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Pitch

Compare your energy consumption against others!


Description

Summary

Brief Description

A service which allows you to compare yourself with other peers in the group of choice in regards to either energy consumption, share of renewables or energy-related CO2 emissions

 

Goals:

1.Reduce climate change impact (CO2)​;

2. Increase Renewables percentage in Energy Mix;

3.Internalise the carbon impact  when choosing energy provider (rather than just price);

4. Make relevant responsible choices (Reputational value/ social capital);

5. Citizen engagement (cities)


What actions do you propose?

Why?

“People want to do good, when they know it matters”

How?
Harnessing social networks​ (peer pressure)​ and using behavioral science to reduce climate change impacts

By giving personalized impact reports and let them share and know their peers` results online.

They will see this as a collective ranking that makes visible and relevant the way they consume energy.

For companies:http://www.impactprofiles.eu/your-impact-corporate.html(under review)

Cities will be responsible for:
90% of global population growth,
80% of wealth creation, 
60% of total energy consumption, and
70% of CO2


What it´s your own personal impact? 

Most people care, most people want to do good, but they think quite often: “Well, it is not going to matter.”

We may know how do we rank on social games, numbers of friends but, the most important things were not being measure (or were, with no meaning), so they were invisible and out of context.

People can´t measure, understand and see their real impact on climate change. As a result they don´t feel accountable for their individual choices.

Cities are spending a lot to engage citizens to reduce climate change impact and companies already spend on sustainability reports, but are not able to capture and capitalize reputational value across investors and clients.

Most “Smart Cities” initiatives cares about Data, IoT (a lot of buzzwords) but all leave people out of the equation, but a company or a city pretty much is composed by people (not walls, roads or plants); they are social and dynamic structures.

People, with the help of technology, are the real engine for climate change and better cities so we are designing tools to capture your impact and making your efforts relevant and visible.

 


Who will take these actions?

Millennials (end users)

Measurable, and actionable, information 

as sensors and agents of their own networks (online and offline) as part (as users, employees and citizens of:

Cities

Spending a lot to engage citizens to reduce climate change impact

Utilities

Lowest score on consumer´s score in a changing market and want to sell different products to consumers.

Companies

Capture and capitalize reputational value across investors and clients (sustainability/responsible investment trends)

 


Where will these actions be taken?

Main urban areas (Portugal) then other European Cities due to common/similar regulation

"According to the European Union's Internal Market in Electricity Directive from July 1, 2004, electric power consumers must be informed about the sources from which the electricity they have purchased was generated. Additionally, consumers must be informed about the amount of carbon dioxide emitted into the Earth's atmosphere and the quantity of nuclear waste produced as a result of the generation of the electricity that they have purchased."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_mix_disclosure


How will these actions have a high impact in addressing climate change?

European Union (Similar standards, as the Energy Fuel Disclose norms), but connect actions to internal value (by externalizing efforts)

Social norms tend to have better results than other fiscal incentives or carbon pricing (lacks intrinsic value today for end user)

Buildings are responsible for ca. 40% of all CO2 emissions and easiest starting point (some companies already measure transportation and other climate impact behaviors that are already incorporate in the survey).

Our proposal tries to bridge those two facts. Full emission scenario would have to include difficult to estimate socio-economic factors, such as rebound effects.


What are other key benefits?

Putting a Premium on sustainable solutions and companies (

Value added:

-Customer Acquisition and increase on value per costumer (utilities)

-Citizen engagement (cities)

-Reputational value (companies)

-Actionable information for the user   


What are the proposal’s costs?

Most costs are related to infrastructure  (amount of data and calls), but this data is already being collected and send on every energy bill.

