1. "The Role of Community-
Based Initiatives in Energy
Saving"
www.energy.soton.ac.uk/communities
Dr Rebecca Wallbridge, University of Southampton
R.E.Wallbridge@soton.ac.uk

3. Challenges of working with community groups
• Competing expectations of the research can be difficult to manage
• ‘Unknowablility’ of capacity of groups
• Life-cycle of groups

4. Early findings: Household interventions
Social networks
Values and practices

5. Early findings: Household interventions
Social networks
Values and practices
• Household interventions
Impact of first household meeting (Oct
2011, Feb 2012):
Reductions in electrical power of around 30W
in treatment group compared to control group
(p <0.1)

6. • Social networks
Saunders, C., Buchs, M., Papafragrou, A., Wallbridge, R. and Smith, G. (2013) Beyond the activist ghetto: a deductive blockmodeling approach to understanding
the relationship between contact with environmental organisations and public attitudes and behaviour. Social Movement Studies (In Press).
Energy use is associated with the
extent of pro-environmental
attitudes and ‘contact’ with
environmental organisations
(exposure to messages / paid
supporter).
Low household electricity use associated with households sharing pro-environmental
attitudes and contact with environmental organisations.
High energy use is associated with households not sharing any of these
Moderate energy use is associated with a moderate degree of sharing.

7. • Values and practices
“Geoff: Well, if we really wanted to we wouldn’t go on such energy intensive holidays, but we do.
There’s no… Well, I think we could try and economise but we don’t want to wear too hairy a shirt.
Jane: Yeah, I suppose that’s true.
Geoff : Within reason we’ll save money, but we don’t want to become mugs.”
Reducing energy use in the home in order to ‘save the planet’ or ‘save money’ appear to
impact on wider lifestyles.
Those with pro-environmental values, for who saving energy is linked to climate change
reorder their consumption habits in other areas of life (such as travel, leisure, food).
Those for whom cost is their main concern have a narrower focus, and are primarily
interested in whether a change saves them money.
“Nick: Well, it’s just a major part of the way I view life and the universe and everything, it’s looking
after the environment. I think that probably increased when my daughter was born in 2004.
Because I used to go off on flights to the sun every year just like everybody else, like the herd, you
know, and these days I tend to holiday in this country…So my idea of a summer holiday now is a
canal restoration group, a whole bunch of people restoring old canals for fun, and it is a lot of fun.”

8. Policy implications:
• Challenge of working with community groups – life-cycle of groups
• Time scale of behaviour change – both in terms of interventions and
variability across life stages
• Framing of energy saving in terms of values and how this relates to other
activities such as transport, leisure, food – potential benefits of a more
‘holistic’ approach