"Environmental Dashboard": The efficacy of using real-time multi-scale feedback on resource consumption and environmental quality to promote systems thinking and motivate behavior change

Background/Question/Methods

Through the vast majority of our evolutionary history, humans experienced direct, intimate and continuous feedback on environmental conditions that informed and constrained individual and community decision-making.  Introduction of technological feedback on resource consumption and environmental quality at multiple scales provides a potentially useful mechanism for reconnecting humans to nature, stimulating systems thinking, and motivating behaviors that are more consistent with ecological limits.  “Environmental Dashboard” is a novel technology under development that employs digital public signage and websites to combine three levels of feedback: 1) “Building Dashboard” dynamically displays water and electricity consumption in individual buildings and residences; 2) “Bioregional Dashboard” is a conceptual model of a city dynamically animated with real-time data on water and electricity flows and water quality; 3) “Community Voices” combines images and text contributed by the local community to celebrate thought and action that promote environemntal sustainability. In a pilot implementation, real-time data is accessed from drinking water, wastewater and municipal electricity systems in the City of Oberlin and over 60 buildings and residences. Display technology has been installed in an elementary school, public library and store front.  Efficacy is being assessed through a combination of user testing and surveys conducted before and after exposure. 

Results/Conclusions

User testing of Bioregional Dashboard against a control that contained identical information but without the conceptual model indicates that several dimensions of systems thinking are enhanced by exposure to the dashboard including connectedness with nature, perception of community as an ecological system and perceptions of causal linkages.  Preliminary analysis indicates that elementary school children experience enhanced system thinking after one year of exposure to all three components of Environmental Dashboard.  Although direct behavioral effects of exposure to the complete Environmental Dashboard are difficult to assess, Building Dashboard, in combination with resource use reduction competitions has been shown to significantly lower electricity consumption in college dormitories.  Materials that integrate Environmental Dashboard into school curricula are under development.  Although technological hurdles associated with data access are currently challenging, Environmental Dashboard is being developed as a technology that can potentially be deployed in communities throughout the Great Lakes and beyond.