COVID-19 as an Energy Intervention: Lockdown Insights for HCI

ABSTRACT

As the operation of buildings accounts for around 30% of global CO2 emissions, reducing their energy consumption is considered crucial for climate change mitigation. Aware of this significance, the sustainable HCI (SHCI) community has conducted research on energy consumption for over 15 years. However, compared with domestic environments, commercial organisations are comprised of complex mixed-use buildings, and the socio-technical understanding of space and resulting energy use are relatively under-explored. In this late-breaking work, we present the initial findings of a longitudinal analysis that uses building energy data from a period covering the COVID-19 lockdown measures to help identify the energy associated with these buildings and their users. Viewing the pandemic as a unique, grand-scale 'energy intervention', the resulting consumption patterns are used to inform questions about leverage points for achieving change, stakeholder agency vs. infrastructure demand;and highlight the importance of putting energy data in context. © 2023 Owner/Author.