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Keep Cosy – The final reportAn SSL funded project through Environment Wales and Welsh Government October 2013- June 2014.

“Extreme Energy Efficiency”

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Clear project design

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Behaviour change in Home Energy Coaching

means a huge attention to detail

• Constantly seeking feedback and modifying accordingly• Attention to messaging, all messaging:

• framing of written and verbal messages including phone conversations, Coaches ‘scripts’, phone conversations

• Design of publicity materials including colours, images, layout• Focus on ‘customer journey’ to build a relationship that was trusted, expert and

friendly, starting with a discussion with our appointments co-ordinator• Focus on designing a ‘social learning event’ where people, received information in

their own home which was practical, relevant and an enjoyable experience (and therefore they are more likely to actually do it)

• Building confidence and agency so that people are skilled at keeping warm and comfortable in their homes

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Every element of our communication considered: name, colours used, framing of information, use of named contact, images, use of logos……….

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Snapshot wordle feedback from clients – asked to describe scheme in three words, biggest words are those most repeated

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Keep Cosy delivered Home Energy Coaching to 317 clients, private home owners and tenants, not RSLs.

Demographic• Over 50s – 285• Over 65 – 186• Households with under children under

16 – 70• Houses on benefits – 72• Females – 346• Males – 302Focus on households where someone is in the house all day and therefore more likely to have high energy demand. People self selecting but used networks and peer referrals to target more vulnerable (largely older) people.

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Keep Cosy Area – Aberystwyth and the surrounding areas, many houses built of stone and hard to heat.

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Why a coach is better than a leaflet………

• Many people don’t understanding their heating systems and are running them very inefficiently – particularly storage heaters, the coach was able to ‘hand hold’ them through understanding the system.

• Assumptions and beliefs preventing people addressing behaviours which were individual. Eg:• Students believing storage heaters “don’t work” so buying and using individual electric heaters

for each room. • Draft proofing, people having memories of it being very poor and falling off, seeing the

improved measures in place changed their view• Lighting, believing that energy saving light bulbs are poor and costly, seeing them working, in

their lamps quickly changes beliefs and assumptions• Potential to cut energy bills was huge - 50% in the case of one client (a professional man) who

just didn’t understand how he could optimise draft proofing and using heat in the home.• Clearing up specific misunderstandings causing ‘daft’ behaviour such as all radiators turned up to

maximum “because the engineer told us to” whilst having huge holes in the window frames.• Blind spots – clients not understanding how air and draughts are travelling around our house creating

cold spots, able to clearly see once it is pointed out.

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We publicised the scheme via social media, existing networks, the local newspaper and a stall at the local supermarket with the highest footfall. Local and social networks are likely to be the most ‘trusted’.

As the scheme progressed clients referred peers, friends and family – this was key. We asked people at the end of the visit to ‘make a five person pledge’ and let five people know about the scheme (we were using reciprocity heuristics and commitment heuristic here)

We asked our clients in our survey if they had recommended the scheme to others and if they had liked us on facebook.

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Q17: If 'yes', how many people have you recommended the service to in person?

Answered: 46 Skipped: 7

40% had recommended the service to between 3-5 people with 17% recommending it to 6-10 people.

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“Thought it was a very good scheme - motivated us - thought energy monitor was great - pushes us to make changes. Also liked the stand-by bars. Fact that it's given for free may mean information is taken up better. Spoke about 'Keep Cosy' at local flood group - recommended to around 15 people. Wasn't sure if she had liked 'Keep Cosy' on Facebook or not.”

“Friendly, helpful, useful advice. Knows at least one person who had a visit through his recommendation”

“Really enjoyed the visit, found it really helpful - other schemes like that would be great/interesting - even if it were related to something different i.e. travel etc. I benefitted from it - Coach was good and thorough - can't fault it. Have and would recommend it.”

What they said……..

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Q18: Have you recommended (or "liked") Keep Cosy through social networks like Facebook or Twitter?


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Project with University Halls worked with students to understand behaviours and then use analysis to prompt different behaviours and habits using relevant and salient messaging

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Arts project inspired conversation groups and made links between extreme weather, climate change and Keep Cosy

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Unplanned output included the conversation work being included in the National Conversation for Wales – The Wales We Want.

national conversation

http://vimeo.com/97107325

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Summary of outputsOutput Target ActualNumber of people targeted by project activity 600 648

Percentage of people demonstrating desired behaviour change 60% 90%

Reduction in greenhouse gas emissions – or increase in resilience or adaptation measures - attributable to this behaviour change . Amount of greenhouse gas emissions saved (tonnes per annum)

160 130 - 190

Involvement in conversation groups 30 100

Participation in arts-based engagement - 100 100 100

Engagement events held - 5 5 4

Number of volunteers involved 1 5

Number of volunteer hours 30 30 70

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Monitoring and Evaluation• Every visit was recorded via a digital form on a tablet and included information on the numbers and

demographic of the household, the type of house and current levels of energy efficiency and the behaviours which were targeted during the visit.

