ISSUES IN COOPERATION BETWEEN DISCIPLINES
Socio-energy approach within the technical diagnosis and diagnosis of use of buildings.
Tristan MAARAWI (Research firm N-clique)
Valentin RIBOULE (Research firm N-clique)
Pascal YERRO (AlterEne society)
The socio-energy approach is the combination of sociology and energetic engineering study. It relies on crossing the technical energy diagnosis and the view of regular users and their perception of space use.
The socio-energy approach relies on a conviction: One should never dissociate the equipment efficiency and its modality of use when researching on water and energy consumption reduction and on greenhouse gases emissions.
Our team combines a multidisciplinary expertise in three major areas:
- Consumption diagnosis: study of the individual and collective behavior in a building through sociological surveys conducted in collaboration with the energetic engineers.
- Technical diagnosis: technical study about the energy consumption and dysfunction held by energetical engineers in cooperation with the sociologist.
- Coaching workshop: awareness sessions aiming at efficient consumption of water and energy.
The socio-energy approach is not only an addition of thermic, energetic and sociologic analysis: it is a real joint process between both fields (sociology and energetic engineering).
Our communication focuses on the involvement of sociologists in the socio-energy approach applied to a specific case (methods, results, relations between sociologists and engineers, limits and development paths of sociological energy approach).
During our intervention we use qualitative field investigations methods to observe and identify behaviors and perception about uses of water and energy in the building.
Thus, interviews are conducted with regular users of the building to obtain feedbacks on their own perception of dysfunctions, comfort and their related energy consumption.
In addition, some observation sessions are performed in the different spaces of the building in order to collect information. The objective is to generate data about the types of energetic dysfunctions and the type of energy consumption within the building. These data allow us to understand some dysfunction and to design a methodology to enhance our intervention in promoting “eco-gestures”.
Nevertheless, it is important to indicate the limits of our approach, which takes place in a specific time frame, to develop other perspectives.
KEY WORDS: methods, multidisciplinary approach, eco-gestures, low consumption buildings, diagnosis.
The energy issue and the scientific practices overhaul: « Radical interdisciplinary » between social and engineering sciences.
Géraldine MOLINA (IRSTV/CERMA)
Anne BERNABÉ (IRSTV/LEEHA)
Marjorie MUSY (IRSTV/CERMA)
For several years, the energy transition is becoming a major issue for the spatial planning and management at different scales (national, regional, local, micro-local, city, city blocks, buildings, etc.). This emerging issue induced strong professional re-compositions for the actors involved in spatial planning, but also for researchers who are interested in energy issues. « Hybrid object » (Latour 1999), the energy issue intensely poses for researchers the questions of disciplinary interfaces and of theirs relationships to professional groups engaged in urban planning. Recent collectives researches lead on energy and developed at different scales are based on new interfaces created between social sciences (sociology, anthropology, geography) and physical sciences or engineering sciences (the atmospheric physics, urban engineering or building energy management).
This contribution proposes to clarify the process of radical interdisciplinary. Those dynamics imply researchers from different scientific traditions and disciplinary families that are unaccustomed to interact together and whose objects, cultures and methods differ fundamentally. Our aim is to precise : What are the differences in the disciplinary tropisms and the scientific cultures that occur in these new interdisciplinary consortia? What are comfort zones and blind spots of these disciplinary skills? What are the friction points in terms of methodological innovation generated by the meeting of these different scientific worlds around the issues of energy? How the knowledge, tools and methods of these researchers are articulated? And finally, what is the posture adopted by these two scientists entities when conducting research with professionals? This contribution offers a cross-analysis of methods of science production based on feedbacks of several collaborative researches on the energy issue involving collaboration between social sciences and physical sciences or engineering sciences.
KEY WORDS: scientific practices, interdisciplinary dynamics, working methods, methodology, disciplinary identity.
A socio-geographic approach for understanding the link between urban practices and energy practices.
Léa THONAT (GDF SUEZ/GRIGEN)
In recent years, the research on energy practices in housing showed more consumers profiles, dependent on the age, standard of living, housing type, etc. An important lesson : the pursuit of comfort associated with a view to optimizing costs , greatly explains the practices. Beyond these criteria, CRIGEN sociologists have sought to test the interaction between urban practices, perceptions of the direct environment of the building on the level of investment from its housing as well as its energy practices.
