Review: BECC 2013

18.11. - 20.11.2013, Sacramento, USA

S3C at the Behavior, Energy and Climate Change Conference 2013

Consortium member Pieter Valkering (VITO) represented S3C at the Behavior, Energy and Climate Change (BECC) Conference 2013 in Sacramento (USA). The event focused on understanding behaviour and decision-making with respect to energy usage, greenhouse gas emissions, climate change, and sustainability. It brought together a range of academics, practitioners, and policy-makers from a variety of fields engaged in energy and climate efforts in order to provide the latest and most relevant behavioural research, best practices, and methodologies. Ultimately, it sought to answer this question: How can we most effectively encourage low-carbon behaviour? 

BECC 2013 indeed featured many interesting presentations on promoting sustainable behaviour, often of applied character, including approaches from behavioural economics to sociology, social-psychology and marketing. Presentations addressed a variety of S3C relevant insights, for example regarding the drivers of pro-environmental behaviour and the importance of good marketing – e.g. that the ‘message’ programs carry out resonates with the motivations and values of the target group. Also, discussions were raised, for example on whether social comparison is indeed more effective for achieving savings than individual feedback alone. A number of presentations stimulated out of the box thinking, for example on the use of virtual reality to effectively change consumer behaviours. Finally, a number of US Smart Grid case studies were presented that may be further used for comparison with case study insights emerging from S3C.

To see the agenda of the event, click here or visit the conference homepage.

© THE S3C CONSORTIUM 2013