A Just Transition to Post-Oil Heating
This project was done in collaboration with Sumi Moon, Ville Pellinen and Shreya Sood. It was a part of a course called Design for Government at Aalto University. Further details on the course and the final project presentation and detailed document can be found here.
Our task was to work on a just transition to post-oil heating in homes in Finland. Currently there are 130.000 detached homes in Finland being heated by oil, the Government has set the goal of carbon neutrality by 2035. Therefore it wants to support residents in their transition towards an alternative heating source. The project’s commissioners were the Ministry of Environment and ORSI (Orchestrating for Systemic Impact) a project working towards an eco-welfare state. During a 3-month period our team conducted extensive research and were able to gather valuable data and insights from 7.000 residents living in oil-heated homes.
An emphasis was put on the residents and their needs and wishes during our process. We wanted to create an environment where they would not feel pressured into radically changing their heating solution, which can be very expensive, but rather to nudge them towards better alternatives and find a solution best fitting to their personal circumstances.
Our key insight was that luckily most residents were willing to transition but merely lacked some of the following aspects explained below.
The main things residents lacked and the hindrances we identified were the following:
A lack of clarity - The overall process of finding a new solution was confusing, multiple ones existed and no recommendation seemed clear enough
A lack of trust - There was a lack of trust from residents towards energy solution providers
Financial barriers - Many of the residents were from low-income backgrounds
With our proposal we focused on turning these hindrances into enablers. There was clearly a sense of fear and uneasiness from the resident’s point of view so the transition needed to be made as easy as possible. Furthermore it needed to be transparent, equal towards everyone, flexible keeping in mind that households will range in their needs and finally voluntary. None of the residents should be forced into a transition.
Our solution included a regional pilot project in the region of Varsinais-Suomi.
The journey would start with the residents receiving an invitation to take part in this initiative. It would then lead them on to a website on which they could begin their journey by following the steps below.
The journey is called Energy Hero. We chose this name as we wanted to reframe the transition in a positive way. Residents should not be made to feel bad or ashamed for using oil but rather see it as an opportunity to be able to change for the better - become a hero.
First, residents would receive a letter and a call from their municipality or an association informing them about the pilot plan. The invitation would include an introduction to the initiative along with details of the online portal where they could find further information.
They could then log into the website and familiarise themselves with the Energy Hero package by putting in their address.
The platform would offer two options for auditing; a self-auditing one for the tech-savvy and a in-house one. The photo below shows the self-auditing process where residents are asked to fill in information related to their dwelling type, number of occupants, heating supplier etc. Additionally, they are asked to attach important documents such as house ownership documents, energy bill of the previous years and details of their applicable financial means.
After the audit form has been filled, a ‘house profile’ is generated. It is carefully designed, offering a choice architecture to nudge residents to the most feasible and energy efficient alternative for them.
Once residents made their choice, they are presented with the financial support they might be entitled to. Some options are via compensation vouchers while others, incurring bigger expenses, are via a combination of vouchers and affordable loan schemes. Additionally, implementation support mechanisms like guarantees, certifications and insurance plans are presented.
Once the resident’s house has undergone the recommended transition, they have the option to track their own journey and compare it to their previous situation. They could also compare their efficiency to others in the neighbourhood. As humans are competitive by nature by gamifying the comparison, we are trying to promote healthy competition amongst neighbours. Finally if they are feeling inspired to even further minimise their carbon footprint, they could request further recommendations.