The proposed Communication objects to demonstrate the relevance of socio-geographical analysis in order to refine the understanding of the energy practices within the housing. We mean by socio-geographic approach, adaptation of the Sociotope method developed in 2002 by Alexander Stähle. The latter is a tool for visualization and cartographic translation of perceptions and representations of the users of urban spaces considered (park , streets, outdoor equipment …). Originally designed in Stockholm, this method is to identify and analyze the social and/or cultural value of different spaces through qualitative surveys of residents. This communication aims to demonstrate how to better understand the practices at the heart of housing. In other words, we show how this approach allows to examine socio-geographical links between urban practices and energy practices.
At first, we present this methodology through an application within a consortium created around the a Garden City (Gerland – Lyon). After the evaluation of the socio-geographical analysis, strengths and room for improvement , we discuss some significant examples to understand the links between energy and urban practices.
KEY WORDS: socio-geographical approach , urban practices , energy practices , residents, users.
The role of sociology within an interdisciplinary smart grid project.
Grégoire WALLENBORN (Free University of Brussels/Center for Studies on Sustainable Development)
Georgia GAYE (Free University of Brussels/Center for Studies on Sustainable Development)
We have been working as sociologists on a research project on user flexibility and smart grid in Belgium, in which participated engineers, economists and companies. As social scientists we are sometimes at odd with this group that is grounded in different epistemic interests. This paper is a reflexive attempt at understanding how ideas and data circulate between different disciplines and what we can do as social scientists to do justice to our field observations. It is based on a double fieldwork. First, we have developed a theoretical framework based on practice theory, usage sociology and STS, and interviewed twice 29 users of heat pumps. Second, we have observed and interviewed our research partners in order to understand how they perceive our contribution to the common project.
We start with the analysis of the way concepts such as acceptance, resistance, engagement, appropriation, delegation, comfort, flexibility are used in the different disciplines (engineering, economics, sociology). We show which explicit and implicit assumptions about users’ capabilities frame the disciplinary ontologies. Users are patently absent from engineer’s and economist’s models, although they constitute obviously an important part of the smart grid development. We observe that environmental and collective considerations are usually lacking in current smart grid development because they do not belong to the engineer’s or economist’s ontology.
In order to examine how the dialogue between disciplines happens, we expand on the concepts of “boundary object” (Star & Griesemer 1989) and “obligation and requirement” (Stengers 2010) and analyse how ideas and data are translated and articulated between the disciplines. For instance, sociology requires us to pass on faithfully our fieldwork observations. But our obligation is also to provide partners with manageable information. The construction of user “profiles”, or “personas”, is then a way to establish boundary objects between distinct research practices. This is done however at the cost of reducing observations to manipulable entities.
We conclude with provisional reflexions about how to develop meeting points between disciplines that aim at performing sociotechnical devices, such as those met in smart grids.
KEY WORDS: smart grid, user, practice theory, STS, interdisciplinarity.
INQUIRIES INTO ENERGY PRACTICES, METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH(ES)
Thermal comfort and refurbished social housing in Mediterranean area.
Cécile BATIER (Montpellier 2 University/LMGC ; ENSAM/LIFAM)
Franck CEVAËR (Montpellier 2 University /LMGC)
Jean-François DUBÉ (Montpellier 2 University /LMGC)
Vinicius RADUCANU (ENSAM/LIFAM)
The french Plan of Energy Renovation of Housing (PREH) intends to renovate 500 000 housings a year to 2017. In many cases, only an external thermal insulation is installed on the facade to reduce energy consumption in winter. In Mediterranean areas, it raises the question of summer comfort. It is difficult to dissipate the accumulated heat if the occupant doesn’t act on his environment. This, coupled with heat waves, can be fatal to vulnerable persons
The aim of this study is to analyse thermal conditions of occupied Mediterranean social housings and to establish a specific predictive behavioral model of the inhabitants, in order to improve the quality of the architectural design in further refurbishing operations. Two residences built in 1969 in Vauvert (Gard) are investigated. Initially, built in the same way, they were similarly renovated (VMC, boiler, windows). On the facade of one of them, an external thermal insulation has been recently installed. The analysis of the coupling between the real thermal conditions, the actual human behavior and energy consumption is based on an extensive, year-round survey and an in-situ instrumentation in the living room of 13 apartments. This will lead to a finer fitting of the dynamic thermal simulation parameters. Simulations help to understand the comfort impact and the energy consumption of the thermal refurbishment in a Mediterranean climate.
