About c aware

Introduction

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With the provision of smart buildings and location awareness, energy use in buildings (home and work) and in transport systems is rapidly becoming part of our lifelong contextual footprint - the idea that each of us, throughout our lifetimes, will lay down a digital trail that reflects our patterns of interaction with services, the contexts within which we choose to use them, and ultimately our reactions to them. While a wide range of technologies for monitoring and presenting energy use are becoming available that add to this contextual footprint, in order to achieve global impact we must give consideration to the inclusion of 85% of the population outside “the West” who emit 65% of the CO2. China has targeted a 40% to 45% cut in carbon intensity against 2005 levels by 2020, but has yet to announce its goal for the next five years. Reports from inside the country last year suggested that it could aim to reduce consumption by a further 17.3% by 2015. The final version of the five-year plan, which is also expected to include significant increases in clean tech and renewable energy investment, is expected to be announced in the next few months. The government was forced to take drastic action to ensure that the five-year target for 2010 was met: premier Wen Jiabao threatened to close poorly performing workplaces.

Making those accountable for energy consuming behaviour is seen as key to reducing global emissions, yet determining specific accountability for emissions in the home, the workplace and while travelling is complex and often impossible. In some cases, an individual is exclusively responsible for energy consuming behaviour, yet there are many situations where groups of friends, work colleagues and family members might be held equally accountable. Understanding of that accountability, the responsiveness to the way in which consumption is framed, and the personal motivations to change behaviour also vary between individuals. This suggests a need for a mixed approach to the introduction of feedback, based on context: mixed ecologies of interface devices in the home and in the workplace offer opportunities to provide the different representations of energy usage most likely to create impact in each context, from personalized targeted messages to public displays of aggregated data. In addition, for many, the handheld mobile device is always at hand, and as such represents a mechanism to tie together a consumer’s interactions with the interfaces at home, work and while travelling, providing a continuous and coherent awareness of a consumer’s complete carbon footprint. Mobile infrastructure is truly global and will form a key component in any global solution for transforming energy demand.

C-Aware represents an interdisciplinary partnership between those who design ‘end user’ technology and interaction, and those who seek to realise future mobile services and network architectures to invent novel services to promote awareness of carbon use amongst the general public.

The original case for support for the C-Aware project can be found here