Considering people, not just properties: when it comes to decarbonisation, what makes a home 'hard to treat'?

DG Cities and the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL have teamed up on a government study to investigate hard to decarbonise housing. An estimated 10 million homes Britain are difficult to insulate or improve by conventional means. The project, commissioned by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), aims to identify these homes, define what makes a home ‘hard to treat’ or ‘hard to decarbonise’ (in the context of energy efficiency and low carbon heating), develop a practical framework to help inform policy and guidance to tackle challenging properties. Head of Research, Ed Houghton explains more…

Stretching targets but limited progress

The UK government is committed to achieving net zero carbon by 2050. To reach this target, significant sectors of the UK’s economy must undergo a considerable transformation. One major sector is the built environment. Data by the UK’s Climate Change Committee highlights that heat in buildings accounts for 468 MtCO2e or 37% of UK annual greenhouse gas emissions. If this is reduced it could deliver considerable progress towards the government’s net zero objectives. 

The challenge however isn’t a simple one – the complexity of the UK’s built environment, the diversity of housing stock and types, regional variation and history of many buildings means that ‘treatment’ for reducing emissions is not a quick fix. For the most difficult – termed “hard-to-treat” - the issues are complex, so it is important to be intentional and evidence-based in any approach to their improvement. 

What exactly is a ‘hard to treat’ or ‘hard to decarbonise’ home?

Definition matters, and this is part of the challenge we’re exploring in this work. A common industry definition describes hard-to-treat homes and properties as those which are difficult to make energy efficient through conventional improvements, such as cavity insulation, loft insulation or low-carbon heating solutions, like heat pumps. Very hard-to-treat are often rural, heritage, and off the gas grid. Estimates put the number of hard-to-treat homes in the UK at around 10 million.

But we’re also interested in understanding whether it is more useful to describe these homes as ‘hard to decarbonise’. Given targets are specifically focused on decarbonisation, academia and international policymakers are increasingly adopting this term. The terminology is broader, and reflects on the need to tackle these properties for the purposes of achieving legally binding targets. Others working in the space, perhaps focused on fuel poverty, may use a different phrase entirely, such as 'hard to heat'. Semantics, in this case, are important to consider: treatment doesn’t necessarily suggest long-term improvement, whereas approaches to decarbonisation are often sustainable and deliver impact over time.

Decarbonisation and fuel poverty

Tackling hard-to-treat homes will not only support progress towards the Government’s net-zero goals. There are also real economic, social and health benefits to improving the quality of the most difficult to improve housing stock – particularly given the ongoing cost-of-living crisis affecting people across the country. Many in hard-to-treat homes are struggling to make ends meet, with a much larger proportion than ever before entering fuel poverty.

For example, properties with uninsulated solid walls had the highest rate of fuel poverty (22.5% of households), compared to 8.0% of those with insulated solid walls.* A similar trend follows for households with uninsulated cavity walls compared to insulated cavity walls (15.0% vs 8.3%). Unsurprisingly older homes are more frequently hard-to-treat, and their residents are more likely to be in fuel poverty: 21.7% of households living in pre 1919 homes were in fuel poverty in 2020, compared to 10% of those built between 1965 and 1985; and less than 5% of those built after 2002. Therefore, tackling hard-to-treat homes, particularly among older and heritage properties, could also alleviate the issues presented by fuel poverty. 

Seeking best practice

The diversity of housing stock in the UK means there is no one-size fits all solution. This is why, through this work, we’re not only building a set of key terms and definitions that describe problems and solutions, we’re also constructing a practical framework to help decision-making in industry and across policy, with guidance for tackling challenging properties.

The efficacy of treatment approaches will of course differ considerably, by context, materials, housing archetype, resident behaviour. We know therefore that we must capture and shed a light on the effectiveness of holistic solutions, and provide depth and detail to support those exploring treatment options through the framework. We’re also keen to highlight what works, and draw on real-life examples from across industry to assess not only the challenges that hard-to-treat properties present, but the practical interventions that have been proven to work. 

Over the coming weeks and months, DG Cities and UCL Bartlett School of Architecture are undertaking research to better define and map ways forward for hard-to-treat homes. We’ll be speaking to leaders across the housing and energy industries, academia and third sector to collect insights and build case studies. We want to draw out examples from across Great Britain – and are keen to chat to as many organisations and individuals as possible about the challenge, and opportunity, we all face in improving the quality of our homes.

To find out more, and to take part, visit: https://www.dgcities.com/hard-to-treat-homes

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Data: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/annual-fuel-poverty-statistics-report-2022

Welcome Sam, our IoT Project Manager!

A cheerful piece of DG Cities news for our final blog of the year: a welcome to the newest member of our team, Sam Grounds, our IoT Project Manager. Sam joined us on a placement as a graduate trainee and liked it so much he decided to stay. He’s brought some great skills to the team, and has already been getting stuck into a range of projects, from a smart homes initiative to improve housing maintenance, to the trialling of IoT cameras to reduce antisocial behaviour.

Image: Diliara Garifullina

It’s exciting to have joined the DG Cities team full-time as IoT (Internet of Things) Project Manager. Having been seconded to the company for six months as part the graduate programme at the Royal Borough of Greenwich, I had the chance to experience the innovative and exciting world of DG Cities before I joined. One of the things I appreciated from the start was the chance to work with this talented team of specialists with backgrounds in such a wide variety of sectors.

My academic background is in geography. I studied this at the University of Manchester, with a year studying abroad in the USA at the University of Vermont. My focus was human geography, which introduced me to the themes around urban development, innovation, energy, health and IoT that are at the heart of what I’m working on now.

After university, I lived in Australia for two years, travelling and working before returning home to start the Local Government Association’s National Graduate Development Programme, based in the Royal Borough of Greenwich. My initial role was in Children’s Services, then I moved to DG Cities for my second placement – and haven’t looked back! Already, I have worked on a variety of projects, including decarbonisation, fly-tipping monitoring and energy reduction initiatives.

