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Telling tales: using stories to remake energy policyKathryn B. Jandaa & Marina Topouziaa Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY,UKPublished online: 29 Apr 2015.

To cite this article: Kathryn B. Janda & Marina Topouzi (2015) Telling tales: using stories to remake energy policy, BuildingResearch & Information, 43:4, 516-533, DOI: 10.1080/09613218.2015.1020217

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RESEARCH PAPER

Telling tales:using stories to remake energypolicy

Kathryn B. Janda and MarinaTopouzi

Environmental Change Institute,University of Oxford,South Parks Road,OxfordOX13QY,UKE-mails: katy.janda@ouce.ox.ac.uk andmarina.topouzi@oriel.ox.ac.uk

To benefit and protect the populace, government policies often promise aspirational changes to current practice.

Different kinds of narratives are important in the framing, explanation, motivation, and understanding of policies

and strategies. For example, the UK government’s 2008 Climate Change Act proclaimed that all new homes will be

zero carbon by 2016. This ‘hero story’, where society is ‘saved’ by clever technologies, is inspiring, positive and

familiar. An alternative is the ‘learning story’, where things are not quite as simple as they first seemed. In a learning

story, protagonists are normal people who need to overcome a challenge. In energy policy, the learning story could

address the gap between the technical potential and what is achieved in practice. Three real-world examples

from retrofit and new-build projects are used to show how implicit narratives can create conflict when the tellers

(e.g. researchers) have to tell one kind of story but have data for the other. Recommendations are provided for a

balanced approach to the deployment of different kinds of tales by policy-makers, researchers, implementers and

users. Harnessing the learning story and developing a ‘caring story’ could motivate policy-makers and the public to

invest effort in building performance.

Keywords: buildings, energy policy, performance gap, public policy, research challenges, retrofit, social context,

storytelling

Introduction1

In the call for contributions to this special issue onclosing ‘policy gaps’, the editors issued the followingchallenge:

As the social, economic and environmental per-formance of the built environment becomesmore critical and the investment decision cycletightens, so the need to accurately plan aheadbecomes more acute. Predictions about theimpact of regeneration and building programmes[ . . . ] need to be better informed and the chancesof achieving measures of success understood andproperly communicated.

Along with Simmons (2015) and others in this specialissue, this paper broadens the boundaries of this chal-lenge by questioning whether accurate informationalone will lead to better future planning in thecomplex system of the built environment. It is temptingto believe that building scientists can gather (all) theevidence, understand it and properly communicate itto policy-makers, who will then develop effective

policies based on this new understanding. Whilebetter accuracy and prediction of factual elements iscertainly necessary, is this linear, evidence-basedapproach wholly sufficient to enhance built environ-ment performance, increase public understanding anddevelop ‘proper’ communication with policy-makers?

In a democracy, policy is (and should be) based on bothfacts and values (Sarewitz, 2000). Moreover, policy isalso intimately engaged with rhetoric and language.In his book on Evidence, Argument, and Persuasionin the Policy Process (1989, p. 1) statistician Giando-menico Majone opens with the statement:

As politicians know only too well but socialscientists too often forget, public policy is madeof language. Whether in written or oral form,argument is central in all stages of the policyprocess. [ . . . ] Political parties, the electorate,the legislature, the executive, the courts, themedia, interest groups, and independent expertsall engage in a continuous process of debateand reciprocal persuasion.

BUILDING RESEARCH & INFORMATION 2015

Vol. 43, No. 4, 516–533, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09613218.2015.1020217

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As a whole, this special issue calls attention to the roleof Majone’s ‘independent experts’ in the policyprocess. It suggests quite correctly that building exper-tise in the form of models, data-mining techniques andother forms of enquiry have an important role to playin improving the policy process and outcomes withrespect to the built environment. The scope of thespecial issue also includes: ‘understanding the role ofstakeholders and what drives them [ . . . ] whenmaking policy predictions and implementing strat-egies’; ‘unintended consequences in policy/initiativeoutcomes’; and ‘the ethical nature of predictions inpolicy formulation and evaluation’.

If predictions are considered as a particular form offuture-oriented rhetoric, then this paper – which isbased on storytelling in research – spans these threeareas. This paper sees stories as another form of rheto-ric that, like predictions and scenarios, shapes theunderstanding, expectations and engagement ofresearchers, policy-makers and the public. Stories,like theories, can also provide a lens to focus andshape data interpretation, highlighting some factswhile backgrounding others.

This special issue encourages readers to focus on dataand information; this paper suggests readers focustheir attention on the presence, absence and use of nar-rative structures surrounding the data. It begins with ashort preface on the developing field of storytelling andenergy. It then provides a brief description of somecommon story types that are relevant for the energyfield in different ways, with a particular focus onenergy-efficiency ‘hero stories’ and ‘learning stories’,2

although it also discusses ‘horror stories’ as a foil forhero stories. Next, it presents some examples of howthese story types are used in practice, noting howhero stories are far more common than learningstories. Data from three very different cases areemployed to demonstrate the use of (and problemswith) hero stories at various levels: a ‘green’ academicbuilding in the US; a deep retrofit programme in the UKinvolving 119 housing units; and a European renew-able and rational use of energy project spanning hun-dreds of buildings in the UK, Corsica, theNetherlands and Spain.

The examples show that the ‘efficiency hero stories’ arefragmented, confusing and incomplete. Gaps betweenpredictions and outcomes result partly because ofdifferences in the types of stories that can be told, aswell as the researchers’ inevitable lack of omnipotence.Determining the outcomes of change in an open systemis a difficult business. The ‘story’ of a building, andindeed the built environment as a whole, is a variablesubject that evolves over time. It is continually influ-enced by physical and social contexts from initial con-ception to eventual demolition or selectiveperpetuation. As part of the discussion, the

relationship is sketched between story types, builtenvironment life cycle stages, research options andpolicy interventions. Recommendations are made forresolving the fragmentation of the narrative arc inenergy research. It is argued that telling more learningstories will balance and develop the inspiration pro-vided by hero stories, rather than undermining theirimportance. A key suggestion is that advocates ofbetter building performance may need to develop theability to tell yet another kind of tale – the caringstory – to convince both policy-makers and thepublic why better buildings are worth the effort.

Preface: tall tales or heroic action?Amory Lovins has called energy efficiency ‘not a freelunch, but a lunch you’re paid to eat’ (Weizsacker,Lovins, & Lovins, 1996). However, researchers whostudy energy demand and consumption know thatthere is a gap between what energy-efficiency theorypromises to deliver and what happens in practice.Reasons for this ‘gap’ abound. There are high implicitdiscount rates; market failures of various kinds; sundrybarriers to optimal practice; and people who seem toignore the energy implications of their actions. Yetevery year there are more demonstration projects andresearch efforts trying to overcome the odds to provethat energy efficiency works in practice.

Given the past 40 years of experience with super-effi-cient technologies that are never quite what theyseem, why is there so much effort still devoted totrying to prove to yet another new audience thatenergy efficiency works? One definition of ‘insanity’is doing the same the over and over and expectingdifferent results (this definition is often attributed toAlbert Einstein but only traceable to Narcotics Anon-ymous (1981)). Are efficiency advocates ‘crazy’, or isthere another motivation for the continual cycle ofefforts that do not achieve what they promise? Pre-vious work on different kinds of stories is drawnupon and used as a framework for explaining whyenergy-efficiency advocates seem to do the same thingover and over again. Janda and Topouzi (2013)explored three possible reasons why energy-efficiencyadvocates spend so much effort in pursuit of unlikelysuccess: they are frauds; they are fanatics; or they seethemselves as heroes. Heroes are neither frauds norfanatics. They are noble, selfless ‘do-gooders’ whohelp the needy. They believe a better world is possibleand – like the fictitious hero Superman – are willing tosurmount incredible odds to achieve it.

Understandably, the heroic characterization of an effi-ciency advocate is more appealing to researchers thanthe others. But where is the adversary to be conquered?Energy waste is not exactly a super-villain. And ineffi-ciency is not exactly evil. So can researchers be heroes

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if the adversarial force to be reckoned with is actuallywoven into the fabric of modern society?

