Marshini Chetty
David Tran
Rebecca E. Grinter
ABSTRACT
Rising global energy demands, increasing costs and limited natural resources mean that householders are more conscious about managing their domestic resource consumption. Yet, the question of what tools Ubicomp researchers can create for residential resource management remains open. To begin to address this omission, we present a qualitative study of 15 households and their current management practices around the water, electricity and natural gas systems in the home. We find that in-the-moment resource consumption is mostly invisible to householders and that they desire more real-time information to help them save money, keep their homes comfortable and be environmentally friendly. Designing for domestic sustainability therefore turns on improving the visibility of resource production and consumption costs as well as supporting both individuals and collectives in behavior change. Domestic sustainability also highlights the caveat of potentially creating a green divide by making resource management available only to those who can afford the technologies to support being green. Finally, we suggest that the Ubicomp community can contribute to the domestic and broader sustainability agenda by incorporating green values in designs and highlight the challenge of collecting data on being green.
- Arroyo, E., Bonanni, L. and Selker, T. Waterbot: exploring feedback and persuasive techniques at the sink CHI 2005, ACM, Portland, Oregon, USA, 2005. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6550361.stm.Google Scholar
- Beckmann, C., Consolvo, S. and LaMarca, A. Some Assembly Required: Supporting End-User Sensor Installation In Domestic Ubiquitous Computing Environments Ubicomp 2004, Springer-Verlag, 2004.Google Scholar
- Blevis, E. Sustainable Interaction Design: Invention & Disposal, Renewal & Reuse CHI 2007, ACM, Florence, Italy, 2007. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Bonanni, L., Arroyo, E., Lee, C. and Selker, T. Smart sinks: real-world opportunities for context-aware interaction CHI 2005, ACM, Portland, OR, USA, 2005. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Canadian Ministry of Energy. http://www.energy.gov.on.ca/index.cfm?fuseaction=electricity.smartmeters#ami.Google Scholar
- Chetty, M., Sung, J. and Grinter, R. E. How Smart Homes Learn: The Evolution of the Networked Home and Household Ubicomp 2007, Springer-Verlag, Innsbruck, Austria, 2007. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Consolvo, S., Roessler, P. and Shelton, B. E., The CareNet Display: Lessons Learned from an In Home Evaluation of an Ambient Display. In Proc. Ubicomp 2004, Springer-Verlag (2004), 1--17.Google Scholar
- Crabtree, A., Rodden, T., Hemmings, T. and Benford, S. Finding a place for UbiComp in the home Ubicomp 2003, Springer, 2003.Google Scholar
- Darby, S. Making it obvious: designing feedback into energy consumption 2nd International Conference on Energy Efficiency in Household Appliances and Lighting, Italian Association of Energy Economists/EC-SAVE programme, 2000.Google Scholar
- Davidoff, S., Lee, M. K., Yiu, C., Zimmerman, J. and Dey, A. K. Principles of Smart Home Control. Ubicomp 2006, Springer, Orange County, CA, 2006, 19=34. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Edwards, W. K. and Grinter, R. E., At Home with Ubiquitous Computing: Seven Challenges In Proc. Ubicomp 2001, Springer-Verlag (2001), 256--272 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Energy Information Administration. International Energy Outlook 2007. US Dept of Energy,. 2007. www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/enduse.html.Google Scholar
- Energy Information Administration. US Household Electricity Report. US Dept of Energy,. 2005. www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/reps/enduse/er01_us.html.Google Scholar
- Fogarty, J., Au, C. and Hudson, S. E. Sensing from the Basement: A Feasibility Study of Unobtrusive and Low-Cost Home Activity Recognition UIST 2006, ACM, 2006, 91--100. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Haines, V., Mitchell, V., Cooper, C. and Maguire, M. Probing user values in the home environment within a technology driven Smart Home project. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 11, 5 (2006), 349--359. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Hanks, K., Odom, W., Roedl, D. and Blevis, E. Sustainable Millennials: Attitudes towards Sustainability and the Material Effects of Interactive Technologies CHI 2008, ACM, Florence, Italy, 2008. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Harper, R. E. Inside the Smart Home. Springer-Verlag, London, 2003. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Harris, C. and Cahill, V. An Empirical Study of the Potential for Context-Aware Power Management Ubicomp 2007, Springer, Innsbruck, Austria, 2007. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Holmes, T. G. Eco-visualization: combining art and technology to reduce energy consumption Creativity and Cognition 2007, ACM, Washington, DC, USA, 2007. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Huang, E. and Troung, K. Breaking the paradigm of disposable technology: Opportunities for sustainable interaction design for mobile phones CHI 2008, ACM, Florence, Italy, 2008. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Intille, S. Designing a home of the future. Pervasive Computing (2002), 76--82. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Kempton, W. Two Theories of Home Heat Control. in Quinn, N. and Holland, D. eds. Cultural Models in Language and Thought, Cambridge University Press, 1987.Google Scholar