At the end of October, I joined DG Cities full time as IoT Project Manager. My focus is continuing to develop our IoT programme, and there are a few exciting projects in this area coming up. The first is a partnership with Sense, a household energy monitoring device that uses AI and machine learning to monitor the electricity consumption of appliances in the home. The pilot project will involve the installation of Sense devices in 40 council owned homes across the Royal Borough of Greenwich, as well as carefully developed behavioural interventions. The behavioural science aspect to projects at DG Cities is full of new experiences and lessons for me; I’m excited by the potential of behaviour change and technology interventions to work together – this behavioural aspect has added an interesting new layer to some of the projects I have been working on.

Smart Homes is another project we are delivering, in partnership with the Royal Borough of Greenwich, where we are planning to install environmental sensors and Smart Fire Detection Systems in 160 council-owned properties. This will involve incorporating IoT systems in housing, focusing on properties with damp and mould issues, sheltered accommodation, large multiple-dwellings units, and void properties. The aim of the project is to find effective ways of using technology to monitor conditions in social housing, to get ahead of any potential issues and improve the response to damp and mould in homes. These projects are particularly exciting as I believe they can make a difference in the context of the cost-of-living crisis and rising energy costs; we are implementing exciting potential solutions that are relevant to the real issues people are facing today.

It’s been an exciting few months, and I can’t wait to see what next year at DG Cities brings. It’s a great team, and I’m looking forward to continuing to learn and develop alongside colleagues with such a breadth of experience. I’m also proud to be a part of a company that is putting the opinions and needs of service users at the heart of what they do, to advance the innovative, technology-led solutions that can make a real, positive difference to people’s lives.

What makes a self-driving vehicle feel safe? Understanding the nuances of attitudes to AI on the road

In a world where self-driven vehicles share the roads with vehicles driven by people, how do we define what is ‘safe’? And is it likely to be so different from the way we currently travel on the UK’s roads, one of the riskiest activities many of us do on a daily basis? DG Cities has been investigating the meaning of safety in the AI-driven future as part of project D-RISK. Head of Research, Ed Houghton shares some of our latest findings and analysis.

Photo: Dan Gold/Unsplash

Often the topic of science-fiction, self-driving has come a long way in a relatively short period. Many of the technologies we are using in cars today have some level of automation, such as automated braking systems, and forthcoming automated lane keeping systems (ALKS), both of which make some use of self-driving tech. But how can we know if these technologies are safe? And is it useful to compare their statistics with human driven vehicles? After all, not everyone on the road is safe.

This question of what constitutes safe is important. In order to advance safe self-driving vehicle technology, we need to develop a deeper understanding of how we define, measure, and experience safety on the roads. How we perceive safety will differ significantly from person to person. For example, an elderly person crossing a busy pelican crossing may feel it is unsafe, whilst a young-adult on an e-scooter may feel overly safe. Drivers also experience safety differently, as do their passengers, therefore it’s important we consider the individual nuances of what safety can mean.

D-Risk is a recently completed £3m programme led by drisk.ai alongside DG Cities, Claytex and Imperial College London – as a collective, we have been working towards building a driving test for self-driving technologies. We believe this is a vital piece of the puzzle towards building safer urban environments. But to do this, we needed to go back to basics to redefine what we mean by safe self-driving vehicles – and we did this by surveying the public.

We surveyed 651 members of the public, and ran six workshops across the UK to explore public attitudes to autonomous vehicle safety.

One major factor that influences our perception of safety is the environment we’re in, especially if it is unfamiliar. We asked survey respondents to describe their willingness to ride in a self-driving car in urban environment, compared to a rural one, at different times of day. We found that less than a fifth (17.6%) believe travelling in a self-driving vehicle in an urban environment, or in a rural environment (15.5%), at night would be safe. Daytime travel was rated slightly safer (urban: 24.7%, rural: 22.1%).

We also investigated views on new partial autonomy systems that take over specific tasks from the driver. Our data showed that ALKS (Automated Lane Keeping Systems) are viewed with some scepticism by the public, with only a quarter (25.2%) looking to use them in the future. Almost three fifths (59.3%) of those we surveyed would not use ALKS technologies if they were made available to them. Less than half (48.7%) do not believe that ALKS will improve road safety, whilst almost a quarter (24.6%) are yet to be convinced. 

As for what builds trust, we looked into assurance processes, such as annual software MOTs and independent software audits. Both were viewed positively by the public: there was broad agreement that the assurance processes outlined to participants would have positive impacts on perceptions of trust. The highest rated impacts were annual software MOTs (49.8% believed this would have a positive impact) and independent software audits (48.4%), illustrating the importance of assurance processes to the public.

Where to next for safe autonomy?

We found great interest in autonomy as a route to safer roads, but many we spoke to still felt there was not enough information or examples available to help overcome their concerns. This, we believe, is a vital step for those looking to deploy self-driving services – and we believe that self-driving tests, like the ones developed through D-RISK, have the potential to radically shift how people view, and trust, AI.

Read our latest report in full.

Is the transition to EVs at risk of stalling? Findings from the latest Research Community Survey

As we launch findings from our Research Community survey on attitudes to electric vehicles, Head of Research, Ed Houghton highlights the importance of understanding people’s barriers if the UK is to meet its carbon reduction targets. What can policymakers and industry do to help drive the transition? Who do our respondents expect to pay for new EV charging infrastructure? Read Ed’s analysis and download the full report below.

Daniel Andraski/Pexels

For the past week, all eyes have been on Sharm El-Sheikh, as world leaders met at COP27 to find a way forward against the urgency of climate change. While the conference looked across many sectors and their challenges, a vital area is transport and mobility - specifically, the transition away from polluting carbon fuels and towards zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs). The trend towards ZEVs and electric vehicles (EVs) has been increasing for several years – and with the ongoing war in Ukraine, the pressure to move away from carbon fuel has only grown.