In winter, that analysis confirms the interest of an external thermal insulation to improve comfort and to decrease energy consumptions. In summer, this trend is not confirmed. The human behavior is important to protect himself from the summer discomfort. The aim is to propose architectural and behavioural changes to improve thermal comfort and to decrease energy consumption in Mediterranean social housing to refurbish.
KEY WORDS: thermal comfort, refurbishment, energy-efficient building, social housing, human behavior.
The energy transition through the prism of “logics of action”: diversity and dynamics of appropriation.
Cécile CARON (EDF R& D – GRETS)
In the field of the management of the electricity demand, studies and pilot projects in the residential sector conduits throughout the world over dynamic tariffing, the piloting of the uses or the devices of information (Darby, 2006; Faruqui, 2010) borrow very largely from the experimental step. They mainly seek to measure in real situation and controlled near a whole of households the effects, like their maintenance in time, of these devices on the load diagram. The robustness of the results obtained is reported to the representativeness of the panels and reference groups (Fisher, 2008). Nevertheless, since the investigations (1927-1939) led to the Company Western, one measures that the engagement of the participants is partly modelled by the devices of follow-up and observation produced by the experimental framework (Roethlisberger & Dickson, 1939). A structural tension thus crosses the control of the experiments which seek in same time to neutralize the effect “hawthorne” and the forms of reflexivity induced by the experimental mode to evaluate the effectiveness of the devices proposed (Teil, Muniesa, 2006) and to be pressed on the devices stylistics suitable for the experimental mode which encourages the participants to be recipients of the results (Lanham, 2006) in order to accompany the incentives with the “behavioral change”.
We propose, through a qualitative work of investigation realized near the experimentative hearths in the residential sector and of the carriers of project of an experimentation carried out on the territory of Large Lyon, the project “Smart Electric Lyon”, to see how this tension and uncertainties which it generates model the appropriation of the various tested devices.
The project Smart Electric Lyon joins together with the support of the public authorities a consortium of 20 actors, industrialists of the electric die and academics, on the territory of large Lyon, to develop, try out and evaluate solutions tariff, of information and piloting, compatible with meter Linky the electricity, seeking at the same time to support the control of the consumption of electricity and the flexibility of the request at the time of the winter peaks. It appears that the experimental device constitutes a true “trajectory” which binds the events which enamel of them the course with all the organization of work deployed to follow it (Strauss, 1985, transl. france 1991). Here, the key stages of the experimental process, (recruitment of the participating hearths, installation of the material of obliteration in residence, indication of the days of point, meeting of the participants, reception of the invoices and assessment of consumption) go, via the devices and professionals or the collectives implied in their bearing to contribute to forge the direction and the methods of appropriation of the tested devices: setting in front of the tariff and of the financial profits at the time of recruitment, focusing on obliteration after the installation of the material of piloting, reinforcement of the participative design after the “evening of the pioneers”. These moments of focusing question, from the point of view of the participants, the complementarity of the three devices (tariff, of information, of piloting), of which the use ends up being stabilized in practices losing original inciting dynamics. The experimental mode puts not only to the test the innovation in becoming, but it is also put to the test by multiple appropriations.
KEY WORDS: experimentation, demonstrator project, smart grids, innovation, consumption of energy. span>
Survey methods in shopping areas: the flow of knowledge as a construct of the energy efficiency.
Céline DROZD (ENSA Nantes/CERMA)
Kévin MAHÉ (ENSA Nantes/CERMA)
Ignacio REQUENA-RUIZ (ENSA Nantes/CERMA)
Daniel SIRET (ENSA Nantes/CERMA)
Based on the skills of the customers of DIY centres and material retailers to plan or modify their houses, we assume that they constitute a relevant sample to approach the question of housing energy consumption. DIY centres, moreover, seem to be essential places to share knowledge and to construct the users’ expertise regarding to the stores’ products. Given that ethnographic surveys in shopping areas are commonly focused on either consumers’ behavior or internal store stakeholders’ practices, we propose two innovative methods aiming to study the information flow on energy efficiency.
In a first research we study how inhabitants interpret and understand technical representations of daylight and lighting analysis used for the early design stages. To do so, we develop a campaign of customer surveys in a DIY centre in order to ask them about different images resulting from a single house lighting simulation. In a second research , we conduct several surveys in DIY centres and material retailers’ departments that offer products related to buildings’ energy consumption. Through a method of passive observation, our aim is to analyze energy advice scenes to discern the exchange modalities between both inhabitant and seller. We seek to understand the technical basis and the practical forms that lead the offer of advice and the support on energy efficiency for the inhabitants.