The characters and characterizations above introducethe central theme of this paper: the relationshipbetween research, the interpretation of data and story-telling. Whether formally recognized or not, research-ers communicate with and through stories.Characters appear both explicitly and implicitly inthe most unlikely places, evolving out of the adjectivesand verbs used to describe phenomena at many levelsand in different fields. In 1917, neuroscientist SantiagoRamon y Cajal described the relationship between den-drites and axons in the brain as an ‘epic love story’(Ramon y Cajal, 1917). Far from being lost in theannals of time, Ramon y Cajal’s thinking has servedas a frame for modern neuroscientists interested inexplaining this complex process (DeFelipe, 2010). Ananthropologist has shown how high-school healthscience textbooks describe the interaction of an eggand sperm like a romance novel, replete with genderedroles and heroic deeds (Martin, 1991). This kind ofanthropomorphism is often eschewed deliberately inthe sciences in an attempt to preserve neutrality. Theeditor-in-chief of the journal BioEssays, for example,has called for an end to the ‘anthropomorphic termi-nology’ that evokes ‘will, direction and strategy inevolutionary processes’ (Moore, 2011).

Given the deep tendency of humans to assign anthro-pomorphic values to both animate and inanimatethings, many people will continue to see will, directionand strategy in the world around them, even ifinstructed not to. Such anthropomorphisms help theresearcher to tell a story, which is – simply put –much more interesting than articulating a sequence.Accordingly, a turn towards conscious use of storytell-ing in energy research may be emerging. The leadauthor first encountered storytelling as a frame forenergy-efficiency research when attending a scenarioworkshop held by the World Business Council for Sus-tainable Development in 2007. In 2012, a storytellingapproach was adopted by an International EnergyAgency demand-side management research pro-gramme on behaviour change (Task 24) to help relatetheory to practice (Mourik & Rotmann, 2014). Story-telling has appeared in a Royal Society of New Zealandreport on the future green economy (Carrington et al.,2014). Most recently, the UK Arts and HumanitiesResearch Council awarded a £1.47 million grant to amultidisciplinary group of artists and researchers forthe Stories of Change project, which aims to ‘revivestalled public and political conversations aboutenergy by looking in a fresh way at its past, presentand future’ (Open University, 2014).

In keeping with this narrative turn, it is argued that rec-ognition of the relationship between stories and energyresearch is important and useful for several reasons.

First, it is unavoidable. Science is not neutral, andpolicy is certainly not. Given that stories will be told,is there something to be learned from thinking con-sciously about storytelling, rather than unconsciouslytelling a story? Whether the audience is policy-makers or the public, people react to familiar narra-tives. Are the stories interesting or boring? Whatembedded messages do they contain? Could they bemore coherent and compelling? It is suggested thatthere are lessons that energy research and policy-making can take from storytelling. These lessons willhelp to get the built environment performance storystraight(er), develop its characters and, most impor-tantly, engage the audience. These improvements areessential to motivating changes in practice, as well asperpetuating them.

Brief description of story typesThis section sets out a brief description of three differ-ent types of stories – hero stories, learning stories andhorror stories – as well as their common uses. Readersshould be aware that this is only a quick overview ofstory types to set the discussion in a broader context,rather than an expert assessment of the finer pointsof folklore. Following this discussion, the paper turnsto the ways in which each of these story types manifestin the energy field through three case studies.

Hero storiesHero stories have a proud lineage, tracing their originback to Greek myths and beyond. Joseph Campbell’sA Hero with a Thousand Faces (1968) is often associ-ated with this storyline, which he called the ‘mono-myth’ or the ‘hero’s journey’. It has been called the‘universal story’, and here is the basic plot:

A hero ventures forth from the world of commonday into a region of supernatural wonder: fabu-lous forces are there encountered and a decisivevictory is won: the hero comes back from thismysterious adventure with the power to bestowboons on his fellow man.

(p. 30)

Inspired by Campbell’s work, Christopher Vogler pro-vides a more streamlined and modern map of this formof storytelling (Vogler, 2007, 2015). Vogler sees thehero’s journey as a circle with dual layers of progress,an outer journey (Figure 1) and an inner journey(Figure 2). These journeys have various stages, andthey start and finish in the ordinary or ‘real’ world.But many of the tests and challenges occur in a super-natural or ‘special’ world. In the archetypal hero story,the hero accomplishes feats in an imaginary world, butsomehow manages to save his or her own world by

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returning with a special gift, power or ‘elixir’ thatenables this ultimate success.

The hero’s outer journey should be familiar to mostreaders, as it is used to good effect by the film industry.Thrillers often make some part of the real world into a‘special world’, a private crucible for the hero to battlethe villain. Think, for example, of all the situationswhere communications with the outside world aresevered: by jamming broadcast frequencies, cutting thetelephone line, or (nowadays) throwing an iPhone intoa lake. The classic action film Die Hard (1988), forinstance, takes place in an ordinary office building(after the phone lines are cut). Within this normal butnow separate world, the hero battles villains in spacesthat are interstitial and unusual: elevator shafts,heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC)ducts, the roof, floors that are under construction, andservice spaces. The hero steals a walkie-talkie from thevillains, turns their tools against them and triumphs.

The psychological cycle of the inner journey is familiar,but seems more personal and less heroic. There are nomagical elements, but there is a particular pattern oflearning. The hero moves from ‘limited awareness’ ofa problem to understanding the need for change,experimenting with it, experiencing fear and danger,and eventually mastering a new way of life.

The energy hero story has some recognizable elementsof the traditional structure. Chief among them is thatmost of the heroic acts occur in the special world ofthe future, or the imaginary world of technical poten-tial. This is an imaginary world shared by energyresearchers, where building physics reigns supremeover users who act in supernaturally predictable andaverage ways (Moezzi & Janda, 2014). Whether it isa silver bullet (one technology) or a silver buckshot

(a combination of things), energy-efficient technologiesand strategies often promise to be the magic elixir thatwill save society from climate change. Or is it fromspending too much money on heating? Or consumingin a wasteful way? Perhaps for all these reasons, theUK government has developed a hero story to guideits future by proclaiming that all new homes in thecountry will be zero carbon by 2016 (HM Govern-ment, 2008). This hero story is inspiring, positive andfamiliar: clever technologies are harnessed to ‘save’society. In this story, there is no need for people tochange because the technology will make the necessarychanges for us.

Oddly, however, the central characters in the energyversion of the hero story are missing. The ‘hero’ in anenergy hero story is actually a technology or a set oftechnologies rather than the person or group providingthem. What these technologies must triumph over isunclear. As mentioned above, energy hero stories aremissing an important element in their narrative arc: aproper foe. Compared with environmental problemsof the 1960s and 1970s, Baker (2002) suggests thatenergy policy suffers from a problem with public per-ception. Earlier environmental projects pitted people(or in Baker’s terminology, the ‘Average Joe’) againstlarge corporations. Energy policy, however, setspeople against themselves or their own ways of life(what Baker calls ‘Joe vs. Joe’). Further, givenenergy’s invisibility, Baker suggests that the publiclyapparent energy policy ‘fight’ is even less compelling.He calls it ‘Joe vs. Joe’s shadow’, which does notsuggest a gripping drama. Although battles are thecrux of the traditional hero story, they barely exist inwhat the authors call the energy hero story.

Although the energy hero story deviates from the tra-ditional hero story in some important ways, this

Figure 1 The hero’s journeySource: Vogler (2015), reproduced with permission from theauthor

Figure 2 The hero’s inner journeySource: Vogler (2015), reproduced with permission from theauthor

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storyline’s emphasis on universal patterns intersectswith another characteristic of energy research. Schwe-ber and Leiringer (2012) recently explored the intellec-tual contours of the energy and buildings researchliterature. They found that almost 80% of the litera-ture takes what they call a ‘positivist’ approach tothe material. This approach uses a natural scientificmethod and focuses on identifying patterns betweenvariables. Campbell’s work on the hero story suggeststhat there is a template that unifies heroic activityacross time, space and cultures. The positivist researchapproach also seeks generalizable theories that trans-cend their immediate context, therefore they share analignment with hero stories.

In contrast to the universality of the hero story, a learn-ing story focuses on the search for meaning in specifictimes and places.

Learning storiesThe best known type of learning story is the fable.Fables are short stories designed to teach specific lifelessons. They occur in overly fictitious settings withstylized characters that are not meant to be realistic(Teachfind, 2011). For example, central charactersare often animals that speak like humans.