The big news at COP27 was that the ZEVs are very much on the agenda. Delegates agreed to launch the Accelerating To Zero Coalition, billed as a “platform for leading initiatives to work together to deliver a Paris-aligned Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) transition globally.” This new coalition aims to build on COP26’s Zero Emission Vehicles Declaration, which plans to accelerate the transition to make all new cars and vans zero-emission by 2035 in leading markets, and 2040 globally, in line with Paris Agreement climate goals.

But while these goals are critical, the path to realising them is not clear. And given the current economic and energy climate, there is considerable uncertainty as to how realistic these objectives are, when public attitudes and perceptions towards ZEVs, and EVs in particular, are still limited by concerns that electric isn’t necessarily going to be better than petrol or diesel. This is why at DG Cities, we have been investigating public attitudes to and perceptions of electric vehicles to understand what can be done to accelerate the transition towards zero emissions.

Is the UK public ready for the EV transition?

To reach these, and the UK’s own aspirational targets, there will need to be a significant shift in purchasing behaviour over the coming decade. A shift is now possible, as technology has improved considerably: battery capacity has grown and EV chargers are more effective, easier to use, and offer improved user interfaces. These changes mean that in the UK alone, EV sales have increased 160% over two years and are continuing this upward trend.

The question, however, is whether this trend will be sustainable, particularly in the current climate. This is very much driven by public attitudes and behaviour – how the public views EVs, their interest towards them, and whether they see their value. At DG Cities, we wanted to understand the attitudes and behaviours behind the current trends - and from these, assess what could be done to further drive the transition.

In 2022 we surveyed more than 400 members of the public, in order to take a deeper look at their attitudes towards EVs. Our study showed that:

• One fifth (19%) of respondents are very likely to purchase an EV in the coming 12 months – however 50% are not intending to shift. This group needs support to transition, as it is unlikely that a fifth of vehicle owners transitioning is enough.

• The major barriers to EV adoption are cost, perceived lack of charging infrastructure, and range anxiety. These issues are in line with other studies, which highlight the persistent nature of range anxiety.

• Responsibility for installing chargers is split across different stakeholders, with three-fifths (60%) thinking that it should be the responsibility of energy companies, whilst just over half (54%) think that local authorities should be responsible. Few believed that EV owners should be responsible for installing EV chargers.

Read the full report

What can be done to drive the transition?

Our results highlight that there is still untapped demand for EVs, but many of the well known attitudinal and behavioural barriers to adoption persist. Policymakers and industry must therefore collaborate to look closer at the issues, and better understand the underlying drivers of behaviour. It is clear that policies and approaches have been successful in driving early adoption: the market is growing and more vehicles are entering the market. Nevertheless, it remains to be seen if current approaches will continue to work in their current form with the significant mass of public who are interested, but are not yet ready to take the plunge.

Case study: an electrification strategy for a council fleet

As COP27 begins in Egypt, we’re taking a look at some of the steps local authorities can take to meet net zero targets. Transport accounts for around a third of carbon emissions, and decarbonising a council’s fleet is vital in reducing its impact, as well as improving air quality. For a deeper dive into some of our fleet electrification work in the Royal Borough of Greenwich, DG Cities’ Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Specialist, Ash Burton explains how we used depot, fleet and operational analysis to develop and cost scenarios for the transition to cleaner, greener council vehicles.

As part of the council’s wider carbon neutral aims, the Royal Borough of Greenwich (RBG) has an ambition to convert its fleet to be fully electric in the coming years. RBG’s fleet consists of more than 500 vehicles, a proportion of which are currently electric. In order to sustain an all-electric fleet, RBG need to upgrade their electrical infrastructure at their two main depots and consider further installations across other areas of the borough. 

DG Cities worked alongside RBG to develop a business case for the transition. This sets out proposals, costs, a delivery plan and the risks and benefits for the electrification of their vehicle fleet. The study explored three different electrification scenarios to provide a range of cost options.

This included:

Scenario one: Main depots to support the whole electric fleet.

Scenario two: Main depots to support the fleet, but reliance on smart charging, charge time optimisation and battery storage to minimise overall capital investment required. Home agreement vehicles to be charging at home. Solar photovoltaics could also act as an additional technological solution to potentially supplement the final design.

Scenario three: Main depots to support the fleet as in scenario two, but with maximum reliance on off-site charging as well. 

Scenario evaluation

After discussions with the council’s fleet management team, we developed the details of the three scenarios. Scenario one would include a designated charger for each vehicle at the main depots. This would enable each vehicle to be charged whenever necessary without the need for scheduled charging. Operationally, this would work well, as drivers could plug in their vehicle at the end of each shift and there would be no worry regarding charging availability. However, it isn’t totally necessary for each vehicle to have its own charger, as most vehicles would not need to charge every day due to lower mileage. This means that vehicles could share chargers and have their own set days to charge. Also, this would be a lot cheaper for the council, as it would reduce their capital expenditure. This is why scenario two and three were developed. 

Scenario two and three would both include a scheduled approach to charging, which reduces the number of chargers required at the depot. Each service would have a dedicated number of chargers based on their fleet. The services would schedule their vehicles' charging patterns based on their planned daily and weekly usage. These two scenarios would also include the possibility of home charging for those vehicles within the fleet that have a home agreement. The drivers of these vehicles could potentially have charge points installed at their homes and charge their vehicles overnight, or drivers could use nearby public charge points. For scenario three, the possibility of further offsite charging was included for vehicles that make longer, more frequent stops at repeated locations. Scenario two and three would both require fewer chargers located at the depot and would effectively be less costly.

Understanding the fleet

One of the first steps of the process was to ensure that we fully understand the workings and demands of the entire vehicle fleet. We wanted to know how often vehicles went out each week, how many miles they were doing daily and what their typical pattern looked like. This involved an in depth analysis of the vehicles using a full fleet list, fuel consumption data and trip telematics provided by RBG. The fleet was analysed by service and vehicle type, and typical daily and weekly usage of each vehicle was determined. This allowed us to calculate how often each vehicle would need to charge throughout the week, whilst being able to carry out their usual weekly patterns. From this, we were able to work out how many chargers each service would need to maintain their fleet. For this piece of work, we wanted to propose that services have their own designated chargers as it would make it easier operationally for the fleet as each service would have their own set of chargers and can schedule when their vehicles should charge. This reduces the risk of over-booking chargers between services. 

