Brian Southwell

Dr. Brian Southwell
Behavior change to reduce home energy use: Ideas to encourage multisector collaboration

Friday, September 23 | 3:30 - 4:30
Belk Library Lecture Hall Room 114
FREE and open to the public

This talk will focus on specific ideas on how to change individual behavior related to home energy use, which is a function of not only attitudes, but also social norms, specific skill knowledge, and available technology and tools, and will appeal to anyone interested in curbing residential energy use through creative communication-based interventions. 

Although we could save resources if homeowners used less energy, simply telling people to reduce their energy use is not likely to be effective. We need innovations in the ways we approach people and also in the ways that various sectors of professionals work together to intervene and work with homeowners. Dr. Brian Southwell, director of the Science in the Public Sphere Program at RTI International in Research Triangle Park, will join us and discuss a recent summit held at Duke University that brought together people from research institutions, county sustainability offices, government agencies, consultant organizations, architecture firms, building contractors, and real estate agencies—sectors of professionals and practitioners who do not often converse.

Southwell also will take questions and comments from Appalachian State community members interested in developing new collaborations related to any aspect of public understanding of energy and the environment.

*Attendance will be kept for faculty offering extra credit for students.*

Parking for community members is at Rivers Street Parking Deck, see staff at event for free visitor parking permit to use when exiting the deck.

Innovations in Home Energy Use

Brian G. Southwell directs the Science in the Public Sphere program in the Center for Communication Science at RTI International and holds faculty appointments at Duke University and at UNC-Chapel Hill. At Duke, he advised Project LIT HoMES (Leveraging Individual Transitions into Homeownership to Motivate Energy Savings), which inspired his new book. He is author of Social Networks and Popular Understanding of Science and Health: Sharing Disparities and hosts The Measure of Everyday Life on WNCU.

For more information on Brian and his new book, Innovations in Home Energy Use: A Sourcebook for Behavior Change, click here.

The Sustainable Energy Speaker Series is sponsored by Appalachian Energy Center and the Department of Sustainable Technology and the Built Environment.

Brian Southwell
Published: Sep 8, 2016 12:00am

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