This paper focuses on a later form of learning storythat is set in the real world and used for both researchand teaching, usually of children. Learning stories areused to document educational development (Carr,2001; Carr & Lee, 2012). They have a theoreticalbase in socio-cultural theory (Hill, 2001). In this tra-dition, learning occurs in authentic cultural locationsrather than in fictionalized or ‘special’ spaces. Thelearning story anticipates that the specific context,location and people involved will all play a part inthe learning process. This provides a picture of realpeople in real situations, struggling with real problems(AEYL, 2012). No one in a learning story is seeking amagic elixir (unless that means acquiring the ability toread and write).

From an energy research perspective this narrativeform dovetails with what Schweber and Leiringer(2012) call an ‘interpretivist’ approach. Interpretivistresearch accounts for only about 20% of the energyand building literature. In contrast with the herostory, which takes place largely in an imaginaryworld, learning stories in both their original form andtheir energy counterparts occur in all the detailed rich-ness and idiosyncratic elements of the real world. Thisapproach can provide ongoing benefits to both teachersand learners, as evidenced by a five-year-long series ofstudent conference presentations entitled ‘Real Storiesfrom Real Buildings’ supported by a education-oriented building science project (AoC, 2005). Learn-ing stories do not form universal patterns that can be

mapped. There are no heroes and no villains. In a learn-ing story, protagonists are normal people who need torespond to a challenge. Normal people are not saved byfictitious heroes (e.g. Superman flying to the rescue or adeus ex machina dropping from the ceiling), thereforethey must rely on their own actions. The learningstory in energy policy lies in between the technicalpotential and what is achieved in practice. The learningstory is what commissioning tells us, and what post-occupancy evaluation reveals. The learning story canbe difficult and contentious. It is less soothing thanthe hero story, as it asks for participation, reflectionand does not provide a single truth.

Horror storiesIf the other story types exist to be inspiring or edu-cational, horror stories are scary. Much of the discus-sion about horror stories has to do with theconstruction of evil and its relationship with the realworld. One website that gives advice on how to writea horror story suggests:

The center of any horror novel is the fear,rational or not, within the main character. [ . . .] Though the fear can be of a psychologicalnature, [ . . . ] there should be some supernaturalor unexplained entity or mystery whose solutionis outside the realm of typical understanding.The evil [ . . . ] should only reveal its true selfslowly as the story progresses. Regardless ofwhat shape it finally takes when its presence isknown (demon, vampire, person, etc.), itspower and intent should be obviously evil andsupernatural.

(Brown, 2001)

Other elements include disbelief of people close to themain character about the evil threat surrounding themall.

Given the above, it is not a surprise that climate changehas been used as the ‘horror’ in films like The Day AfterTomorrow (2004). It is invisible to the naked eye; itreveals itself over time; it is supra-natural if not super-natural; and there are many disbelievers. But what isthe energy equivalent of a horror story? The authorssubmit that it is the tale no one wants to tell. It is astory of failure, of technologies that did not performas promised. The fear is not in the central character:the fear is in the teller. There are fears of a fallenhero, fears of project requirements unsatisfied. (Whatresearcher of low energy/low carbon buildings hasnot worried what s/he will find when analysing thedata file describing the relationship between energyproduction and consumption?)

In 1966, psychologist Abraham Maslow wrote ‘Isuppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a

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hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail’(Maslow, 1966, p. 15). This paper suggests that theoveremphasis on the hero story in energy research islike Maslow’s hammer. In moving from the imaginaryworld to the real world, the hammer bangs into some-thing that is not a nail. This could be a model that didnot fully anticipate occupancy requirements; a mal-functioning piece of equipment; or an economic crisisthat changes the course of the construction industry.And the hammer, or the energy-efficiency advocate,feels fear. By adding more learning stories to theenergy toolkit, it is possible to move beyond binaryhero/horror or success/failure frames.

Stories in practice: three casesThis section uses three case studies to examine howenergy hero stories ‘fail’ in practice. The cases are ofdifferent sizes, shapes and locations: a ‘green’ academicbuilding in the US; a UK deep retrofit programme invol-ving 119 housing units; and a European renewable andrational use of energy community-level project in theUK, Corsica, the Netherlands and Spain. In each case,researchers were asked to evaluate the projects. Andin each case, there was pressure of various kinds forthe research to prove the hero story rather than challen-ging or changing it. By adding a learning story to thehero story, the ‘failure’ turns into an educationalopportunity with broader possible outcomes.

Great expectations in a green academic building3

This story is about a building of modest size, con-structed with high hopes. The Adam Joseph LewisCenter (AJLC) for Environmental Studies at OberlinCollege (Oberlin, Ohio, US) has enjoyed considerablecritical acclaim. It has received architectural awardsfrom the American Institute of Architects, constructionawards from national and state contractors organiz-ations, an Ohio governor’s award for energy efficiency,and been named one of the thirty ‘Milestone Buildingsfor the 21st century’ by the US Department of Energy.An early model of the building is included in an archi-tectural textbook on the interactive effects of buildingsand the environment (Fitch & Bobenhausen, 1999, p.336), a diagram appears in a popular environmentalscience textbook (Miller, 2001, p. 537), and it hasbeen the subject of numerous articles in the press.Part of its notoriety has to do with its star architecturalteam, William McDonough + Partners, which isfamous for several sustainable buildings as well as abook on the topic of sustainability (McDonough &Braungart, 2002). Part also has to do with the dedica-tion and eloquence of its on-campus champion, DavidOrr, who is a prolific writer, a dynamic speaker andhas published several articles about the AJLC’sdesign process (Orr, 2002, 2003a, 2003b). It is atwo-storey 13 600 square foot (1263 m2) building

with three classrooms, a library, an auditorium, sixoffices, a conference room and a kitchen. It alsohouses a ‘Living Machine’ that treats and internallyrecycles wastewater from within the building.

AJLChero storyThe AJLC was designed to be a building that teaches.In the words of Orr, then Chair of Oberlin’s Environ-mental Studies Program, the project team wanted abuilding that would ‘help redefine the relationshipbetween humankind and the environment – one thatwould expand our sense of ecological possibilities’(Reis, 2000). An early design intent associated theAJLC was that the 60 kilowatt (kW) photovoltaic(PV) array on the roof would produce more energythan the building consumes.

There are several different ways in which this intenthas been interpreted. The strongest version of thisclaim is that the AJLC would be a ‘net energy exporter’on an annual basis (Gabrielli, 1995). A second versionreports that the building will be a net energy exporter‘at times’ (Fitch & Bobenhausen 1999, p. 336). Athird interpretation is that the building will ‘evolveinto’ a net energy exporter (McDonough + Partners,2004). The first and strongest version of the AJLC’sdesign intent – to be a net annual energy exporter –never came to pass at the building level. As built andin use, the AJLC consumes two to three times moreenergy than the design team predicted it would (Sco-field, 2013). However, the second version of theclaim is true: the building periodically feeds electricityback to the grid. On sunny summer days when the air-conditioning is not running, the building producesmore energy than it consumes. The third and evol-utionary vision of success initially depended upon (1)further reductions in annual energy use and (2) repla-cing the existing 60 kW rooftop PV array with moreefficient solar cells which would (theoretically) beavailable in the future. In 2004, however, the pro-gramme decided go beyond the building’s immediatefootprint to seek another path forward. It raisedUS$1 million and in 2006 added a second 101 kWPV array over the building’s parking lot, thus movingfrom a building-level to a more site-oriented approach.Together, the two arrays were projected to produce30% more energy than the AJLC consumed (Fowler,2005). Instead, however, from 2006 to 2011 theAJLC continued to import an annual average of43 000 kilowatt hours (kWh) (Scofield, 2013). In2012, 11 years after initial occupancy, further adjust-ments were made and the site finally produces moreenergy annually than it consumes.

AJLC learning storyTo monitor and assess precisely how well the buildingperformed according to its targets, the AJLC is

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overflowing with monitored data. Funded in part by agrant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation andinstalled in collaboration with the National RenewableEnergy Laboratory, there are 148 data points thatcollect data on the flow of energy and matter throughthe building and its landscape (Petersen, 2002). Thesesensors collect data on a minute-to-minute basis, andtheir real-time reflection of the relationship betweenthe building and the environment is posted on theweb and displayed in the atrium lobby.4 These dataand the graphs they create provide a quantitativeframe through which to view the AJLC’s contributionto environmental problem-solving.