We also wanted to work out how much it would cost RBG to replace their current vehicle fleet with electric vehicles. Currently, vehicles have a seven year replacement cycle within RBG. The full fleet included expected replacement years for each vehicle and, alongside this, a list of potential replacement vehicles was developed which identified possible electric alternatives to each vehicle type. We were able to estimate how much it would cost annually to gradually electrify the fleet as vehicles meet the end of their replacement cycle each year.

Understanding the depot

We also needed to understand the depot, this included how things currently operate, what electrical infrastructure is currently in place and what would have to change to support a fully electric fleet. Our subcontractor, UKPN Services, carried out electrical site surveys at the two main depots to establish current infrastructure and also drafted cost estimates and concept designs showing the locations of required equipment based on the three different electrification scenarios developed. UKPN Services also submitted a request to the distribution network operator (DNO) to provide a quote for electrical upgrade for each scenario. Ultimately, we were able to provide full estimates for capital and operational costs for each electrification scenario. This included electrical upgrade and infrastructure costs, vehicle replacement costs and full operational expenditure. 

Working with the council

Throughout the project, we worked closely with RBG’s fleet management team, using their expertise and understanding of the fleet and depot to ensure our proposals align with their aims. During the project, we also met with managers of the largest services within the fleet. We discussed the typical running pattern of their vehicles, what their schedule entails and any causes of concern when it comes to electrification. We also spoke about what each electrification scenario would mean for the service. For example, scenario two and three could involve vehicles in some services to charge at home or offsite - we discussed how this would work and how it would benefit the council. At major milestones throughout the project, we arranged workshops with relevant wider RBG colleagues to share project progress and discuss any thoughts or concerns regarding the proposals. 

Electrifying the vehicle fleet will bring the council a step closer to carbon neutrality. The process of electrification will be gradual, and will get easier in years to come as better technologies and more infrastructure become available. This project has made it clear that this is not a ‘one solution fixes all’ issue, it will take several solutions to play their part in the transition to electric. 

To find out more about our fleet electrification projects, watch our film with Nottingham City Council, or get in touch to find out how we can help.

That was #nudgemonth!

We have really enjoyed shining a spotlight on behavioural science at DG Cities this month, and showcasing some of the potential benefits of a technology + behaviour change approach when it comes to improving people’s lives. Here’s a quick recap of some of our highlights.

We began October with a look at the fundamentals of a behaviour change intervention, starting by understanding cognitive bias and where the opportunities to challenge different steps in our decision-making processes might lie. This raised the important question of ethics, which Isobel Madle discussed in her blog. She highlighted the value of working in close collaboration with the people a project is intended to benefit: ensuring that any programme is done ‘with’ and not ‘to’ communities, and balancing research from a literature review, which may not relate to the issues and attitudes of a particular group, with direct experience.

Watching eyes imagery on the Barnfield Estate in Greenwich

In week two, Ed Houghton introduced the DG Cities team and approach, and shared five ways that local authorities can make the most of technology + behaviour change programmes. We drew on our fly-tipping project in Greenwich as a case study for a holistic IoT tech and behaviour change initiative. Throughout the month, we have also been sharing projects and case studies that we like: 2-minute litter picks on Norfolk beaches, using AI to support safer school streets, a film of one man’s attempts to outsmart his smart health device, examples of watching eyes imagery to deter theft, vandalism or fly-tipping and pictures of babies designed to encourage more caring behaviour.

In week three, we were delighted to have two very special guest pieces: an interview with leading behavioural scientist and developer of Nudge+ theory, Sanchayan Banerjee, and a blog by Sam Nutt of the London Office of Technology and Innovation on some of the great work London councils are doing to include residents in the decision-making process for even the most technical data policy. We explored some of the opportunities to positively influence travel behaviours, and for this, our economist, Leanne Kelly explained some of the circumstances that can be conducive to encouraging change. On the theme of mobility, we drew on the insight we gained through our extensive public engagement around attitudes to autonomous vehicles to highlight our recommendation for behavioural change intervention to address the significant percentage that are not against self-driving cars, but are yet to be persuaded.

Finally, last week, Leanne looked at how to make change stick. We revisited a piece by Sarah Simpkin, who did the car-free challenge back in July, to see what the longer-term impact of that month had been. And as we got closer to Halloween, we peered into what can happen when nudge goes wrong. For this, Isobel explained the need to guard against phenomena like ‘spillover effect’, where people can feel that, because they’ve done something ‘good’, they can then do something ‘bad’ to compensate, which ultimately results in zero behavioural impact. A cautionary tale, which reinforces the value of our people-centred approach.

Comms team take a well-earned rest

Thanks to our fantastic collaborators, our behaviour change team at DG Cities and you, for joining us. If you’re interested in any of the themes or projects we’ve raised, we’d love you to get in touch. And keep an eye on our Twitter and LinkedIn pages for more insights into our work this autumn, as we look at electrification, autonomous vehicles and carbon audits.

When nudge goes wrong: what can happen when the best intentions don’t lead to the ideal outcome

For our last #nudgemonth feature, as Halloween approaches, our Behavioural Scientist, Isobel Madle takes a look at the scarier side of behaviour change: what happens when nudges go wrong, the unintended consequences of the best laid plans and our natural resistance to any sense that choices are being made for us. These cautionary tales illustrate how any behavioural intervention must be carefully calibrated, based on evidence, research, close engagement and a deep understanding of the context.

As DG Cities’ nudge month is in its last week, it feels like an important time to highlight what happens when ‘nudge’ and other behavioural science techniques produce unintended consequences; what that means for practitioners and how we can protect against it in the future.