- Mankoff, J., Matthews, D., Fussell, S. R. and Johnson, M. Leveraging Social Networks to Motivate Individuals to Reduce their Ecological Footprints HICSS 2007, Hawaii, 2007. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Mccalley, L. T. and Midden, C. J. H. Energy conservation through product-integrated feedback: the roles of goal-setting and social orientation. Journal of Economic Psychology, 23 (2002), 589--603.Google ScholarCross Ref
- McDonough, W. and Braungart, M. Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things. North Point Press, 2002.Google Scholar
- Mozer, M. The Neural Network House: An Environment That Adapts to Its Inhabitants. Coen, M. ed. American Association for Artificial Intelligence Spring Symposium on Intelligent Environments, AAAI Press, Menlo Park, CA, 1998, 110--114.Google Scholar
- Neustaedter, C. and Bernheim Brush, A. J. LINC-ing" the family: the participatory design of an inkable family calendar CHI 2006, ACM, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 2006. Google ScholarDigital Library
- P3 International. http://www.p3international.com/products/special/P4400/P4400-CE.html.Google Scholar
- Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Pacific Northwest Gridwise#8482; Testbed Demonstration Projects. US Dept of Energy,. 2007. http://www.gridwise.pnl.gov/docs/op_project_final_report_pnnl17167.pdf.Google Scholar
- Patel, S. N., Reynolds, M. S. and Abowd, G. D. Detecting Human Movement by Differential Air Pressure Sensing in HVAC System Ductwork: An Exploration in Infrastructure Mediated Sensing. Pervasive 2008, ACM, Australia, 2008. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Rodden, T. and Benford, S., The evolution of buildings and implications for the design of ubiquitous domestic environments. In Proc. CHI 2003, ACM Press (2003), 9--16. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Seligman, C., Becker, L. S. and Darley, J. M. Encouraging residential energy conservation through feedback. Advances in Environmental Psychology, 3 (1981), 93--113.Google Scholar
- Spiekermann, S. and Pallas, F. Technology Paternalism: Wider Implications of Ubiquitous Computing. Poiesis & praxis, 4 (2006), 6--18.Google Scholar
- Taylor, A., Harper, R., Swan, L., Izadi, S., Sellen, A. and Perry, M. Homes that make us smart. Personal Ubiquitous Comput., 11, 5 (2007), 383--393. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Taylor, A. S. and Swan, L., Artful systems in the home In Proc. CHI 2005 ACM Press (2005), 641--650 Google ScholarDigital Library
- US Environmental Protection Agency. http://www.epa.gov/ecycling/.Google Scholar
- Watts Up? https://www.wattsupmeters.com/secure/index.php.Google Scholar
- Wood, G. and Newborough, M. Dynamic energy-consumption indicators for domestic appliances: environment, behaviour and design. Energy and Buildings, 35, 8 (2003), 821--841.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Woodruff, A. and Hasbrouck, J. A Bright Green Perspective On Sustainable Choices. CHI 2007, ACM, Florence, Italy, 2008. Google ScholarDigital Library
Index Terms
- Getting to green: understanding resource consumption in the home
Recommendations
Synthesis of green IS frameworks for achieving strong environmental sustainability in organisations
SAICSIT '12: Proceedings of the South African Institute for Computer Scientists and Information Technologists ConferencePeople are entirely dependent on the environment for existence. In spite of this crucial dependency, human activities are degrading the Earth's environment. The degradation now threatens the wellbeing of all people and possibly the long-term survival of ...
4th international workshop on green and sustainable software (GREENS 2015)
ICSE '15: Proceedings of the 37th International Conference on Software Engineering - Volume 2Engineering green software-intensive systems is critical in our drive towards a sustainable, smarter planet. The goal of green software engineering is to apply green principles to the design and operation of software-intensive systems. Green and self-...
Green IT Meaning in Energy Monitoring Practices: The Case of Danish Households
AbstractEco-conferences like COP26 in Glasgow (UK) in 2021 have brought the debate on energy consumption and climate change to the fore. Given that a third of the energy produced worldwide is consumed in the home, it is pertinent to investigate how ...
Comments