What is interesting about these data is that they seem tocreate more controversy than they resolve. In additionto the data points monitored by the EnvironmentalStudies Program faculty, there are data availablethrough utility meters which are tabulated by afaculty member in physics. The raw data collected bythe sensors and meters are not disputed. However,there has been some disagreement regarding theirinterpretation. Depending on the time period chosento analyse and the context selected for analysis, in itsearly years the AJLC used either more or less energythan its peers.

In terms of its early site energy, Petersen (2002) showsthat the AJLC’s gross energy consumption betweenApril 2001 and April 2002 was 30 000 Btu (Britishthermal units)/ft2 (94.6 kWh/m2). Compared with anational average reported for educational buildings,this is roughly 62% better than normal. Comparedwith nine other buildings on Oberlin’s campus, theAJLC’s energy performance is 64% better. When theproduction of energy produced by the AJLC’s initial60 kW PV array is included, its net energy consump-tion is just 14 000 Btu/ft2 (44.2 kWh/m2). This figuresuggests that the AJLC imports only 17% of theaverage energy consumed by Oberlin’s other buildings.

While these numbers seem definitive, Scofield (2002a,2002b, 2002c) uses the same data sources to paint adifferent picture. Instead of focusing on the amountof power generated by the PV array, for instance, itis possible to look at the differences between actualgeneration and projected energy output. From this per-spective, Scofield shows that total energy productionfrom the AJLC’s PV array for 2001 was 15% belowprojections. This kind of deficit is typical for PVarrays, yet it affects the AJLC’s ability to meet itsannual load without assistance from the grid. Interms of energy consumption, Scofield uses data fromJanuary 2000 to December 2001 to show that thebuilding used 48 000 Btu/ft2 (1.6 × higher than Peter-sen’s figure, 151 kWh/m2). Using this number as abasis of comparison, the AJLC’s gross energy use isonly about 37% better than the average educationalbuilding in Ohio’s climate. Moreover, Scofield argues

that a better basis for comparison should be sourceenergy consumption, not site energy consumption.Because the AJLC is all-electric, any electricity notproduced with its own PV array is most likely gener-ated by burning coal in a local power plant. Thisprocess is only about 33% efficient, which meansthat the source energy requirements of the AJLC are144 000 Btu/ft2 (454 kWh/m2) – 11–17% greaterthan comparable buildings. Because the AJLC doesnot meet its entire annual energy budget with itsown PV array, Scofield suggests that the as-builtAJLC may have been ‘greener’ if it was not all-electric.For example, it could have been heated by the college’scombined heat and power (CHP) plant at a typical effi-ciency of 60–80%.

If the AJLC ‘succeeds’ according to one quantitativeanalysis and ‘fails’ according to another, what arereaders of either or both analyses to make of theseinterpretations? To some degree, the differencebetween these assessments stems from koan-like ques-tions about whether it is better to see the glass as half-full or half-empty.5 Both Petersen and Scofield assessthe AJLC’s performance over time, but their analysesuse different time periods. Scofield uses data from thebuilding’s initial operation; Petersen uses data from alater period. If buildings have a learning curve, thepart of the curve selected for analysis inevitably influ-ences the results of the assessment, as does the basisfor comparison. Faculty within environmental studieswere expected to uphold the hero story (that theAJLC performs better than other buildings) againstthe ‘attack’ by the faculty member in physics (whichsaid that it was worse). Without an expert understand-ing of the relationship between energy and buildings,most people on the Oberlin College campus wereunable to reconcile these differences as problems ofinterpretation. Instead, what many people took awayfrom the decade-long debate is that the AJLC justplain ‘doesn’t work’. Or worse, that either its advo-cates or its attackers were lying. Either way, there isno question that the ‘real’ building performance reliesnot just on ‘more’ data, but on the interpretation ofthe data and their use to create meaning. Understand-ing data related to building performance takes timeand effort, as does fixing any problems that thisanalytical process reveals.

Although there are some technical reasons why it took11 years and more than US$1 million for the AJLC tobecome a net energy exporter, including unanticipatedtransformer losses and equipment that did not workproperly (Scofield, 2013), there are also a number ofnon-technical reasons. First, the building was used dif-ferently than its designers intended. As a result of itsnotoriety, it routinely hosted tours, fund-raisingdinners, concerts and even a wedding (Janda, 2014;Janda & von Meier, 2005). All these occurredbeyond the ‘normal’ work hours and ‘average’ uses

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anticipated by its designers. Second, from 2000 to2011, the college’s organizational capacity to run thebuilding optimally was limited to a handful of tech-nicians who were responsible for the entire campusof 2.6 million ft2 (242 000 m2). At the end of 2011,the college hired a full-time building manager taskedwith identifying and solving the energy problems ofthis single 13 600 square foot (1263 m2) building.This management solution succeeded where techno-logical solutions (like the 101 kW solar array) hadfailed. By 2012, the building’s proponents andopponents finally agreed that the AJLC had become anet annual energy exporter at the site level. In theprocess of this evolution, it also enabled generationsof students to learn that building performance iscomplex. It depends on a number of different technicaland non-technical factors, can change over time, isneither autonomous nor self-correcting, and can becontentious. Based on work initially done for theAJLC, in 2004 Oberlin students and a facultymember created a building dashboard designcompany. In 2014, this company was named in theGlobal Cleantech 100, a list of the top private compa-nies in ‘clean’ technology (Lucid, 2014). Would theeducational and professional opportunities have beenas rich if the building worked ‘properly’ at the outset,or did the learning story assist in this process?

Retro¢t for the Future: SAP-full or half-empty?The Retrofit for the Future (RfF) is a demonstrationprogramme organized and funded by the UK’s Tech-nology Strategy Board (TSB, now known as ‘InnovateUK’). Launched in 2009, the programme intended todemonstrate that the ambitious target of 80% carbonemission reductions could be met by 2050 by installinglow-carbon interventions and innovative technologiesin the existing housing stock (TSB, 2009). The pro-gramme involved deep refurbishment of 119 low-risesocial housing units in total, through 86 projectsacross the UK, with a budget of £17 million.Through a competitive process, grants of up to£150 000 (of which £90 000 was the cost of theactual works) were awarded to project teams, whichincluded architects, building companies and organiz-ations as well as housing associations and sociallandlords.

Project teams aimed to use innovative solutions andmultiple systems integrated into a ‘whole house’approach to achieve the best possible standards ofenergy efficiency and make deep cuts in carbon emis-sions. Low-carbon retrofit interventions were deter-mined by technical specifications, performancebaselines, CO2 and primary energy targets providedby the TSB. Assessment targets were calculated withthe Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP) 2005 andthe Passive House Planning Package (PHPP) using80% reductions from average 1990 baseline figures

for an 80 m2 semi-detached house (Energy SavingTrust, 2009; Ruyssevelt, 2011). In their proposals, anumber of project teams set the bar even higher usingthe Association of Energy Conscious Builders (AECB)passive house technical standards (AECB, 2007).Some of the RfF projects and teams achieved architec-tural awards and media attention for their efforts. Forexample, the RfF retrofit solutions undertaken in a1990s’ mid-terrace house won a ‘best small housingproject’ award from the Architects’ Journal (OxfordBrookes University, 2013b). Another RfF project, aVictorian terrace in Oxford, was written up in theOxford Mail and BBC News. These stories highlightedthe deep energy and emissions reductions achieved(Bardsley, 2011; BBC News, 2011).

RfFhero storyThe RfF hero story has two different versions, depend-ing on the tellers. The RfF hero story was not onlyabout 80% carbon emission reductions through inno-vative technologies and whole-house approaches. Itwas also about bringing substantial savings to socialtenants’ bills. For project teams, the main ‘hero story’is the extent to which their design refurbishment sol-utions met the competition’s emissions reductiontargets. However, for the occupants living in the RfFproperties, the ‘hero story’ revolves around overallimprovement of indoor comfort levels and reductionsin their energy costs. Although many different storiescan be told about RfF (e.g. Topouzi, 2013, 2015),only one example is the focus here: the Oxford Victor-ian terrace house.

From the media’s perspective, the ‘Victorian terracebig eco makeover’ in Oxford is a successful exampleof an RfF project:

The idea is to cut the amount of carbon emissionsfrom the property by 80 per cent – and less thansix months in, it is already showing a reductionof 85 per cent.