In general, behaviour change interventions identify one target behaviour to increase or reduce, for example, reducing car use or increasing the number of people walking to work. For us, this might also be helping to ensure the successful adoption of a new technology that can improve people’s lives. However, as behavioural science has become more popular, it has become evident that we need to consider how this behaviour change impacts on other behaviours. People do not perform single behaviours in a vacuum; they are inter-related and influenced by their context, so it makes sense that attempting to change a single behaviour might have an unintended impact on another. Below are a few unintended consequences of behaviour change interventions:

Positive or negative ‘spillover’ effects

A positive spillover effect occurs when the adoption of one behaviour causes the adoption of other behaviours. For example, a behavioural change programme might use nudges to reduce the amount of people who use their cars to commute to work. A positive spillover from this intervention could be that people also reduce their car use for leisure journeys. From a policy perspective, investigating the possibility of positive spillover effects is really attractive, because it could suggest that we can change several behaviours in a cost-effective way with little regulation.

On the other hand, a negative spillover effect occurs where performing one behaviour reduces the likelihood of performing another. For example, a person might decide that because they went for a run that day, they can have McDonalds for dinner. Another example of this can be found in energy reduction behaviours, whereby people feel that, because they’ve done something ‘good’, they can then do something ‘bad’ to compensate - this ultimately results in zero behavioural impact. Lucas Davis [1] found that consumers who bought energy-efficient products increased their energy use to the extent that they offset any potential energy reductions. For example, in the US, consumers who bought energy efficiency washing machines increased their clothes washing by 5%, so offset any potential energy savings.

Negative reactance to nudges

Occasionally, nudges can cause reactance in consumers. For example, ‘choice defaults’ are commonly used nudges that promote pro-social behaviour change. One example of this could be making environmentally-friendly energy contracts the default option on energy websites, in order to increase their overall uptake [2]. However, this can backfire and consumers may feel that they want to exert their autonomy and choose a different option.

Boomerang effect

Another effect is that receiving feedback on their behaviour can cause consumers to alter their behaviour in the wrong way. For example, often energy companies provide consumers with feedback on their energy consumption habits compared to their neighbours, known as social norms. Those with higher consumption can often be prompted to lower their energy consumption as a result. However, those with already low consumption see that others have higher consumption and can ‘boomerang’ [3]. In other words, they use the opportunity to increase their consumption to match their peers.

There is a clear need to study these holistic effects of behaviour change interventions. As we may nudge an individual in one domain, we could be ‘un-nudging’ them in another. This is why at DG Cities, we often use system dynamics techniques to map out systems of behaviours and influences prior to designing the intervention. From this, we can identify how our intervention will have an impact on the entire behavioural system, rather than just the single behaviour to be changed. However, this comes with its own complexities of system development and design, and we are investigating how we can design interventions that take into consideration these complexities of behaviour and context.

We are always learning, from project experience and academic research; our approach to behaviour change is guided by the people we are trying to benefit, based on the understanding we gain through engagement with them. If you would like to find out more about any of the projects or themes raised in nudge month, get in touch.

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[1] Lucas Davis, (2008) Durable Goods and Residential Demand for Energy and Water: Evidence from a Field Trial https://www.jstor.org/stable/25474381

[2] Ebeling, F., and Lotz, S. (2015). Domestic uptake of green energy promoted by opt-out tariffs. Nat. Climate Change 5, 868–871. doi: 10.1038/nclimate2681

[3] Bhanot, S. P. (2017): “Rank and Response: A Field Experiment on Peer Information and Water Use Behavior,”

How do you make change stick? Five points to consider

Although a behaviour change programme can be cost effective for a local authority, that economy is wasted if change doesn’t stick. For one of our final #nudgemonth pieces, Economist, Leanne Kelly sets out the principles for lasting, positive change, from building a programme on a sound conceptual basis, to drawing on established research frameworks and understanding the different stages of the user journey.

At DG Cities, we’re committed to understanding the drivers and enablers that make beneficial behavioural change lasting and sustainable. This means being open to continual learning about what works, when and for whom, and applying an iterative approach. We don’t think about solutions for our towns and cities as one-off interventions, but as ideas that can be refined or adapted in response to how communities and individuals engage with and benefit (or not) from them over time.

We recognise that behaviour change can be challenging, even where people want to make changes. This may be due to existing habits that are easy to continue; in-the-moment barriers, such as timing, immediate alternative gains and required effort; levels of self-efficacy and capability, and of wider contextual and external factors that can influence choice at an individual and social level. We also know that nudges may not always be sufficient in isolation, or appropriate – for example, if they are misaligned to individuals’ preferences, motivations or opportunities. If this is the case, their impact may fade over time due to the novelty effect, or because reliance on attention and incentives may not be sustainable.

Below, we’ve pulled together some of the ways we approach challenges that incorporate behaviour change alongside technology and infrastructure interventions, followed by some salient lessons and themes from the latest academic research.

These are our key lessons for enabling lasting behaviour change:  

1. Articulate a clear ‘theory of change’ early on, and revisit this throughout the project

   A theory of change – a clear, comprehensive description of how and why change is anticipated – is a powerful way of mapping the effect you intend to have on behaviour over time. There can be real value in developing this with appropriate stakeholders, such as client and local authority teams, community group leaders and potential end users. The framework can reflect relationships determined in previous projects, trials and research as a basis. However, it’s important to ensure the specific (and future) context of the project is understood so that the ‘theory of change’ and its relationships remain open to refinement. This also provides a good basis for our team to workshop the context and external influences, along with assumptions, risks and potential mitigations that relate to the project. This theory provides a clear framework we can revisit through a project’s design, delivery, assessment and evaluation.

2. Comprehensive behavioural diagnosis and change drivers

   There are various behavioural science models available to diagnose challenges through a behavioural lens and understand how change might happen. The Behavioural Insight Team’s MINDSPACE and EAST frameworks have been helpful to set out insights and early suggestions across behavioural drivers (messenger, incentives, norms, defaults, salience, priming, attention, commitments and ego – and timing). There are more recent guides, such as the UN’s Behavioural Drivers Model, and various sector and departmental behavioural guides for this stage and onward, and taxonomies of behaviour change interventions and techniques. Our team has used the COM-B model too, as part of the behaviour change wheel, setting out the Capability, Opportunity and Motivation factors for achieving a target behaviour, reflecting the social, psychological and physical and their automatic and reflective elements. This is a really useful accompanying framework to the wheel, with its potential intervention areas, and ensures the factors required for change remain central.