This paper will present the implementation of two methods of surveys on energy efficiency in shopping areas. In particular, we will pay special attention to how the information is exchanged between professionals and inhabitants as well as how it is understood and interpreted by them. The main issue is the construction of the inhabitants’ expertise in order to improve housing energy efficiency.
KEY WORDS: energy efficiency, DIY centres, material retailers, inhabitant’s expertise, energy advice.
The territorial diagnostic. A methodological tool to territorialize the Corporative Social Responsibility in the Mexican oil industry.
Armando GARCIA CHIANG (Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana/Unidad Iztapalapa)
Since the year 2012, a new type of contract has been bid on: ” Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX) Integrated Contracts for Exploration and Production have led to the arrival of new actors in the Mexican oil market.
In fulfillment of the requirements of the contracts, the new operators must apply 1% of their annual budget to social development, and they have to establish Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) plans, which can be applied during the life of the contracts (25 to 30 years).
These plans must contain proposals for concrete initiatives which could contribute to sustainable development in the territories where the oil companies operate.
In this context, a group of researchers of the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Unit Iztapalapa (UAMI), in the frame of a research project named Social and Environmental Aspects of the Oil Industry, developed a methodology to create proposals of concrete social responsibility initiatives prone to encourage the economic and social development of the population who lives in 7 different contractual areas (2 in the southern state of Tabasco, 3 in the state of Veracruz, another one in Tamaulipas and the last one offshore, fact that implicated the creation of an area of influence).
This methodology includes the establishment of a social and economic baseline, the creation of a Corporate Social Responsibility Plan and, most importantly, a set of initiatives of concrete social responsibility actions adapted to the territory, in other words, territorial development actions that could come to be an alternative for sustainable local development.
This paper describes the aforementioned methodology; it present the results of the “Social and Environmental Aspects of the Oil Industry” research project, and it tries to answer whether Corporate Social Responsibility in the Mexican Oil Industry could become a real financial contributor to development.
KEY WORDS: oil industry, Mexico, Corporative Social Responsibility, methodology, territorial diagnostic.
Reflection on the part of the sociology of energy in building sector.
Aurélie TRICOIRE ( Paris-EST University / CSTB)
Benjamin HAAS(Université Paris-EST/ CSTB)
In the building sector, decreasing energy consumption recently became a strong objective for sustainable development. The French answer to this issue is the implementation of increasingly demanding regulations on building thermic performance. To make sure that buildings match regulation objectives, consumption simulations are performed during the designing step. These simulations include the five standard services (space heating, space cooling, ventilation, domestic hot water and lighting) assessed through a standard calculation defined by decree. But a difference remains between simulation and measurement. A first explanation for that is the standard calculations perimeter which do not include energy consumptions related to occupant (extra heating, household electrical goods, etc.). Indeed these “other uses” represent an increasing percentage of buildings’ consumption as global energetic performances recently improve. Following this argument, one can conclude that reducing the difference between theoretical and real consumptions and doing so decreasing building energy consumption can only be achieved through focusing on occupant by better integrating him/her to simulation and by promoting behavioral changes.
Investigating professional practices, another explanation arises. Indeed, simulation results are characterized by a sizeable uncertainty mainly related to approximations on theoretical material’s and equipment’s performance rather than on the accuracy of occupation scenarios directly associated with users. Considering now real consumption, it appears that quality both in building works and exploitation can also be noticeably improved. For instance, improvement can be real in reducing the buildings’ residual energetic consumption, i.e. the energy consumed by the building even when empty.
But currently, the main expectations of the building actors from sociology concern occupants’ behavioral changes. It is about finding ways (awareness, public policies instruments, economic profit-sharing, etc.) to make occupants behave accordingly to the consumption reduction objectives, whatever the real impact. The hypothesis is that these behavioral changes will impact consumption. But all the research projects only dedicated to behavioral changes conclude, more or less explicitly, to the failure of such approaches. Indeed, the expected savings represent utmost 5 to 10% of the overall consumption and moreover they last a short time. Of course, awareness campaigns are useful, as are useful the related researches. But they are no efficient answer to society requirement to reduce building energy consumption. A huge amount of energy savings seems to be certain by working on professional and technical implementation, objects of study on which sociology definitively has strong and structuring contributions to deliver.