(Bardsley, 2011, p. 9)

At the same time, the project’s leader clarifies: ‘thehouse uses 85% less gas and electricity when comparedto conventional homes [ . . . ] and produces 80% lessCO2 emissions than conventional homes’ (OxfordBrookes University, 2013a). Although it is not clearin the article whether the carbon emission and energybills reduction is compared with pre-refurbishmentlevels, modelled targets or a typical 80 m2 semi-detached house, the hero story seems numericallysuccessful.

For the occupants – a couple who had lived in the Vic-torian terrace house for 21 years – the success of thelow-carbon refurbishment was evident in both thereduction of energy bills and improved overall indoor

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comfort. The couple’s experience in the pre-refur-bished building was that of a cold, damp and draughtyenvironment with poor light levels and extreme temp-erature differences between rooms and floors. Thepoor building fabric was difficult to heat and alsoexpensive due to rising fuel costs. The occupants’past experience with the property provides a personalbaseline that allows them to compare and understandthe change between the pre- and post-refurbishmentenvironments. This real-world, experiential baselinealso sets the level of success for their hero story. Asthe occupants explain, there was a significant reductionin their utility bills after the refurbishment:

Man we had a big-big drop [ . . . ] it was around£600 per period [quarterly payment] and nowit is £150. [ . . . ] [Woman] the electricity was£80 so we’ve reduced the standing order downto £29 on the electricity a month and I thinkis about £28 on the gas and they were £44–45[ . . . ].

(occupant interview 7 September 2011)

The comfort levels in the house have also changed. Sig-nificantly, the occupants feel warmer, better and overallvery satisfied with the low-carbon improvements.

In both of the above versions there is no question aboutthe project’s success. Some ambiguity, however,derives from a closer inspection of the different base-lines (actual versus modelled) that were used todefine the project team’s hero story.

RfF learning storyThere is still very little evidence in the UK regardingdeep refurbishments that implement low-carbon‘whole house’ approaches. The RfF programme con-tributes to this field by providing insights into thedesigned, ‘as built’ and actual performance of such

interventions. These insights were intended to feedinto the overall evaluation of retrofit processes,helping to shape the efficient delivery of futuresimilar schemes. Hence, all RfF demonstration projectsparticipated in an extensive two-year quantitative andqualitative monitoring process. These data are publi-cally available, allowing future researchers to matchquantitative and qualitative data for each project.

Not surprisingly, the evaluation of post-refurbishmentmonitored data highlights issues related to the energyperformance gap between ‘as designed’ and ‘in use’.It also shows the hero stories are not quite as numeri-cally successful as the newspaper stories suggest.

There are two different pairs of numbers that are usedto define performance for both gas and electricityacross the RfF projects. Figure 3 shows these twopairs of numbers for the Oxford Victorian terracehouse. The first pair of numbers is based on SAPmodels. The pre-refurbishment SAP model sets a base-line for ‘average use’ against which different refurbish-ment packages can be tested in the design phase. Theselected set of measures then provides the post-refurb-ishment SAP forecast. The SAP model allows a levelplaying field for technologies to be compared, but itis set in an imaginary world where occupants haveassumed ‘typical’ behaviours. In contrast, the secondpair of numbers (shown in the box in Figure 3) arethe actual yearly consumption of the house as asystem, both before and after the refurbishment. Thisis actual performance of the house and its occupants,as measured by meters and monitors, rather thanassumed by software.

Findings from the Oxford house indicate a failure ofthe SAP modelling tool to estimate accurately the per-formance of the building in the pre-refurbishmentstage. Comparing the SAP pre-refurbishment predic-tion to actual pre-refurbishment consumption reveals

Figure 3 Retro¢t for the Future (RfF) Victorian terrace house gas and electricity consumption (pre- and post-refurbishment) actual andestimated (kWh)

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that SAP over-predicts gas consumption (60% higherthan actual consumption) and under-predicts electri-city consumption (33% lower than actual consump-tion). Oddly, comparing the SAP pre- and post-models does not yield a set of figures that exactlysatisfy the RfF hero story. For gas, SAP predicts thedesign will result in an 86% reduction; for electricity,SAP predicts a 59% increase in use. Presumably,then, the ‘85% reduction’ figure quoted in the newspa-per is the SAP design prediction for gas use only.Adding gas and electricity figures together, the SAPpre- and post-estimates result in a combined energyreduction of 81% in the imaginary world of SAP.Although these numbers do not quite match the news-paper story, they technically satisfy the RfF require-ments, which aimed for an 80% reduction.

What happens when the SAP figures are set aside andthe focus is shifted to pre- and post-actual consump-tion? The actual in-use consumption between the preand post-refurbishment dropped by 42% in gas and28% in electricity, with an overall measured energyreduction of 39%. Although this reduction is lessthan half of what RfF promised to achieve, the interest-ing result here is that the occupants were satisfiedanyway. Given that the occupants did not have topay for the £90 000 cost of the refurbishment, any dis-cernible reduction in energy costs (even half of whatwas promised) were no doubt welcome.

The figures above highlight that the numerical herostory tells a part of the building’s story but certainlynot the full extent of it. Despite the different numbersbetween estimated and actual savings, the occupants‘are generally very delighted’ (occupant interview 7September 2011) with the post-refurbished property.Occupant delight is difficult to measure quantitatively,but it is critical to the success of a project. Althoughhero stories do not include occupants’ ‘forgiveness’and ‘forget’ factors, learning stories can incorporatethese elements (Topouzi, 2015). That is, if occupantslike a building, they will overlook some elements thatdo not work in favour of those that do (Leaman &Bordass, 2007). The Oxford occupants like theirrefurbishment, so even though not everything workedas intended, they were still happy. Even delighted.

CONCERTO/cRRescendo: an undiscovered country6

From 2005–2014, the European Union has fosteredthe development of renewable energy and energy effi-ciency at the city and community level through aseries of programmes called first ‘CONCERTO’, then‘CONCERTO Plus’ and finally ‘CONCERTOPremium’. Within CONCERTO, the European Com-mission co-funded 22 projects comprising 58 commu-nities and sites that are located in 23 countries inEurope. Each project covers up to four communitiesand sites in different European Union countries. Each

site implements different approaches to reach areduction of CO2 emissions that are intended to beappropriate for specific local conditions (CON-CERTO, 2012b).

The CONCERTO initiatives are framed as researchand demonstration programmes, where innovativeenergy technologies would be applied in cities andtheir results be monitored, reported and disseminated.They aim to explore a broad range of technical andsocio-economic issues related to sustainable energy,including: innovative technologies, renewable sourcesfor cities, energy-efficiency measures, sustainablebuilding and district development, economic assess-ments, affordability, and energy transparency for citi-zens (CONCERTO, 2012a).

One of the projects funded by CONCERTO is cRRes-cendo, which stands for ‘Combined Rational andRenewable Energy Strategies in Cities, for Existingand New Dwellings to ensure Optimal quality oflife’. With the assistance of CONCERTO co-funding,the cRRescendo project aimed to integrate a majorshare of sustainability into thousands of homes in themetropolitan areas of its partner cities: Almere (theNetherlands), Milton Keynes (UK), Viladecans(Spain) and Ajaccio (capital of the isle of Corsica,France). The cRRescendo project started in 2005 andfinished in 2012.

CONCERTO/cRRescendo hero storyOne underlying assumption in CONCERTO is thattechnological change (in this case, renewable energyand energy-efficient technologies) leads to economicand social benefits. To obtain co-funding from theEuropean Commission, projects needed to prove bothtechnical and social benefits as a result of the co-funded measures. The second underlying assumptionin CONCERTO is that change at the city scale willhave more impact than change at the building level.The CONCERTO website asserts:

What all sites have in common is the aim todemonstrate that the optimisation of the buildingsector of whole communities is more efficientand cheaper than optimisation of each buildingindividually.

(CONCERTO, 2012b)

To provide quantitative data to back up this assertion,a set of socio-economic indicators were developed atthe CONCERTO level to help evaluators gather andcompare results between and across the 22 projects.There are 30 indicators divided between eight issueareas covering different aspects of social, environ-mental and economic benefits.

