I have been doing some thinking over the holidays about our work on
energy monitoring and feedback and where we might take it in the future
that I thought I’d share with you. My thinking was influenced on the one
hand by the findings from our study, and in particular some of the
interviews I conducted and transcribed, and on the other hand by related
work in the Orchid project, for example agentSwitch and the provenance
discussions. For those of you that were present at the meeting in London
last Wednesday to discuss provenance in Orchid this will be familiar.
What became evident to me from the interviews is that comparisons and
feedback are probably most meaningful on an appliance-level rather than
household level, for obvious reasons. A feedback service focused on that
level could offer comparisons for example of my fridge with the
neighbours’ fridge(s), could provide running costs and comparisons over
time, and could estimate for example the return-on-investment in a new,
energy efficient fridge. This is the obvious Electric20-2.0 and I had
conversations with quite a few of you about this and most of you
probably agree this would be useful.
However, what’s missing from this is the consideration of whether
replacing the appliance with a more efficient one is actually
sustainable. Besides the cost of electricity to run the fridge, what are
the actual (environmental and monetary) costs associated with the
manufacture, transport, upkeep and recycling of the new product? This is
the environmental argument: probably it’s more ‘environmentally
friendly’ to run your old car until it falls apart despite emitting more
CO2 than to replace it with a new, low-emission car because of the cost
related to its manufacturing.
Doing some research, I came across Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), “a
technique to assess environmental impacts associated with all the stages
of a
product’s life from-cradle-to-grave (i.e., from raw material extraction
through materials processing, manufacture, distribution, use, repair and
maintenance, and disposal or recycling).”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_Cycle_Assessment). Two ISO standards
also define the four phases in which LCA is to be carried out – it
appears LCA is a well-defined practical method, not just some lofty
idealistic theory.
There are interesting resources available on Life Cycle Assessment on
the web, for example this blog (http://www.life-cycle.org/) provides
pointers to a lot of them that I looked at, for example
- resources and a
list of tools compiled by the European Commission
(http://lca.jrc.ec.europa.eu/lcainfohub/directory.vm), - a collection of
LCA studies available on the web (http://www.seeds4green.net/), - a
company turning the LCA of their paper production into a marketing tool
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=KrJUpSiCOoU), - and Enrico pointed me to sourcemap (http://www.sourcemap.com), a
crowd-sourcing platform visualizing ‘where things come from’.
For those interested in provenance, in my opinion these kinds of
life-cycle assessments present the ‘mother of all things provenance’. To
trace the provenance of all the bits and the energy needed to make a
complicated modern product is no simple feat. I have seen pages upon
pages of tables that describe the Inventory Analysis (one step in the
process of LCA, essentially a table of ‘ingredients’). It would be quite a challenge to compile the data necessary for a
life-cycle analysis, but perhaps this is where crowd sourcing could be
very useful?
Taking on the holistic perspective purported by LCA, the answer to when
it does really
make sense to replace my inefficient fridge/freezer/oven/tumble dryer
becomes a lot more challenging to answer (from an environmental
cost-benefit analysis). In HCI, I have not come across a system/study
that combines consumer feedback of energy use with this kind of
life-cycle analysis. This is where we could perhaps contribute novelty
to the field, and at the same time respond to the critique that
eco-feedback is not enough to make a difference. I personally would
really like to be able to trace this kind of ‘provenance graph’ to
inform my choice as a consumer, and I would like to use tools that
support me in making this kind of cost-benefit analysis.
Is this space worth considering more in energy/sustainability-related
projects in Horizon or Orchid? I would be keen to hear your opinion,
questions and comments.
Update on 10 Jan:
Rob Shipman from Horizon pointed me to an interesting resource (similar to the tools Alex mentions in his comment), see quote below.
“It
may be worth taking a look (if you haven’t already) at the Carbon Trust
Footprinting Company who have developed an Excel based tool called
Footprint Expert with the aim of supporting the calculation of
product/service carbon footprints:http://www.footprintexpert.com/Pages/default.aspx
The
Carbon Trust were instrumental in the development of the PAS 2050
methodology that has now been used fairly widely to calculate
standardised product carbon footprints. The Footprint Expert tool
supports the calculation of PCF’s that adhere to this methodology.
Importantly, they have also put a lot of work in to the creation of a
PAS 2050 compatible database to underpin it.There
are also two other international standards that are under development.
The WRI/WBCSD GHG Protocol Product Standard, which has now been released
and the ISO 14067 standard that I believe is still under development.”