KEY WORDS: sociological reflexivity, occupant, energy, use, building.
Combining Economics and Social Psychology to improve preferences appraisal and reduce statement effects – A web survey of French citizens’ willingness to reduce CO2 emissions.
Dorian LITVINE( ISEA Projects ; University of Montpellier 1/CREDEN)
Henrik ANDERSSON (Toulouse School of Economics /LERNA, UT1, CNRS)
Developing reliable methods to assess individual’s preferences for, and values of, environmental amenities are important for policy making. In the context of climate change mitigation, the importance of individual commitments is highlighted by recent difficulties in obtaining international agreement on government policy, as well as by criticisms against the ecological efficiency of emission caps. Understanding citizens’ disposition to reducing voluntary carbon emissions and the determinants of this is important. Stated preference methods such as Contingent Valuation (CV) have been applied to explore citizens’ value for climate mitigation, but statement biases and precise appraisal of preferences are important concerns.
Our study investigates these issues by analyzing the French householders’ disposition to reduce CO2 emissions by purchasing and withdrawing carbon allowances (n=1730). Our focus is to determine how to elicit respondents’ value for such a service using a web-based stated preferences survey (i.e. the CV), mitigating the problem related to the hypothetical nature of the survey by using knowledge and methods from economics and social psychology.
We adjust for the impact of potential statement bias and statement/behavior discrepancy on estimates of valuation. To do so, we explore the demand by combining the willingness to pay (WTP) with more subjective dependant variables, integrated into an action model of psychological variables such as beliefs, attitudes, moral norms, behavioral intention and general acceptance to pay. Additionally, respondents’ reported intention to find information is compared to their effective effort during questionnaire process (overt behavior). We combine this criterion with the level of consistency between individual’s answers to latent environmental variables (attitudes, concern, etc.) and respondents’ reported regular ecological actions.
By interacting different levels of individual psychology, and by applying it within an interactive web-survey environment, our study proposes to more accurately measure individual preferences, and reduce or adjust the impact of statement biases on the estimations. This paper not only has a methodological contribution but also is of policy relevance. A better explanation of attitudes and preferences leads to answers that we consider reflect better respondents’ true value, which can be important for policy purposes. The measures of the citizens’ attitudes and intention to voluntary reduce CO2 emissions, being often indirect and not precise, are important to understand the role of individual commitment into climate mitigation policies. This survey suggests that the citizens’ intervention on the European Emission Trading Scheme is of high interest for social well-being.
KEY WORDS: stated preferences methods, demand evaluation, statement bias, social psychology, climate mitigation.
METHODS FOR ACCOMPANIMENT
Lighting practices of users in terms of energy consumption in an innovative by setting up a system co-design technology context: the case of Ecofamilies project.
Franck DEBOS ( Nice Sophia Antipolis University-IUT /I3M)
The purpose of this paper is to show how a research centered on an iterative negotiation allows greater suitability of a digital device and managerial vision of their designers with user expectations. These comments will be illustrated by the presentation of Ecofamilies project was to prototype and test, through a process of co-design, an innovative technology solution to encourage responsible environmental behavior among families in terms of energy expenditure. In addition to the participatory design workshops that are at the center of the latter was reinforced by:
- An online survey to establish a detailed profile of volunteer families.
- A blog creates a space of interaction between families and the project team.
- A documentary film, putting into perspective the different postures of the experimental families and allowing continuity in trade.
The main purpose of this approach to identify a typology of families based on their experimentation eco responsible involvement and techie but also develop a socio-technical device combining a co-design approach to digital tools sensitivity goal.
It is for actors to engage in a process of renewal of their uses, learn from each other, its own practices and those from the technology solution chosen.
KEY WORDS: Digital Device, Co-design, eco responsibility, energy expenditure, Users.
Réhabilitation logements sociaux en site occupé : démarche projet pour un résultat alliant satisfaction locataires et performance énergétique.
Victor DE CARVALHO (RCP design Global)
Cécile JOLAS (Université La Rochelle / plateforme TIPEE)
En collaboration avec l’Université de La Rochelle (Plateforme TIPEE), l’agence RCP design global, dans le cadre de son activité de concepteur, accompagne le projet RUPELLA-REHA dans une approche anthropocentrée, au service de l’exploitant et en collaboration avec un consortium d’industriels pour les réhabilitations de 3 bâtiments sociaux rochelais (1954 / 1966 / 1974) prenant en considération les habitants dans un objectif de performances énergétiques et de satisfaction pérenne.