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The orientation of the CONCERTO indicators illus-trates the expectation that the CONCERTO projectswould have a significant enough impact on a localarea that the project could be seen to influence notjust the project participants but also the wider commu-nity. ‘Stimulation of the Local Economy’, for example,was one of the eight socioeconomic issue areas. It con-tained seven indicators to evaluate the economicrelationship of the CONCERTO project to the largercommunity. In addition, two other issue areas askedfor the contribution of the project to reduce overallemissions and to affect the energy generation mix inthe project locations.

The clearest hero story from cRRescendo appears in aglossy, picture-filled booklet published in 2014, twoyears after the project finished (ter Horst, Noach,Verhoef, & Haaksma, 2014). This report claims theinvolved municipalities ‘reached new milestones andfulfilled their ambitions in fantastic new or refurbishedurban environments’ (p. 4). These authors claimcRRescendo reached its goals, even in the face of theglobal financial downturn that began to manifestduring the latter half of 2007. As banks and financialinstitutions struggled, new construction projects wereput on hold, changed or cancelled. As wider expec-tations of growth were downsized, CONCERTOplans in all the cRRescendo cities were also delayedand/or downsized. For most cRRescendo cities, theplans shrank in scope from large-scale community pro-jects to smaller-scale projects including just a few build-ings rather than whole neighbourhoods. Nevertheless,the project helped fund 3290 houses; 75 093 m2 ofpublic and commercial buildings; 1099 kWp (kilowattspeak) of PV panels; 8337 m2 of solar thermal panels;and two district heating systems. Overall, carbonsavings were estimated at 30%. Moreover, the reportclaims that the project ‘demonstrates how to bestmeet the citizens’ wishes of living in comfortable,energy-efficient homes in a healthy and clean environ-ment’ (ter Horst et al, 2014, p. 7).

CONCERTO/cRRescendo learning storyAlthough cRRescendo claims to have triumphed overfinancial adversity, it did not actually fulfil the CON-CERTO ambitions related to whole-communityoptimization (versus building-level optimization).Nor did it conclusively demonstrate that the use ofenergy-efficient and renewable technologies contributedirectly to citizen well-being.

From a cRRescendo perspective, the CONCERTOsocio-economic indicators had a poor fit with most ofthe local projects. This lack of alignment was evidenteven before the project began. As a percentage of thetotal population in the municipalities, the initial partici-pant population estimates for the cRRescendo projectsranged from 3% in Almere to 10% in Viladecans.

Even at these numbers, it is a stretch to assume thatthe cRRescendo plans would satisfy the CONCERTOgoals of stimulating the local economy, creating newbusinesses, changing community demographics or redu-cing local emissions. However, after the reduction intechnical scope that occurred during the course of theproject, the final average participant populations wereless than 1.5% of the overall municipal populations(Janda, Killip, Atkins, Wharton, & Millan, 2012). Thehighest final participant percentage was in Almere, atjust 3%. It is even harder to imagine that projects inAjaccio (1.4%), Viladecans (0.8%) or Milton Keynes(0.5%) would have any observable, let alone measure-able effect on the cities in which they were embedded.Yet at least one-third of the European Union evaluationindicators asked for quantitative data to ‘prove’ broaderimpacts that were vanishingly small and highly con-founded with other variables.

Although ‘stretch’ goals can be used with good effect involuntary environmental projects (e.g. the ‘platinum’level in the US Green Building Council’s LEED pro-gramme), they did not serve this purpose withincRRescendo. Far from stimulating the project partnersto do more or think creatively to reach toward thelarger CONCERTO goals, the poor fit between theCONCERTO indicators and the project achievementsresulted in a feeling of defeat for project partners.Accordingly, the partner cities in cRRescendo providedvery little data to CONCERTO evaluators on theenvironmental, social and economic indicators. Outof 120 possible CONCERTO indicators (30 indi-cators × 4 partner cities), cRRescendo succeeded inproviding data on only 28 indicators, and only 10 ofthese actually complied with the quantitative reportingrequirements (Janda, 2012a).

Of the delivered socio-economic indicators, the datacontradict the CONCERTO/cRRescendo claims thatbetter technology necessarily leads to better living.For example, in Milton Keynes, an apartment buildingwas constructed with better insulation, energy-efficientappliances and a connection to a new combined heatand power (CHP) plant. However, the developer didnot market the apartments based on their ‘eco’ creden-tials, and there was no engagement from the projectwith residents on the energy benefits of the apartmentblock. CONCERTO indicators asked for measure-ments of the awareness, impact and satisfaction of resi-dents to the cRRescendo measures. Accordingly, in2010 a web survey was performed with the aim ofassessing the degree of residents’ satisfaction withtheir new home (Janda & Wharton, 2012). Generally,residents seemed happy with their apartments, buttheir satisfaction was mostly related to buildinglocation and layout, which were not ‘cRRescendomeasures’. From an energy perspective, the survey pre-dictably revealed that over half (54%) of the respon-dents were unaware that their apartment block was

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connected to a CHP plant, and a similar amount (57%)were unaware that it was specially designed to use lessheating than average and was fitted with efficient light-ing and appliances. Residents who were aware of theCHP connection were not unanimously happy withit. One, for example, commented that they dislikedbeing ‘stuck with one supplier’. A large proportion ofrespondents (47%) disliked their heating and controls.Written comments included:

I struggle to keep the flat warm.

The heating is disgusting. The radiators are toosmall so the heating has to be on for longer toheat the apartment.

Insulation is poor.

I think it must use less heating, because it neverfeels warm!!

I have had quite a bad experience with theheating and hot water in my flat: it has failedon numerous occasions and there has been flood-ing. Also my front room is always cold as it is alarge room with a tiny radiator in it.

[H]eating is insufficient and the subject of anongoing complaint.

The survey responses clearly indicate that some resi-dents were thermally uncomfortable in their apart-ments, but it is unclear from the survey responsesalone whether the overall heating design was atfault, if there were installation problems in particularflats, or if these specific residents could be using theirsystem differently than it was designed to be used.Moreover, thermal comfort is a state of mind, whichcan be influenced by many different factors includingair temperature, radiant temperature, relative humid-ity, air velocity, activity, age, clothing and stress(Darby & White, 2005). What the learning storyhere shows is that measuring the relationshipbetween lower carbon emissions and better living ismore complicated than CONCERTO or cRRescendoanticipated.

The CONCERTO/cRRescendo projects hoped to findthat sustainable technologies would improve thewell-being of occupants. As the technologies wereimplemented separately from social processes – notjust in Milton Keynes, but in some of the other citiesas well – the social research strand of cRRescendofaced the predicament of attempting to measure theeffects of interventions which were largely invisible tooccupants. In addition, since there is no baselinemeasure of the occupants’ well-being in their previoushome, measuring ‘improvements’ attributable to thecRRescendo measures is problematic.

As cRRescendo supplied information for less than10% of the CONCERTO indicators, the social

research coordinator’s final report (Janda et al.,2012) told a learning story about cRRescendo as amultilevel, multi-site and multi-technology demon-stration project that could have delivered richerresults if it had used different evaluation method-ologies and methods. For example, information oneducational opportunities, public events and policycontext were gathered in cRRescendo but were notwell covered in CONCERTO’s unified set of quantifiedsocioeconomic terms. The report recommended thatfuture generations of CONCERTO-type programmesapply a stratified, mixed-method approach to socialresearch rather than a unified and largely quantitativeone. To measure social factors effectively in a quanti-tative manner, more attention would need to bedevoted to measuring baseline indicators that affectand confound the issues of interest. A stratifiedapproach would allow the CONCERTO projects tocontribute (1) to general social research questionsthat exist beyond the confines of the European Unionproject, (2) to specific case study research thatmatches other similar cases, and (3) to participantaction research relevant to delivering the projectgoals. In cRRescendo, this approach would have hadpractical and conceptual benefits beyond what therequired methodology provided.

DiscussionThese case studies should come as no surprise toanyone who has studied research and demonstrationprojects of any kind. It is often the case that thething delivered will not actually fulfil the promisemade.7 The weavers who sold the emperor his newclothes in Hans Christian Andersen’s famous fairytale knew he would be naked. But only a little childhad the social freedom to point out that the emperorwas wearing nothing at all.