   Engagement is a key part of this stage, to understand how people currently think and feel, where motivations and capability currently lie, and what good change looks like and why. Qualitative analysis can help to draw out common barriers and enablers for the current and future context, and to understand where and why these differ… which leads us well to number 3!

3. Develop bespoke user journeys

   This is something our team really enjoys developing and we find it incredibly useful through a project. Engagement is crucial here for those already on the journey and those who could be users. This also provides a framework for when and how communities could be engaged with a particular intervention – the touchpoints. These might be receiving initial information, registering interest and exploring understanding of delivery stages and how uptake can be supported, as well as feedback with users. Of course, this differs between people, as does the extent to which the different stages matter, points at which drop-off or unintended consequences might occur and how to mitigate them. Applying a ‘systems thinking’ approach can also be useful, to reflect the interdependencies and relationships through this journey.

4. A clear monitoring and evaluation plan, with KPIs

   This is a key part of an iterative approach for learning and refining a project. The more the indicators can be broken down by different groups and stages, and with both objective measures and subjective insights (such as attitudes and experiences), the more useful this can be, whilst recognising limitations, such as reliance on self-reported measures. This is an important part of an evaluation framework, whether a process, impact or value for money approach is taken, for testing the project objectives against successes and areas for improvement.

   Each of these steps can and should be revisited and updated throughout the trial or project to enhance learning and ensure we’re meeting objectives. We revisit users and stakeholders early on, to understand how designs are viewed, how delivery stages are going, and if anything has gone less well or has changed. Sustainable behaviour change necessarily involves a process of revisiting, as environments and behavioural drivers change over time – being open to this and being prepared for how to measure and respond is critical, and here, behavioural research is key.

5. Reflect on the latest academic research

   Our team has been fortunate to attend some excellent workshops, conferences and training in this space, such as the recent International Behavioural Public Policy conference hosted at the London School of Economics. Behavioural science fields are increasingly recognising and responding to the limits and critiques of nudge, and developing behavioural approaches that are more appropriate, alongside nudges for sustainable change. This has also been driven by a growing focus on sustained environmental behaviours, and the critical objectives that such interventions seek to meet, as well as an increasing bank of public policy applications and transparent evaluations. This has been accelerated by recently reported issues in nudge research and questions around how substantially and for how long they shift behaviours.

The above steps are valuable to consider in creating lasting change – in a future piece, we’re going to be looking more closely at some useful insights from academia to help focus interventions and deliver greater impact.

Travel and behaviour change: the journey from intention to action

Future mobility is an important theme of our work at DG Cities, not least for the impact of transport on decarbonisation efforts. For our next #nudgemonth blog, Economist, Leanne Kelly explores some of the conditions that can be conducive to positively changing travel behaviours – from timing and the opportunities around major life events, to the impact of social norms and trials. This aspect of behavioural science is central to our understanding of how people think and feel about travel, and thus how well any solution can meet their needs and perform.

Here at DG Cities, we recognise that the successful planning of future mobility is central to the way a place will function. Mobility matters for decarbonisation, of course, but also for a breadth of socio-economic activities, neighbourhood resilience and vibrancy, and for individual choice and experience. Therefore, we are committed to understanding and incorporating the behavioural dimension – people’s attitudes and feelings about new solutions, their barriers to uptake, and individual-level outcomes, including wellbeing. These are some of the key behavioural principles that we try to keep in mind when it comes to travel and innovations in mobility:

• The role of testing and trialling

• Attitudes and norms are a key part of travel behaviour

• Different outcomes matter to people, at different times – not just journey time

• Travel matters for wellbeing.

Test, trial – and repeat

We believe it is critical to ensure that the widest groups of potential users and non-users are engaged in testing and trialling at every stage, from generating ideas to their design and delivery. Our D-Risk project for self-driving vehicles, for example, found great value in engaging diverse groups in deliberative workshops and surveys. Asking people about their thoughts and feelings – How do you feel about road safety? Which features would you like to see in a self-driving car? Who are autonomous vehicles for, and who should they be for? Who would you trust to operate in the industry? – prompted interesting discussions, which we followed up with ongoing attitude ‘temperature checks’ and produced a bank of ‘edge cases.’

Giving people opportunities to test new technology can stimulate access in a broad sense: by ensuring solutions have been developed with a range of people in mind, that early understanding of how solutions work and could work is distributed more widely. Trialling (and trialling again) matters, as travel, especially regular commuting behaviour, is well-recognised as being habitual and ‘sticky’. Indeed, people are typically more likely to change this behaviour around major life events – moving home, job or family changes.

Research also demonstrates the role of:

• Attitudes

  Pro-environmental attitudes make switches away from car commuting, for example, significantly more likely. Attitudes precede behaviour change and travel perceptions are an important early step in long-term change – though importantly, intentions alone are not enough.

• Norms

  Social norms, that the behaviour is seen from and acceptable to a relevant social group – and personal norms, where an individual sees the behaviour as familiar to them and self-expected in particular situations – matter. The premise is that testing, say, an electric vehicle or a cycle route for oneself and seeing others also test and use it (has your neighbour now gone electric?) will enhance take-up of new solutions. Norms will also have a critical role in shifting attitudes towards mobility as a service and away from ownership models.

• Self-efficacy

  It’s important that we feel we have behavioural control and can make changes to meet our goals, so having a chance to test and trial in a relevant environment is important, beyond hypotheticals.

There have been some excellent trials promoting sustainable travel in new residential developments, from EV car clubs to walking and cycle promotion, reflecting the role of life changes and nudges to create new habits within a conducive spatial context. Some key lessons here are that community-level norms can work well, with concentrated local action being very apparent and social, and that commitments can be supported where a sense of community is evoked and brought into the trial and individual feedback.