• All the information was downloaded into one central excel sheet. We have analysed the information and include the results in this report. This data could be further analysed in the future.

• We completed 73 phone surveys at the end of the project. Four staff worked on phoning people over two weeks, an estimated 200 people were contacted and were randomly generated from our client list

• 53 surveys were short (5-15 min) and 20 were long (20-30 min) and in greater depth.• The results presented here are largely from the short survey; the long survey demonstrated very

similar patterns in responses.

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Q6: Firstly, in general, could you say how well the Keep Cosy visit met with your expectations?


What they thought of it: 90% said the Keep Cosy visit met with their expectations very well (79%) or well (11%)

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Each visit was tailored to meet the needs of that particular household. When coaches talked to people they talked about keeping them warm and cosy and looking after themselves as well as saving money. Our ‘framing’ was based on the understanding that energy behaviours are lifestyle experiences – therefore it is not just ‘energy consuming’ therefore it’s not all about ‘energy saving’. One framing that worked was to talk about ‘maintaining comfort without wasting money’.

“It’s been brilliant, if it wasn’t for guys like you we wouldn't have found out ways that we could save energy.”

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Definitions of behaviour change

Definitions of behaviour change are still emerging and there is very little agreement as to when we can state that an individual or group has achieved ‘behaviour change’. The main factors are that it is using theory and evidence based approaches to transform human actions.

“Behaviour Change (US Behavior Change) phrase. A phrase used to refer to the transformation of human action. When used in general parlance the nature of the behaviour, how it could be changed, and the duration/extent of the change remain unspecified.” WikiGlossary [http://changingbehaviours.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=154&action=edit]

‘Behaviour change is an evidence-based process that uses psychology, behaviouralscience and audience insight to develop strategies that change the way people act’. MOTIVATINGMILLIONS The 2013 Sustainable Behaviour Change, Marketplace Survey, Corporate Culture

Our survey asked people between 3 weeks and 6 months after they had received their visit, whether they were still performing the lifestyle change.

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How do feel you've you got on with making changes to your LIFESTYLE BEHAVIOURS?


89% said they were getting on well or quite well with making changes to their lifestyle behaviours which (like closing curtains, closing doors, using appliances)

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Q8: [IF ANSWER TO Q 5 ABOVE WAS "well" or "quite well", ASK]: Do you think you'll be able to keep those changes up?


85% of people said they will be able to maintain those lifestyle behaviours, 11% said they will probably be able to keep them up.

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128 to 193 tonnes carbon saved per year

Estimating the level of carbon savings due to lifestyle behaviour changes•In order to estimate the levels of savings due to lifestyle behaviour changes, we assume that the levels of behaviour changes adopted by the random sample of 20 households in the Long Survey are representative of all the 317 households visited •From reviewing the available literature that presents data on energy savings due to behaviour change, we assess that the savings achieved by these significant levels of behaviour change are between 10% and 15% •Using EST’s figure for average emissions due to household energy use of 4.5 tonnes per annum gives a saving per household of 0.45 to 0.68 tonnes per household•This figure is applied to 90% (285) of the households visited (19 out of 20, or 95%, of respondents to the long survey reported significant behaviour changes, 90% of people in the short survey reported good progress in making changes).•This results in an estimated carbon saving per annum of 128 to 193 tonnes•This seems to be the best available method, given the short duration of the project and lack of data on specific behaviour changes.•We hope that funding will become available in future the enable a longer study that could measure actual changes in emissions, through longer term monitoring of energy use in individual households before and after interventions.

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“Found the visit very interesting - small things like turning appliances from stand-by, and only putting small amounts of water in the kettle very useful.”


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“Good service. People probably don't realise how useful it can be, need to get over people being reluctant and closed minded - could benefit more people. Scheme helped to point things out, and was good to back up/reinforce what you are doing.”

“Very informative. 10 out of 10 for the service. Coach very knowledgeable, motivational skills good, trust in service, very professional. Were left 6 leaflets which were handed out. Hadn't heard of the service until someone told them about it - maybe need to be more publicised.”

