Why Education and User Feedback Won’t Close the Performance Gap for University Accommodation

It’s often correctly stated that making buildings work requires an educated and engaged end user. This paper presents results from a study of user feedback in student accommodation. Students that volunteered their energy meter readings used 20% less energy than non-participants. However, this did not change before, during, or after the period of enhanced education and feedback. Furthermore, among those that stated higher awareness of energy issues throughout the study, there were no changes in their energy use habits. While it is no doubt true that education and feedback are useful in addressing the performance gap, this research finds two fundamental challenges to implementing such strategies: 1) most feedback is preaching to the converted, and 2) education does not necessarily correspond to action.