Environmental consciousness

Achieving ambitious international energy-saving targets calls for more powerful instruments and will entail changes both in society as a whole and for individual actors. Besides developing increasingly efficient technology, the field of energy behaviour holds the greatest potential of energy conservation. This contribution considers households and how technology and design can support them in both increasing environmental consciousness and in living in accordance with their intentions. One reason for the existing discrepancy between intent and action is that the connection between a particular behaviour and its environmental consequences is not apparent. To develop environmentally sustainable behaviour and lifestyles, it is important to make both the systems supplying the resources and the use of these resources more visible. The connection between attitude and actual change in everyday behaviour can be made visible, being actualised at the moment a decision is made. Everyday visualisation ranges from ambient visualisation methods providing more awareness to more information-intensive methods providing analytical and more profound insight. A combination of ambient/reflective visualisation methods and analytical methods would be useful in seeking to change people's behaviour. These methods can also start a reflection process in the households regarding everyday actions' influence on sustainable development, hence problematising and deepening environmental consciousness. © 2012