Dans le cadre de ce projet collaboratif, l’agence a étudié la perception des locataires en termes de confort et d’attentes pour les futurs travaux afin de les retranscrire en préconisations de conception. L’intervention de l’agence a également pour mission d’expliquer les pistes de travail, d’accompagner les utilisateurs tout au long du projet, de sensibiliser aux solutions techniques envisagées et d’aider le consortium dans ses choix techniques et budgétaires. Cette étude participe à la satisfaction générale et à l’acceptation des travaux par les occupants.
MOTS CLÉS : perception, réhabilitation énergétique, occupant, préconisations, usage.
« BBC for all » – a collaborative approach to design efficient buildings.
Marika FRENETTE ( Wigwam Conseil engineering consulting firm)
Delphine SAINT-QUENTIN (Wigwam Conseil engineering consulting firm)
Aware of the need to consider the energy factor in its strategies of social and environmental development, Rennes Métropole has initiated in 2009 the project “BBC pour tous.” The aim is to support the generalization of buildings with low energy consumption (BBC), balancing performance, cost and architectural quality, not to forget the objective of solidarity and household solvency.
The strategy is based on the observation that more than technical solutions, the methods could help us to re-examine the generalization of this standard. It deals with introducing new ways of working between the stakeholders in the construction chain, based on the principle of “integrated design process”.
The prevailing approach today is based on a segmentation of the construction chain, which leads to a stacking of constraints and costs. In contrast, a stronger integration inside the teams from the start to the end of the project (community developer, planner, project management, architect, construction firm, engineers and users) promotes the inclusion of upstream energy issues, as well as cost control while aiming quality.
In this context Wigwam applied the method of Integrated Design Process on 9 projects by leading and facilitating design workshops. The prize “Innovative Project” Fimbacte 2010 was awarded to this project.
KEY WORDS: integrated design, collaborative workshops, collective intelligence, energy performance, innovation.
Occupants accompaniment of 5 efficient buildings.
Ludovic GICQUEL (Vie to B Society)
This experience takes place within the european project CABEE. Vie to B had to lead the efficient building use accompaniment of 5 public buildings (school, administration, social housing, medical house), in order to lower the energy consumption. After 2 days of training / workshop on change and accompaniment, 25 meetings and workshop have been done in 2014. This experience inspired us on several subjects / domains :
Methodology : advantages to be two (social & technical) to perform the accompaniment; meetings animation mode (balanced, dynamic) and places are very important.
Bottom-up communication : advantages of stake holders participation about building use; focus on 2 workshops.
What’s the problem ? Impossibility to evaluate if real energetic consumption are ok or not, (theoretical consumption, problem of measures). Is the building occupant responsible of high consumption ? Technical, political and organizational problems !
Accompaniment result : Mirror effect of the diagnostic : better conscience of use problems, better understanding, new operational way of working on this subject. Replication potential.
Necessary changes : Make the “expert of use” participate during building conception. Better organize the “building-occupant” relation during the building reception. Be helped to perform the occupants accompaniment.
New look on building-occupant relation : Building should be much more ergonomic ! It’s necessary to live, experiment, to build a new relation with the building.
KEY WORDS: occupants accompaniment, bottom-up communication, expert of use.
Home energy retrofits in Region Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur : from the experimentation Rénover + to the call for interest of ADEME of the creation of local EE platforms.
Viviane HAMON (Viviane Hamon Conseil)
During the 1rst international days of the sociology of energy, our communication focused on the presentation of an experimentation to come of two home energy retrofitting platforms in region PACA (Rénover + à Fréjus and Rénover + en Pays dignois : http://www.renover-plus-a-frejus.energissime.fr/). This experimentation, which lasted two years, is presently coming to an end, while ADEME has just launched a call for interest for the generalization of such platforms.
The evaluation of those two local experimentations allows to assess the role of local authorities, and of their public partners, in the field-coordination aiming at boosting the market (households’ demand) and the private sector (artisans’ offers).
Capitalizing on this evaluation, and while eleven territories have declared their interest in PACA, the Region, ADEME and DREAL have developed a doctrine regarding the home energy retrofitting platforms which differs quite drastically from the underlying paradigm of the national call for interest which is based on “a personalized neutral independent accompaniment of households”.