The route from attitudes to intentions to behaviour

There are various examples across the sector where testing, attitudes and understanding (or lack of) have mattered, such as cycling uptake and continuation across different groups, the operation of smart motorways, and pedestrianised or low traffic streets. A further, simple mnemonic is that a proposed new option be made per the Behavioural Insights Team’s EAST framework: Easy, Attractive, Social and Timely.

An interesting nuance to the attitudes-behaviour route is that an individual’s different objectives may have quite different impacts when it comes to the actual decisions they make about travel. Timing matters. Sustainable travel demand should increase as more of the public seek improved environmental outcomes. However, this objective can become lost in the travel moment, as a fast or familiar journey is more urgent, tangible and personal. Making the outcomes and objective contributions of travel more salient may be part of informed travel decision-making solutions. Technology can have a role to play – there are examples with sustainable and active travel apps with varied goal-framing (health, environmental, cost savings), and lotteries – people are incentivised to cycle to not miss being in the (small reward) lottery draw. Or sometimes, increasing their shared steps is incentive enough.

But with such examples, supporting harder to reach groups in making the changes that they would like to make, and ensuring changes are maintained beyond the first, novel incentives, is important and challenging… 

Making it easy

Personal behaviour change planning can be helpful. Learning shows that setting short and long-term objectives with people can work well with appropriate messaging, reminders and goal feedback. People may ultimately be supported in choosing, say, the fastest journey now, but the greenest later in the day, such that neither becomes the default and that each trip is understood to be potentially different – by time, weather, co-passenger, mood, and so on. Travel and its planning can be effortful. That’s why ‘making it easy’ is key, where travel defaults and habits only become stronger at the start of a busy day or end of a long day.

Beyond the infrastructure and market delivery, the routes to sustainable and beneficial travel behaviours are of real interest to our work at DG Cities. How people think and feel about travel and different options matters, in terms of how solutions meet needs and will perform. This has been a real focus of some of the projects our team have undertaken in the last two years, such as our EV consumer survey, micro-mobility consumer research and D-Risk programme.

 Travel matters for wellbeing

There is a great bank of research exploring the wellbeing of travel, particularly commuting, which has been described as a stress factor and often an unpleasant part of daily life. It is longitudinal studies that are of real insight here, as they show where there are associations with worse mental health for people with longer commutes, or commutes by certain modes, over periods of time, and associations to lower job and time satisfaction measures, as part of overall life satisfaction.

Travel trips have different interactions with elements of wellbeing – some require more concentration, or are noisier, more or less reliable, or allow for other activities or thinking time, and offer different levels of meaningful choice. There are also the health benefits of active travel. The design of future mobility solutions should learn from the elements and their combinations that most impact people’s different journey experiences – and there are a range of valuable techniques to use here.

The impact of Covid-19 on travel behaviour

Returning to the test and trial principle, the Covid-19 pandemic experience for travel meant that many people were involuntarily or voluntarily adapting and using transport differently. There are important questions here for how the nature of travel has changed in the long-term, and what this means for individuals, subjective wellbeing and urban planning. Our team is interested in the ongoing travel data, and the limited level of modal changes that were made in comparison to travel frequency changes. The wellbeing evidence is emerging and can provide insights from a larger, more varied population that has commuted less – or continues to do so. Whilst some people may now have the autonomy to change their work travel to support their wellbeing, others do not. This has important implications for benefit distribution, and supports the case for considering wellbeing in transport design and investment cases.

Going forward, our team is committed to keeping the role of behavioural insights central: asking people what they think and feel about transport, and if they’d like to test it. We are excited to consider mobility behaviours and how these interact with ensuring places are resilient and full of life. Get in touch if you would like to find out more about this area of our work.

LOTI: enabling innovation through engaging the digitally excluded

This week, as part of our series exploring the benefits of delivering behaviour change programmes in tandem with new technologies, we are delighted to welcome a guest blog from Sam Nutt, Researcher at the London Office of Technology and Innovation (LOTI). So far in #nudgemonth, we have looked at the ethics of applied behavioural science and highlighted the need for initiatives to be community-led and based on primary research – for this to work in practice, access must be equitable. Here, Sam highlights some of the ways London councils are promoting digital inclusion and embedding residents’ views at the heart of every decision, even the most technical data policy.

Innovation doesn’t just have a speed, but also a direction.

Across the capital, the London Office of Technology and Innovation (LOTI) works to promote a vision of innovation that is uniquely collaborative and inclusive. We want to see councils building the most effective tools with data and digital, empowered by the needs and perspectives of residents. However, to ensure the benefits of data technologies and a digital economy are felt by everyone, councils need to include digitally excluded people.

One London authority that has worked hard on this is Camden. Camden decided that they wanted their residents to thoughtfully deliberate, and then propose what they wanted the council’s data strategy to actually look like. The council showed great trust in their residents by bringing in a randomly sortitioned and representative group from across the borough to create their first ever Camden Data Charter.

Given that this group included older people, people with less knowledge in data, and even people who could not afford to spend the time learning this, the council had to make special efforts to include their residents, to ensure their commitment and participation. To help residents of all income levels to attend each weekend deliberation, everyone was paid London Living Wage. And, to ensure residents had an adequate handle on this technical issue, expert and neutral organisations like the Alan Turing Institute helped create dedicated educational resources and ensure residents could engage on their terms.

Lastly, and most importantly, residents will only choose to engage if they believe their input will actually lead to change. There is plenty of research from organisations like the OECD or Nesta that shows that this is one of the key enablers to encourage residents to engage with councils more. In Camden, not only did the residents directly determine the shape of the Data Charter, the panel of 2021 which designed the Charter also ensured accountability for their work, as the council has to report back to a new panel of residents in 2022. When residents feel genuinely trusted with meaningfully shaping council decisions or actions, then they are much more likely to choose to engage.

