• We conducted in-depth interviews with Southerners in 4 states
• We talked with people in small towns and big cities, in their homes, on their
farms, and at their businesses.
• Our primary states were Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi
• We visited the Great American Truck Show in Dallas, TX where we did
intercepts.
Major Questions
• How do residents of the South understand their energy consumption and what are
their attitudes toward consumption and conservation?
• What are the relationships affecting their energy consumption, such as those with
their utilities, city administrations, and federal agencies?

19. ACROSS THE SOUTH
Suburban Georgia
Upper income homeowners in
large footprint houses (3500
square feet and above) in two
very affluent zip codes.
Rural Alabama
Six farms, and the multi-
generation families that run
them. A tightly integrated social
network in a ‘dry’ county.
Truck Show in Texas
Independent owner-operators
and their rigs at the Polish ‘n’
Shine contest, Great American
Truck Show in Dallas.

20. METHOD AND PROCESS
• We went to the field to look for common patterns of behavior across a
variety of settings (rural to urban), social strata, and sectors (buildings,
commercial, residential, transportation, agricultural)
• It was critical to us to represent the diversity that exists in the South; so we
selected sites that could stand in for the geographical distribution of
consumers.
• We wanted to offer a set of viewpoints that capture the nuance and
complexity present in the region.
• Our respondents represent a range of incomes, ethnicities, ages, and
educational statuses
• There are qualitative and quantitative differences in people’s worldviews
depending upon their location
• We used the “rural to urban continuum” as one of four theoretical axes.

21. WHY TRUSTED PARTNERS?
• What we mean by Trusted Partners (and the lack thereof)
• Are consumers the problem?
• States in the South have relatively few state- and utility-run energy efficiency
programs and explanations offered for this absence include that the lack of
energy efficiency programs and policy in the South is partly due to consumer
indifference.
• It is a commonplace in energy research to focus on consumer behavior – but none
of it takes place in a vacuum.
• Consumers, whether residential, commercial, agricultural (or industrial) need
partners to deliver the services and information they need to change the way they
use energy.
• In the South, there are good candidates for partners, but barriers remain.

22. SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CAPITALS
• Policies around energy efficiency often take place with the individual or household
as the intended audience and agent of change.
• This does not always take into account the complexity and nuance of consumers’
decision making.
• As people navigate their social environment, their choices are constrained by
material conditions, like access to resources and control over their
environment.
• There is a critical need to understand the social and cultural forces affecting
individuals’ decision making.
• Dead people do my shopping!
• We used a framework of social and cultural capitals.
• The variability of social and cultural capitals influences the range of decisions
that individuals can or are inclined to make, and yet this variability is often not
given very much weight in energy usage policy research.

23. NEW LIGHT
Oldest church in Corinth, MS,
sports CFLs in its portico –
undermining claims that ‘people in
the South are not interested in
energy efficiency’.
We recommended that energy
providers partner with more
trusted partners, including religious
institutions, civic organizations, and
voluntary associations to make up
for a lack of economic capital.

24. • “Cybernetic Fieldwork,” examines how people use technology in their
everyday lives and what this means for our future energy consumption.
• A team of cultural anthropologists is exploring the world of
‘cybersensitives and cyberawares’
• aka people who have an emotional connection to their phones, tablets, and
other personal technology such as ‘wearables’ (think FitBit).
• Approximately 10% of the population might be cybersensitive
• Another 10% would be what we call cyberawares, people who also have a
higher than average affinity for technology, just not quite so high.
24
CYBERNETIC FIELDWORK

25. CALIFORNIA ENERGY COMMISSION:
EPIC FUNDING
• This project received $574,545 via the Electric Program Investment Charge
• The portion of the EPIC Program administered by the Energy Commission will
provide funding for applied research and development, technology demonstration
and deployment, and market facilitation for clean energy technologies and
approaches for the benefit of ratepayers of Pacific Gas and Electric Company, San
Diego Gas & Electric Company, and Southern California Edison Company through a
competitive grant solicitation process. Projects must address strategic objectives
and funding initiatives as detailed in the appropriate EPIC Investment Plan.
• The opinions expressed here do not necessarily represent the policies and positions
of the California Energy Commission

26. • Hypothesis: 10% of the population are more
viscerally/emotionally responsive to technological
interventions than their peers
• Termed cybersensitives in 2012 ACEEE report
• Cybersensitives seem to return greater than average
energy savings in several studies
• “8.1% versus a control group result of 0.8% “(Grønhøj and
Thoegersen, 2011)
• Means, mode, distribution, and precise frequency of these
cybersensitive individuals are unknown
• “The presence or absence of a particular technology in the
home is unknown.” (Carroll, Lyons, and Denny, 2013)
PROJECT BACKGROUND

27. • Our goal is to devise predictive indicators for on-going
potential studies regarding energy consumption in
California using ethnographic decision-tree modeling.
• Design a new model that would draw upon variables
descriptive of culture and behavior among California
sub-populations
• Demonstrate the cost-effectiveness of programs
designed to holistically address how different people
experience and respond to technologies in their lives
GOALS & OBJECTIVES

28. • Understanding what, why, and when consumers purchase and
interact with consumer electronics can aid in sharpening
predictions about future end-use demand.
• Energy efficiency programs allocate resources more precisely
• Higher rates of energy savings in return
ANTICIPATED BENEFITS FOR
CALIFORNIA IOU RATEPAYERS

29. • Improved precision of forecasting
• reduces procurement costs
• minimizes over-procurement of capacity in forward
markets
• allows grid planners to optimize infrastructure investment
• Leads to lower costs to ratepayers.
• Improved energy efficiency program design
• Takes into account the range of responses to offerings
• Match needs better
ANTICIPATED BENEFITS FOR
CALIFORNIA IOU RATEPAYERS

30. FURTHER READING
• Willett Kempton, Environmental Values in American Culture
• Elizabeth Shove, Comfort, Cleanliness, and Convenience
• Ed Vine, 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, IPCC committee
• Hal Wilhite, Energy consumption as cultural practice
• Loren Lutzenheiser, Comfort in a Lower Carbon Society
• Richard Wilk, “Consuming America”
• Tom Turrentine, “Symbolism in Early Markets for Hybrid Electric Vehicles”