“I just want to say that the service was fantastic. Coach was a real pleasure to have in the house, he really was.”


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Q9: How do feel you've you got on with making PHYSICAL CHANGES TO YOUR HOME?


66% said they were doing well or quite well at making physical changes to your home (like

increasing loft insulation, replacing old doors or windows, improving your heating system).

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Understanding why people behave in the way they do is key to changing their behaviour. See below for our traditional view – an extract from Nudge, summarised by Business Balls.

“Humans are (what we might consider) 'real' people, who make 'real' human decisions (or fail to make a decision), driven by a wide range of human considerations and factors such as inertia, optimism, denial, lethargy, the inability to delay gratification, false assumptions, and more (). This is a view of people/society from a 'reality' perspective.Econs are an imaginary type of people - imagined to exist (instead of real people) by economists, politicians, academics, etc. Econs (are imagined) always to think logically and rationally, and are not influenced by the various heuristic factors such as inertia, optimism, denial, lethargy, the inability to delay gratification, false assumptions, and more (which generally cause 'humans' to behave in ways that are irrationally unhelpful, destructive, neglectful, etc. 'Econs' are a view of people and society from an unrealistic perspective. http://www.businessballs.com/nudge-theory.htm#nudge-humans-econs”

We asked people what motivated them to change their energy behaviours, and what benefits they perceived having changed their behaviours. Our hypothesis was that ‘saving money’ and ‘saving energy’ are not, alone, motivators enough as it is also about lifestyle comfort. We also thought that, whilst ‘saving the planet’ would be seen as positive it wouldn’t be a key motivator for most.

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Q10: How important were these things in helping you make the changes you did?


Not wasting money was slightly more important than saving money as a behavioural motivator. Keeping cosy and having a trusted expert were also key motivators.

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Q12: Thinking of the measures installed by Iestyn, Bob or Pete, can you say how important each of the following benefits are to you?


Feeling warmer and saving money were seen as (fairly equally) the most important benefits of the scheme, saving energy and benefitting the environment were seen as benefits, but less so

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Table view: Not wasting money was slightly more important than saving money as a behavioural motivator. Keeping cosy and having a trusted expert were also key motivators.


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“Thank you for coming round to show me what to do. It's all well and good seeing things in the newspaper or having someone phoning up to talk about it but you really need someone to physically show you what to do. It was brilliant.”

‘Knowing’ something is not the same as having the confidence to ‘do’ it. The scheme worked on building people’s agency and confidence in their skills in keeping themselves comfortable and warm and not wasting money.

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We considered how self efficacy and confidence affects people’s ability to become more energy efficient and a psychology student from Aberystwyth analysed the social learning events we were creating in the home. Here is a quote from his report:

“What are focussing on here is the amount of control the individual believes they have. This links well to the concept of self-efficacy - the extent or strength of one’s own ability to complete tasks and reach goals; it’s all about confidence. The coaches have been round to old ladies houses and they’ve told them how easy it is once they’ve got the know how, this all links to confidence. Getting people’s confidence up will give them more self-efficacy making them more likely to make the change. In regards to control, when the coach visited my home I didn’t have very much control over what I could do because I’m renting. He showed me ways of changing my behaviour, rather than making any external changes to the house. This made me feel like I was more in control about house temperature, and how I could change it according to my needs. Adapting the way you give advice to the situation of the client, makes a great difference to how much control they feel. This also links to Ellis’s ABC model. A is the activating event, say, a higher energy bill. The B is for belief. Originally, they may have the belief that they can’t do anything about it because they don’t know enough about it, and then the C, consequence, would be that they don’t do anything. Where you come in is to change that belief and therefore change the consequence.”

We asked our clients whether the scheme did make them feel more confident in keeping themselves warm we also asked them if they had fitted any more physical measures since the visit and what it was about the coaches and the visit that they most liked.

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Q11: Would you agree/disagree/neither agree or disagree with the following statement:" Following my Keep Cosy visit I feel more confident keeping myself comfortable without wasting money or energy"


Over 87% agreed, with 25% strongly agreeing the scheme made them more confident in their abilities to keep themselves warm.

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Graph version Q12: Thinking of the measures installed by Iestyn, Bob or Pete, can you say how

important each of the following benefits are to you?

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Q13: Have you attempted to fit any energy saving measures yourselves since your Keep Cosy visit?


36% of people said they had attempted to fit energy savings measures themselves since their visit

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Q14: If yes (you have fitted measures yourselves), what things have you fitted.


