Towards Household Sustainability in Sydney? Impacts of Two Sustainable Lifestyle Workshop Programs on Water Consumption in Existing Homes

Abstract

AbstractResidential water consumption accounts for approximately 70 per cent of Sydney's water consumption. The capacity of households to reduce water consumption is limited by expectations and conventions of water supply shaped by existing water infrastructure (Allon and Sofoulis, 2006) and ‘saver‐unfriendly’ household water fittings (Sofoulis, 2005). Sustainable lifestyle workshop programs – many of which address water use – are relatively new, and rigorous research into their impacts is scarce. Existing research generally relies on reported behaviour change from participants, which is then used to estimate resource savings. This paper examines water consumption data, and the questionnaire responses of participants in two sustainable lifestyle workshop programs, to examine whether reported behavioural and technical changes are translating into significant water savings. The Sustainability Street (Penrith) and GreenHome (Parramatta) programs are changing participant behaviours, but reductions achieved by Sustainability Street are not significant at the 0.05 level. GreenHome reductions, while significant, cannot be fully attributed to the program due to the downward trend commencing prior to the program. The improved behaviour of participants – in comparison to their previous behaviour and the behaviour of non‐participants – is thus not translating into significant water savings. This indicates that the relationship between improved environmental behaviour and actual water savings is not as straightforward as program operators might assume. The implications of this are that research should use real consumption data and not estimations derived from behaviour change, and strategies to reduce household water consumption need to involve bigger technical changes to household water infrastructures.