- Awareness (Marketing)

- Reporting (data entry or permission to access energy bill) Companies already measure and publish CSR Reports (namely carbon footprint and water consumption), still there´s no benchmark or comparison between peers


-Using exiting links (companies) to get to “real” people (if they understand their own impact, most likely will be aware of the collective impact in abstract entities (as companies, municipalities, etc)


Time line

Short term

Pilot/Beta version to test and adapt on a small scale, basic assumptions

-Use existing data (Energy mix, DGEG)

-Validate data with multiple sources (utility company, DGEG, etc)

-No need to install smart meters

Companies already measure and publish CSR Reports (namely carbon footprint and water consumption), still there´s no benchmark or comparison between peers

Using exiting links (companies) to get to “real” people (if they understand their own impact, most likely will be aware of the collective impact in abstract entities (as companies, municipalities, etc)

Medium term

Merge all data into a comparable ranking (most companies use similar methods, using already established standards, like "Protocol for Measuring Energy Use and Reporting Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Building Operations, UNEP" ->http://www.unep.org/sbci/pdfs/Common-Carbon-Metric-for_Pilot_Testing_220410.pdf

Long term

Similar to food labels (where people care about % sugar and other nutrients), but sharable as a personal rating (like Stack Overflow); potential substitution or complement to a credit score


Related proposals

The proposal bridges a number of areas of interest of the Climate Colab:

  • Buildings; 
  • Urban Energy Efficiency; 
  • Youth action on climate change.


References

Redesign, different forms to display information

How A Redesigned Electricity Bill Could Make You Smarter And Save Cash  (Fast Company, June 1, 2012)

Infographic Inspired: The Simplest Electric Bill You’ve Ever Seen (Fast Company, November 8, 2013)

Examples of Scores Boards

CITIE(example for cities)

Nike+ (people)

Corporate Responsibility

BCSD Portugal - Conselho Empresarial para o Desenvolvimento Sustentável

Carbon Disclosure Project

Reputational capital

Inducing Peer Pressure to Promote Cooperation (Mani , Rahwan I, Pentland A.)

After The Social Web, Here Comes The Trust Web (Techcrunch, Jan 18 2015)

This New Company Hopes To Keep The Reputation Economy 'Real‘ (Forbes, Jam 6. 2015)

Reputation, a universal currency for human social interactions (M Milinski - Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, Jan 2016)

Cities

Rethinking Smart Cities From The Ground Up (NESTA, UK)

Building a Science of Cities (Batty, CASA, UCL)

Thinking Cities in the Networked Society (Ericsson)

Future Cities Laboratory (ETHZ, Switzerland)

Future Cities Catapult (UK)

Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA) (UCL, UK)

The Origins of Scaling in Cities (Luís M. A. Bettencourt, Santa Fé Institute)

Collective intelligence, social networks

Laboratory for Social Machines, Understanding and empowering human networks

Connected Communities How social networks power and sustain the Big Society (Jonathan Rawson, Steve Broome and Alasdair Jones, RSA)

Human Dynamics Laboratory (MIT Media Lab, US)

Industrial Ecology: The View From Complex Systems (Luís M A Bettencourt, Christa Brelsford,  Santa Fe Institute)

Millenials

Investing in the Future: Millennials are Willing To Pay Extra for a Good Cause (Nielson)

15 ECONOMIC FACTS ABOUT MILLENNIALS (White House, US)

Investment Trends

Achieving social impact at scale (Cabinet Office, UK)

Principles for Responsible Investment (UN)

Green Bonds Attract Private Sector Climate Finance (World Bank)

Harnessing the Markets to address Climate Change (Goldman Sachs)

REN

Energy grid manager reports also the total, per source, energy produced

PORDATA

Open datasets which have datasets on energy consumption, per consumer, per city, annual base)

DGEG/MAOTE

Statistical data reported which gives the Energy Mix  and CO2 emissions per Energy provider;

ERSE

All prices are reported to ERSE

Regulamento de Relações Comerciais

Lisboa E-Nova

Contadores Inteligentes para Decisões Eficientes

EU

EU Energy Market in 2014

Consumer scoreboards

Directive 2003/54/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2003 concerning common rules for the internal market in electricity

Energy Union

The Data Revolution and Economic Analysis (Stanford University and NBER)

Tragedy of the commons (Hardin)

The Open Data Institute (UK)

Macro Connections (MIT Media Lab, US)