• Synthesis

• Spillovers

• Identity flexibility and sustainable cooperation

Dutch municipalities, housing cooperatives and citizen- based initiatives have been training energy coaches to help citizens to improve the sustainability of their homes. These local volunteers offer an analysis of one’s home to provide information on how to make the home more sustainable and compare one’s consumption patterns with similar others. Despite that energy coaches are already widely used in many municipalities of the Netherlands, scientific evidence on the effectiveness of energy coaches and their approach is lacking. This paper aims to investigate the effectiveness of energy coaches and specifically focus on the social comparison aspect of the coaches to illustrate what seems to be working and what could be improved on. By collaborating with a housing cooperation that trains and provides the tools for energy coaches in 8 cities in the Netherlands among which Amsterdam and Haarlem, we were able to compare the electricity and gas consumption of home owners before the visit of a local energy coach and their consumption one year later. Given a limited data set, our results suggest that the visit of an energy coach can aid with lowering gas consumption of homeowners. Moreover, the social comparison administered by energy coaches seems to play a crucial role in the effectiveness of the energy coaches, and should be investigated further in future research.

Do energy coaches help in lowering gas and electricity consumption and to what degree does social comparison administered by energy coaches seems to play a crucial role in the effectiveness of the energy coaches?

• External data

• Interview
• Observation

No

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• English

01/01/2017

01/01/2019

Netherlands

01/01/2017

01/01/2019