What social freedom do researchers have to tell things asthey see them? Why does it feel like a betrayal and a pro-fessional faux pas to mention that the supposedlyperfect and highly ornamental gown of social, economicand environmental benefits is . . . a bit patchy in places?Many researchers believe in their work and want theirpredictions to be true. So they interpret the facts opti-mistically, and tell a story that looks as heroic as poss-ible. Deviations from predictions may be ignored,minimized or suggested as topics for future research asif these deviations could be corrected. Consider, forexample, the expectation that user behaviour is morepredictable than stochastic and can therefore be under-stood and modelled accordingly. Yet our track record inthis area leaves a lot to be desired. Recent work on thecalculations used to rate the energy performance ofhousing in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium andthe UK shows that these models, like the SAP modelin the RfF case, consistently over-predict the amountof energy that normal dwellings actually use (Sunikka-

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Blank & Galvin, 2012). Similarly, work on low-energydesign commercial buildings shows that assumptionsabout how people will use ‘special’ buildings can bevery optimistic (e.g. Lenoir, Cory, Donn, & Garde,2011). Idealizations about people and their energy beha-viours are familiar, but they are not necessarily accurateor true (Moezzi & Janda, 2014).

This discussion section further develops the relation-ship between reality, fiction and interpretation thatthe case studies introduced. There are many differentdimensions that this discussion could explore. Thissection focuses on two: the importance of time; andthe connection between storytelling and the goals ofthis special issue.

Learning over time: from formulation to outcomesVogler’s depictions of the hero’s outer journey andinner journey (Figures 1 and 2) suggest that everyhero story has at least one learning story within it.The presented case studies support this interpretation.In the authors’ experience, if the surface of a herostory is scratched, then a learning story can be uncov-ered. These stories, however, tend to surface at differ-ent points in a building’s life cycle. Table 1 shows therelationship between world types, building life cycles,story types, research and evaluation methods, andpolicies over time. The concept of building life

cycles will be familiar to most readers, as is theimplicit relationship between the types of research,evaluation and policies that can be applied at differentstages of the building and/or rebuilding process. Tothis more familiar sequence, the elements discussedin this paper are added, particularly how differenttypes of stories may either create policy gaps or helpto resolve them.

Imaginary worldThe energy hero story is strongest and most prevalentin the imaginary world of ideas, which includes fore-casting and predictions. This is when the programmefor the (re)building is formulated and design conceptsare developed. In the case studies above, the strongestversion of the AJLC hero story – where the buildingproduced more energy than it consumed – was the ear-liest one. Researchers and other stakeholders can opineabout the great deeds they will do with project X, Y orZ. Models and forecasting methods spin webs of possi-bility, like the SAP models in RfF, based on agreed (butnot necessarily accurate) assumptions about how theworld works. Policy-makers and funders give incen-tives and funding to those who spin the ‘best’ web, asin the cRRescendo project. Codes and regulations areapplied to keep worse webs from being re-spun. Theyalso serve to signify levels of achievement that the pro-jects must meet or surpass.

Table 1 Stages, stories, evaluations and policies

World type Building life cyclestage

Story type Research and evaluation options Policy type

Imaginary Programme Hero Modelling, forecasting Incentives

Design Hero Modelling, forecasting Building codes and regulations,information

Real Construction Transitionfromhero tolearning

Expectation versus physical reality(e.g. designed versus as built)

Health and safety, building codes andregulations, information, e.g.EnergyPerformanceCerti¢cate (EPC)

Initial occupancy(approximately1^3years)

Transitionfromhero tolearning

Tunedmodels; empirical dataanalysis (e.g. physical and socialcontext; post-occupancyevaluation; variation over time)

Recommended procedures;commissioning requirements;warranties, information, e.g.DisplayEnergyCerti¢cate (DEC)

Later occupancy(approximately 3^30 plus years)

Learning/success¼. caringstory (?)

Empirical performance; possiblenewmodels for renovation;social/cultural impact analysis

EPCs or DECs on sale or rental; voluntaryguidelines (e.g. facility managementpractices, green leases); continuouscommissioning; regular maintenance;historic preservation

Alternateendings

Vacancy Failure/horror Economic valuation; possiblephysical defects

Health and safety; bankruptcy laws;squatters rights

Demolition Failure/horror Economic valuation Health and safety; reclamation and reuse

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Real worldIn the ‘real world’, things get a bit more complicated forthe hero story. Translating ideas into reality is an imper-fect business, as all the case studies show. Between con-struction and initial occupancy the real world starts tochallenge the imaginary world. As Janda and vonMeier (2005, p. 37) note, there are simply ‘more waysfor things to go wrong than for things accidentally togo better than planned’. Commissioning processesmay be used to try to resolve differences betweendesign ideas and as-built reality. Energy certificatesmay provide information on how the building shouldperform, and how it does perform. Some discrepanciesthat can be corrected will be fixed. Other discrepancies,for better or worse, will be left as they are to becomepart of the lived reality of the building. As time moveson, this lived reality will then eclipse the earlier designintents, whatever they were. Various combinations ofthe building and its occupants will either learn to livetogether in harmony or evolve in pursuit of a moreperfect union (Brand, 1994). Building/owner/occupantcombinations that work or achieve some kind of socialsignificance will become success stories, in the sensethat they will be maintained and avoid a state of disre-pair. This success may not be universal, but people wholove something about a building will fight to preserve it(Cahan, 1994). The ‘later occupancy’ phase in a build-ing’s life cycle is where the learning stories gatheredmay provide a basis for promoting care and mainten-ance (as is discussed below), and further evolution (asdescribed in the AJLC case). This phase is underdeve-loped in our current energy policy context.

On the other hand, combinations of buildings/owners/and occupants that do not work, either socially orphysically, will fail. These buildings will be vacatedand eventually demolished.

Interpreting reality: understanding, unintendedconsequences, and ethicsReturning to the goals of this special issue, the conceptsof hero and learning stories provide insights into whypolicy gaps exist, as well as whether and how theymight be closed. Hero stories help with ‘understandingthe role of stakeholders and what drives them [ . . . ]when making policy predictions and implementingstrategies’. Learning stories, on the other hand,provide support for explaining ‘unintended conse-quences in policy/initiative outcomes’ and may helpin testing ‘the ethical nature of predictions in policyformulation and evaluation’.

Stakeholders and policy gapsThe concept of a hero story assists in understanding sta-keholders and their drivers. People of all kinds relishachievement-oriented hero stories. Both policy-makers and research councils are drawn to the kind of

certainty that the hero story provides. Researchers areencouraged to be policy relevant, and their livelihoodoften depends on winning future funding from researchcouncils. Therefore, researchers are likely to berewarded for telling hero stories to both policymakersand funders. Hero stories also create excitement,which helps to generate media attention, as shown inthe case studies. (Their antithesis, the horror story, isalso a journalistic favourite (e.g. Griechisch & Unger,2014; Maiden, 2010; Ward, 2011).)

Strong goals, such as those contained in hero stories,can be effective motivators. Research on goal-settingtheory shows that there is a positive linear relationshipbetween high, specific goals and task performance(Locke & Latham, 2006, 2013). The hero story’spopularity, coupled with its potential for motivatingchange, means that it is not going to go away and bereplaced by the learning story. However, the herostoryline does not need to be replaced. It needs to beaugmented, because the hero story’s emphasis on per-formance goals may actually create policy gaps.

For new and complex tasks, goal-setting theory suggeststhat a focus on specific performance outcomes can leadto ‘tunnel vision’, where participants focus on reachingthe goal rather than on acquiring the skills needed toreach it (Lander, 2015). As a type of task, making signifi-cant changes to the built environment can be categorizedas both new and complex. For these kinds of tasks, thetheory suggests that setting ‘learning goals’ will bemore effective than setting performance goals (Seijts,Latham, & Woodwark, 2013). Further, the relationshipbetween goal-setting and success is moderated by thepresence of feedback needed to track progress; the levelof commitment to the goal; situational constraints; andtask complexity (Locke & Latham, 2006). Much of thework regarding ‘better data’ in the built environmentconcentrates on providing better feedback (Becker,1978; Darby, 2006, 2010; Fischer, 2008; Hargreaves,Nye, & Burgess, 2013; Moezzi & Janda, 2014; Petersen,Shunturov, Janda, Platt, & Weinberger, 2007). Thiswork on feedback is necessary but not sufficient. For pol-icies based on hero stories, more research is needed onthe other moderating factors, including how commit-ment levels are set and negotiated, situational con-straints, and task complexity. In particular,collaborative and participatory approaches to goal-setting might help engage groups, teams and a broaderrange of stakeholders to negotiate jointly agreed goals,rather requiring them to reach levels of success set apriori from the top down (Hesse, Care, Buder, Sassen-berg, & Griffin, 2015; van Tol Smit, de Loe, &Plummer, 2014; von der Porten & de Loe, 2014).

