The impact of combined water and energy consumption eco-feedback on conservation

• We examined the impact of water-only and water–energy feedback on consumption.
• We conducted an experiment in 18 buildings involving approximately 4700 occupants.
• Water-only feedback did not result in significant reduction in consumption.
• Water–energy feedback resulted in statistically significant reduction in consumption.

Demand for water is increasing with buildings accounting for the large majority of increased water consumption. As such, the development of methods to effectively promote water conservation in buildings has become an important focal area for research. Specifically, providing feedback of resource consumption to residential building occupants has been demonstrated to be effective in promoting conservation. Although water and energy are inextricably connected, there is a lack of research that investigates the bridge between water and energy in the representation of feedback to promote water conservation. In this paper, we investigate the impact of two different representations of water consumption eco-feedback on water conservation (i.e., gallons and associated estimated embodied energy). We collected consumption data in 18 residential dormitories, involving nearly 4700 occupants over a period of approximately six weeks. We found that representing water consumption simultaneously in terms of gallons and associated embodied energy led to a statistically significant reduction in water consumption, while representing water consumption only in terms of gallons did not. This has significant implications for the growing body of research at the nexus between water and energy consumption and can inform future eco-feedback system designs.