Radiator backing and low energy LED lightbulbs were the measures most fitted by people post-visit

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Q20: How would you rate the following aspects of the service by saying whether it was very good, good, adequate, poor or very poor.


Friendliness (85%) and expertise (75%) were elements of the service rated most highly followed by trust (73%) and motivational skills (61%).

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Very much enjoyed visit - boosted us/encouraged to do more, and confirmed what we had been doing - confidence, and it was fun! Was hoping for advice and I got it.

“The Coach was very informative - encouraged effective implementation of ideas. No reason to doubt what he was saying - professional and confident in what he knew, and made me feel comfortable.”

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Q15: Please rate the Keep Cosy service overall; was it very good, good, adequate, poor or very poor?


89% of people rated the service as very good (80%) or good (9%)

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“Excellent scheme - wish you all the best with it. Outstanding. Everything that was pointed out was right. If people don't know about things, can't make changes. Scheme is beneficial to people who are unable to afford such things normally”

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Q16: Have you recommended the service to others?


90% said they had recommended the service to others

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Q19: Would you recommended the service to others if it became available again in the future?


100% would recommend the service to others if it became available again in the future

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Work with Student Hall of Residence•We worked with three post graduate student volunteers to develop interventions in one Hall of Residence.•The hall was composed of 9 flats, each with 7 self-contained student bed-study rooms and 1 shared kitchen-common room. The block is centrally heated by mains gas. We were able to work with 8 flats over a 4-week period – a total of 55 students.•Having done a baseline survey, the student volunteers and Keep Cosy staff developed approaches for prompting students to save electricity on specific appliances by:1. Providing them with two energy monitor plugs so that they

could compare usage of different appliances (usually kettle and toaster), as well as receive instant feedback of their consumption.

2. Putting up prompt stickers, designed by the volunteers, on key appliances

3. Offering clothes drying radiator racks as incentives to participate.

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Results from Student Hall of Residence Amusing and culturally relevant prompts gave the best results

•One representative from each flat was interviewed 2 weeks after starting the interventions•While initially none said they felt they had made general changes to reduce energy consumption, they had clearly made significant changes to the use of specific appliances

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The stickers seemed to be more successful than the energy monitors

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Following the intervention, most said they would be willing to reduce energy use

Comments - How willing would you be to make small changes to reduce your energy consumption?

Perhaps a little more willing due to perspective given by stickers & monitors, but all-inclusive rent gives little incentive

willing to carry on actions learnt here in own accommodation over summer months

would be useful to do this over longer term as educational project to prepare students for minimising energy costs when moving to housing in town

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Timescales – ideally the project would have started a lot earlier and lasted at least two-three years“As it was fitted in Summer, felt as though hadn't had time to test everything out - may be more effective when Winter comes. Was basic service - not very high tech.”

Managing expectations – some people thought the scheme could offer a lot more (including significant physical measures such as loft insulation and EWI):“Not much that could be done - had foil behind radiators, and draught has improved through shielding back door.”Scheme may be more beneficial if it was more sophisticated - was quite basic

Learning points for us were:

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Summary of further key learning

• We created a rich amount of data which needs more time to analyse and work on. This report represents an initial snapshot

• We needed more time and staff resource to analyse data as the project progressed. We also put much additional staff time and energy into the project which was not covered by the funding.

• Ideally we would have only had to review our project to take it to the next stage of funding rather than re-applying – this was time consuming and a barrier to planning on-going work.

• There are gaps in research/academic knowledge which mean that certain outputs are unrealistic to evidence – such as carbon savings from energy efficiency behaviours and agreement on what timescale/evidence is needed to demonstrate behaviour change

• This type of intervention is often compared to telephone advice services, which make it appear very effective but also costly. We believe it would be better compared to other measures under ECO. Such an analysis could make it both very effective and extremely cheap!

• There was some interest from discussions in the psychology department as to how this intervention could have a confidence ‘spill over’ into other areas of people’s lives

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“I hope that more funding will become available for Keep Cosy or a similar initiative to continue in the future.”

“Why is the scheme coming to an end?”

The surverys revealed an overwhelmingly positive response, which indicates it was a good and effective service, but will be influenced in part by the fact it was free. However the ‘energy efficiency gap’ is being seen as increasingly important in addressing fuel poverty and carbon reduction and physical/technological approaches are being recognised as limited. Even though it is offered free, it’s cost effectiveness relative to other physical approaches needs more extensive research.

And finally……..

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