Luckily, there are growing numbers of tools for councils to help embed resident voices in decision-making, but considerations still need to be made for the digitally excluded. Newham Council demonstrates good practice in this regard. Their digital engagement platform, Newham Co-Creates, has around 5000 active members, but 3000 members were registered in-person in a single month during a dedicated push by their community neighbourhoods team. And, Newham’s Community Assemblies, a programme which gives residents £800,0000 a year to spend on however they vote, uses a hybrid model, combining in-person and online deliberation and voting. So, whilst there are new technologies and approaches which are empowering residents, Newham is showing that with the right design approaches, councils can both embrace new technology and empower their digitally excluded.

There is so much more to be done, but by meaningfully including all residents in decision-making, even the digitally excluded in technical issues like data policy, councils can massively improve the quality of their engagement with residents, ultimately allowing them to create policies and services more in line with resident need. If London can develop and embed this practice systemically, it won’t only be a great city for public sector innovation, but a great city to be a resident.

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Thanks, Sam for sharing LOTI’s work in the capital and some of the initiatives that councils are developing to achieve these aims. You can find out more about the GLA and LOTI’s Digital Inclusion Innovation Programme on their website.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the shift online for key services, from education to healthcare, highlighted the urgency of enabling universal access. DG Cities was appointed by Greenwich to identify and address the barriers to digital inclusion in parts of the borough - you can read more about this in Hiba’s piece.

A conversation with leading behavioural scientist and developer of Nudge+ theory, Sanchayan Banerjee

For our #nudgemonth series this October, we wanted to highlight the value of partnering with academia in our projects, how it helps us devise and trial innovative solutions and gives researchers real-world case studies – this approach is not restricted to behavioural science and applies to much of our work, from self-driving vehicles to technology.

We were delighted to have the chance to speak to Sanchayan Banerjee, Assistant Professor, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Visiting Fellow at LSE and Kings College London, and developer of the influential Nudge+ economic and psychological theory. Here, he talks to DG Cities’ Behavioural Scientist, Isobel Madle about the limits of nudge, ethics, frustrations with ‘quick fix’ expectations, and the growing prominence of behavioural public policy.

You can watch the interview in full on our Vimeo channel: https://vimeo.com/759558072

5 ways local authorities can make the most of technology + behaviour change interventions

Behaviour change and technology programmes, conceived holistically, have the potential to improve the lives of residents, create better neighbourhoods and deliver a number of benefits for local authorities. But how do you go from an idea to sustained, positive change? Next in our #nudgemonth series, Ed Houghton draws on our experience designing and implementing this type of project to offer his top five tips.

The breadth and depth of local authorities means they have the potential to deliver transformative change across sectors, from climate to health, wellbeing and education. Not only do local authorities have the mandate and ability to work directly and in partnership with communities, they also have legitimacy and access to the levers to create change – and many are increasingly using technology and behaviour change in combination to deliver on their goals. The potential for impact is beyond compare to most other institutions; the opportunity to create to create lasting, positive change is massive.

In practice, however, tech-related behaviour change is by no means a simple exercise. There are often significant barriers that can prevent these projects from working, or even getting off the ground. Lack of knowledge, lack of resources and lack of management buy-in are all common issues that can stop even the best designed intervention in its tracks. From our experience of the realities of implementing new technologies and behaviour change programmes with a local authority, we have compiled our five key lessons to help ensure a successful outcome:

1. Do your research – not only drawing on literature reviews, but speaking to real people

   There is a tendency for researchers to rely on published studies alone to build their interventions. While this is an important step, for new innovations and behavioural change programmes, it can be severely limiting. Instead, researchers should look to draw on other forms of data, in particular data taken directly from stakeholders and members of the public, to help with their design. We try to speak to the communities we are working with at every stage, but it is particularly important at the start, when a project is being designed.

2.  Plan flexibly and build in timeline and resource slack

   The reality of working with local government means that priorities and plans are often in tension. Unlike ‘lab’ work, which is structured (sometimes artificially so), the reality of local authority life means that plans need flexibility. Ongoing consultation and engagement can help to ensure that timelines are met, but projects should look to build in space for the unexpected – in our public engagement work on self-driving cars, for example, we were able to rapidly switch to virtual rather than in-person trials during the Covid-19 pandemic. Flexibility in methods can help to overcome challenging timelines, and means resources can be drawn on when they’re needed.

3. Make the most of your access to people and communities

   As well as refining the methodology, starting a dialogue with particular communities also provides significant scope for expansion and innovation. For our fly-tipping project, we have spent time meeting people on their doorsteps to test our approaches and come up with new ideas. This access is something that many organisations severely lack. Local authorities, however, benefit from well-established relationships with a range of communities, often through pre-existing networks, who are happy to help. The advantage of developing and drawing on these is in building a more inclusive, appropriate and achievable design.

4. Be pragmatic in your design and approach – don’t get distracted by perfection

   Good design quality is important, whether in selecting the right sample group, designing appropriate interventions, or testing and piloting. Sometimes, however, projects don’t make it out of the studio – they get stuck at the design phase, constantly honed and reviewed as theory while the issue they are intended to address continues. Start to pilot and learn through delivery. In the end, a project must be deliverable, and ultimately must make sure it produces data and results of the quality needed to inform a decision. Many behaviour change projects strive for perfection, when instead pragmatism and a focus on getting things ‘as good as they need to be’ can be more appropriate and useful.

5. Help stakeholders to see value and build their input into the programme at every stage

   ‘Selling’ a behaviour change programme is important at every stage. Local authority teams may be reluctant, cautious, or have little experience of this type of project in their area. Sharing case studies and stories from other projects can help to showcase the art of the possible, and also helps to validate and build your own approach. Stakeholder input should never just be at the start – it should be built in at every stage. This way, the impact of the project can be realised, and a culture of learning and evaluation can be supported to develop.

These are just some of the lessons we’ve learned along the way. We love meeting others interested in behavioural science and behaviour change interventions, and learning about what works in their areas of expertise. If you’re inspired by the above, or have your own lessons to share, get in touch!