The position which has been taken in PACA proposes : a positioning based mainly on “embedded works” with an additional focus on energy efficiency ; the activation of the market involving all the public and private actors in a position to convince households to take action and to prescribe energy efficiency ; a segmented approach of the market (households and artisans) inducing a differentiation strategy with services offers adapted to each target ; a necessary field coordination based on human resources rather than more money incentives ; a communication avoiding messages based on guilt and/or money savings.
On this basis, a methodological framework has been proposed to the candidates to help them develop their detailed project. Because they are strongly encouraged to reach financial autonomy, the candidate territories must assess the existence of a market, its interest for the services which are offered and its willing to pay for them (households, artisans and other partners). Thus, this methodological framework is based on the principles of strategic and operational marketing (targeting, positioning, services offer, business plan), which represents a totally new approach for local authorities which are used to shape their public policies according to an offer rather than demand point of view.
The support, which will be given to the candidates, aims at favourizing this necessary cultural (r)-evolution and to plan the actions which may be mutualised at a regional level, while enabling each territory to shape its own project according to local characteristics.
KEY WORDS: energy retrofits, retrofits platforms, demand, artisans, public policies.
A revolution in the world of energy experts.
Pascal LENORMAND (Bureau d’études collaboratif Incub’)
Marion BOURGET (Bureau d’études collaboratif Incub’)
Fabien MORE (Bureau d’études collaboratif Incub’)
Among the numerous actors in the building’s industry, engineers in energetics have traditionally funded their practice on a series of principles or hypothesis which the massive development of high performance buildings question today. Among these grounding elements, we can mention :
- The exclusion of the typical human uncertainty from calculation processes ;
- The detachment from the building considered as a technical object, in a typical newtonian scientific approach ;
- A careful attention to the technical details, often leaving the « big picture » aside.
- The belief in a « perfectly achieved » building at the end of the construction process.
These elements, among others, witness in fact a real difficulty in introducing the living reality of the world into technical practices.
This is especially the case :
- During conception phases, during which the integration of the human factor (non-typical uses, probable drifts, etc.) should require the designer to project himself, as a human being, into the designed building ;
- During the first years of use, during which life takes back its rights on a technical object, which was until now only theoretical. Reaching a real performance require peculiar capacities to listen to the user’s feedback. These capacities are still uncommon, if not unthought.
Incub’, as a collaborative design office specialized on energy soberness and efficiency, has constantly adjusted its practices, through the research of a more humanistic expertise, center on the human being’s richness. This renewed practice is altogether grounded on a very acute technical expertise, a critical and refreshing approach about calculation tools and on more unusual elements in the frame of a design office (training in non violent communication, in participatory governance, techniques from the entertainment industry, etc.). We systematically prefer low-tech solutions, helping each user to re-appropriate its environment, in opposition to high-tech approaches, extolling soberness through the use of digital pads.
This more humanistic version of the energetic designer’s art both nourishes the architect’s work in a constructive way, and opens the door to a real energetic performance for nowadays’s building, a performance loaded with sense.
KEY WORDS: energy expert, thermic, humanism.
The co-owners facing the challenge of the energy transition.
Pierre OLIVIER (Consulting firm COPRO+)
Cécile BARNASSON ( Consulting firm COPRO+)
Among the potential sources of energy savings, the building is one of the easiest areas to act on. However, in the French private condominium housing sector, the results are not up to the levels of the tremendous efforts of the public authority: a cocktail of massive subsidies and “Grenelle“ constraints, inefficient by lack of ”condo-compatibility”.
Our dual expertise of field practitioners and humanities and social sciences researchers leads us to identify the causes of this foreseeable failure and to suggest solutions.
In fact, prior to a building, a condominium is a societal phenomenon. This is an atypical structure in which the only link between the partners is the ownership of an apartment at the same address. Their situations and goals are very different. In this governance system where individual rights prevail over the collective ones, co-owners are supposed to decide investments together, while the investment concept does not exist in condominium accounting rules. The energy transition is therefore trapped as it requires major building works for which the return on investment cycle far exceeds that of the average duration of condos ownership. Condominiums suffer a structural inertia.
We attempt to analyze this situation in details and to present our researches aiming to boost the sector, facilitating collective decisions:
- A legal transition far beyond the first steps of the ALUR law
- A change in the co-owners behavior towards a common patrimony concept and its requirements, through giving relevant information understandable by every family of actors.
KEY WORDS: condominium, governance, patrimony, societal, condo-compatibility.