Abstract
The proliferation of residential building energy consumption and CO2 emissions has led many countries to develop buildings under the green rating systems umbrella. Many such buildings, however, fail to meet their designed energy performance, which is possibly attributable to occupant behaviour and unforeseen building usages. The research problem lies in the fact that occupant environmental behaviour is a complex socio-cultural-technical issue that needs to be addressed to achieve the desired energy savings. This study is novel as it investigates complex interrelationships between many observed and unobserved variables using data from four LEED-certified multi-residential buildings in the United Arab Emirates. Structural Equation Modelling was used to analyse the impact of three unobserved/latent variables: occupant environmental Attitude, Knowledge and Behaviour (AKB) with respect to occupant energy consumption, based on measured/observed variables. Although our Goodness-of-Fit values indicated that we achieved a good model fit, the interrelationship between Knowledge and Behaviour (p = 0.557) and between Attitude and Behaviour (p = 0.931) was insignificant, as the p-values > 0.05. The key study outcomes were: (i) providing information alone could not motivate people towards environmentally friendly behaviour; (ii) even changes in their attitude, belief and lifestyle were not significantly related to their behaviour, as the interrelationships among occupant environmental AKB were not significant; and (iii) knowledge and attitude change should be combined with other motivational factors to trigger environmentally friendly actions and influence behaviour.
Highlights
Buildings constitute a very high percentage of energy consumption compared to other sectors of the economy
Evidence exists [4,5] in support of the fact that by improving occupant behaviour, energy consumption can be reduced by 8–15% in all types of buildings, resulting in lower carbon emissions
We introduce a novel way of using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM)
Summary
Buildings constitute a very high percentage of energy consumption compared to other sectors of the economy. In comparison with the most frugal home, where solar electricity generation was more than the consumption, the highest-consuming solar home used almost twice as much electricity as the average energy use of non-solar homes These studies suggest that motivating changes to occupant behaviour could be a powerful measure for achieving energy reductions, especially in more efficient homes with renewable energy features. One of the key common factors is that the buildings may not be operated properly in cases where a knowledge gap exists with respect to energy between the industry professionals, the building operators, and the occupants In addition to these considerations, occupants perform various actions to satisfy their needs in buildings; actions which can negatively affect building energy consumption, because those occupants do not always behave in an environmentally friendly manner to achieve the energy-saving potential of their buildings [22]. The paper is structured as follows: Section 2 provides background and context on the challenges associated with energy conservation for the chosen location, Section 3 describes the research methodology, the SEM technique used and the development and enhancement of the measurement and structural models, Section 4 describes the questionnaire and experimental results, Section 5 discusses the results and Section 6 draws the conclusions
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