Our HARP partners from University of Minho and University Nova IMS Information Management School were part of the 2020 Sustainable Places Conference which was held online in October 2020. Like every year, the conference created a platform for exchange focusing on how to ensure that buildings and the built environment meet our sustainability targets and climate change objectives.
Ricardo Barbosa from the University of Minho, gave a presentation focussed on co-benefits of energy efficient heating solutions linking closely to research performed in the HARP project. He discussed how identifying co-benefits of efficient heating and putting an economic value on them can help consumers to make informed decisions. He stressed the need for decision-making models to go beyond the analysis of pure cost calculations and factor in co-benefits as well.
Take a look at the presentation
Catarina Paisana Pires Costa das Neves from the University Nova presented the consumer change model that was created for the HARP project with the aim to better understand consumers’ intention to change to a more energy efficient heating appliance. Giving an overview of the entire process of the development of the model she covered the following topics:
– The factors that affect consumers’ intention to change to an energy efficient heating appliance
– The creation of the consumer change model with literature review and interviews
– The collection of data with an online survey in 5 countries
– Statistical procedures for the validation of the model
– The results and their implications
The presentation revealed interesting results about the drivers and inhibitors of consumers’ choices to change a heating system as well as the most relevant communication channels to best reach consumers.
Take a look at the presentation
About the project:
HARP (Heating Appliances Retrofit Planning) is a project funded by the EU Horizon 2020 programme aiming to raise consumer awareness on the inefficiency of their heating systems and to accompany them in adopting efficient alternatives.