Consequences and ethicsThe concept of a learning story contributes to thisspecial issue’s interest in ‘unintended consequences in

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policy/initiative outcomes’ and ‘the ethical nature ofpredictions in policy formulation and evaluation’. Asnoted above and in the case studies, the real world ismessy and will inevitably challenge the predictedorder of the imaginary world. Whether and howthese unavoidable challenges are recognized, andwhat steps are taken to mitigate them as they manifestare questions current research could address. Whetherand how a policy regime might be developed to try tominimize their occurrence (or reduce the surprise attheir appearance), however, is a question of valuesand ethics rather than one about facts and data.

Hill and Lorenz (2011), Hill, Lorenz, Dent, andLutzkendorf (2012), and Bordass and Leaman (2012)considered the role of ethics in the built environmentfrom the perspective of building professionals. Giventhe need for sustainability, they argue that building pro-fessionals need to develop new forms of ethical conduct.What if this idea were broadened to include all partici-pants in the built environment? Consider, for example,the often implicit objective of getting people to careabout energy and the environment as a basis for moder-ating their behaviour (Moezzi & Janda, 2014). If theassumption that caring actually makes a difference istrue, then how can it be induced? The field of relationalethics (Noddings, 2013) conceptualizes caring as anethical ideal rooted in feelings of both naturalemotion (‘I want’) and responsibility (‘I must’). Story-telling has been used to help people actively engage incaring practices in nursing (McCance, McKenna, &Boore, 2001), long-term care (Heliker, 2007) and edu-cation (Gordon, Benner, & Noddings, 1996). There-fore, if it is socially desirable to encourage people tocare naturally about and for their property, then a story-telling approach could provide some assistance. Theresponsibility component of ethical caring could be sup-ported through public policies.

How might a broader ethic of responsibility beimplemented through energy and building policies?Consider the regulatory regime through which manycountries shape driving habits and practices throughrules and regulations. Driving a vehicle requires alicence; potential drivers are only permitted to learnat a particular minimum age; and drivers must pass asequence of tests prove both driving skill and knowl-edge of road regulations. Although the presence ofthese tests is common, their composition varies signifi-cantly by country (Banham, 2013). The UK and the US,for example, send drivers different messages about theextent of their social responsibilities. In the UK, thedriver’s theory test includes questions about the rulesof the road (both tacit and explicit) as well as aboutbasic emergency medical procedures in case of aserious accident, such as the steps necessary for cardi-opulmonary resuscitation and treatment of shock. Inthe US, most state driver’s licence examinations testthe rules of the road but generally do not contain

questions about emergency medical procedures. Inthe UK, there is a Ministry of Transport or ‘MOT’safety test that vehicles must pass annually after theyare three years old (UK Government, 2014). In theUS, some states require periodic vehicle emissionstesting, but safety inspections usually occur onlywhen transferring ownership, rather than on anannual basis. Compared with the US driving regime,the UK places a greater emphasis on a driver’sbroader social responsibilities. How might this ideatranslate into the built environment?

In most countries, the building performance regulatoryregime depends more on building physics than on theskill of their operators or ‘drivers’, and messagesabout operations and social responsibility are moremuted. What if people were required to take lessonsand pass tests about how they would drive a buildingin the same way that they must demonstrate theirability to drive a car? This kind of a shift would recog-nize that the built environment (like transportation) isa socio-technical system, rather than a just a technicalone. It might also help close the gap between policypredictions and outcomes by initiating a policyregime that establishes stronger messages about‘right’ and ‘wrong’ ways of running a building. Thisprocess could, for example, make transparent thecurrent assumptions about ‘proper’ use which arealready embedded in predictive models. Such aregime would no doubt be deeply unpopular.However, it stands to reason that policy gaps willpersist if the imaginary world of hero stories isfavoured over the real world of learning stories. Learn-ing stories reveal more about how the socio-technicalsystem of the built environment actually behaves,whereas hero stories describe how building physicistsand energy analysts wish it would work. In theabsence of a policy regime that formally recognizesthe socio-technical nature of building performance,the concept of a ‘caring story’ could help create thesocial potential to move in this direction (Janda, 2014).

ConclusionsThis paper has introduced concepts used in story tellingto examine the relationship between promised anddelivered results in energy-efficiency projects. Itargued that ‘hero stories’ abound, and that ‘learningstories’ are less often told. Real-world examples fromnew-build and retrofit projects of different scales andin different countries were used to show how learningstories are contained within and linked to hero stories.These examples call attention to the implicit narrativesembedded in research. The conventional emphasis onheroism can create conflict when the tellers (e.g.researchers) have to produce a hero story but mayhave data for other kinds of tales. By recognizing thatdifferent kinds of stories are important, the paper

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provides broader options for policy-makers, research-ers, implementers, and users to resolve conflicts and ten-sions between different kinds of stories.

Although hero stories abound, they have little place inmuch of a building’s actual lifespan, as shown inTable 1. If a building lasts for 30 years (the typicallength used for amortization in the US), the herostory is unlikely to be remembered beyond the firstfew years. The remaining time in a building’s lifecycle could be spent engaging in learning stories. Yetthe most time and effort is expended on the herostory, with scant attention devoted to other types oftales. And as the case studies indicated, the prevalenceof the hero story serves to frame what researchers andimplementers need to deliver to satisfy funding require-ments. If the gathered data do not immediately supportthe hero story, then researchers and implementers maybe concerned about reporting suboptimal results. Notwanting to risk perceived failure, their choice may beto deliver an overly optimistic interpretation of thedata, focusing on pieces that seem to succeed andignoring parts that seem to fail. The intention behindintroducing additional story types is to enable greaterflexibility for researchers, implementers and policy-makers. This flexibility may assist researchers inturning a hero story into a learning story, rather thana failure or horror story.

Learning stories are a necessary complement to herostories. Rhetoric and persuasion affect both the formu-lation and perceived outcome of policy. Policy gapsmay be created or reinforced by hero stories andcould be resolved (at least in part) by learning stories.A greater recognition of the importance of the learningstory is warranted, as well as the inevitable linkagesbetween the two story types as time unfolds in thereal world. Moreover, there are far more opportunitiesfor learning stories to be explored than are currentlyrecognized. For the field of building performance,there are almost endless opportunities to engage avariety of people to develop learning stories that havedirect relevance to them. Building performance is asituated learning opportunity that is currently underu-tilized. If these opportunities are to be grasped, thenthe use of hero stories will need to change, developand alter into a myriad of learning stories, perhaps aug-mented by caring stories to establish new social normsof ethical conduct. This would require a significantchange in the current energy policy regime, which cur-rently places greater emphasis on buildings as physicalsystems rather than socio-technical assemblages and,in so doing, favours imagination over reality and tech-nical potential over social potential.

Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

FundingInitial funding for this work was supported by the Phase II UKEnergy Research Demand Theme [grant number NE/G007748/1]. Revisions were supported under Working with Infrastructure,Creation of Knowledge, and Energy strategy Development(WICKED) [grant number EP/L024357/1].

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Endnotes1This paper is a revision of an earlier version presented at ECEEE,3–8 June 2013 (Janda & Topouzi, 2013).

2The first author is indebted to a facilitator of a 2007 WorldBusiness Council for Sustainable Development workshop forthis terminology. His name is not remembered, but his terminol-ogy is.

3Text for this section is taken largely from Janda and von Meier(2004)

4See http://buildingdashboard.net/oberlin/ajlc/#/oberlin/ajlc/.

5A ‘koan’ is an unanswerable question used in Zen teaching.An example of a koan is ‘what is the sound of one hand clapping?’

6Text for this section is taken largely from Janda (2012b). Thetitle quote is taken from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1.

7This statement has several interpretations, all of which areintended. These range from ‘What is promised in projects is not[cannot be] always delivered in entirety’ to ‘What is promisedcan be unrealistically optimistic’ to ‘What is promised is ofteninfluenced by the pressures of context and regime’.

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