R E S E A R C H A N D A N A LY S I S
Standby Consumption in
Households Analyzed With a
Practice Theory Approach
Kirsten Gram-Hanssen
Keywords:
consumer electronics
energy conservation
everyday life
industrial ecology
sociotechnical structures
sustainable consumption
Summary
This article focuses on the energy consumption of households
and the question of how daily routines can be changed in
a more sustainable direction. It discusses different theoretical approaches with which to understand consumer behavior
and introduces practice theory that emphasizes sociotechnical structures as the basis for analyzing stability of consumer
practices and opportunities for change. Through analysis of
ten in-depth interviews with families participating in a project
aimed at reducing standby consumption, it is shown how technological configurations, everyday life routines, knowledge, and
motivation constitute the practice and also structure the possibilities for change. The article concludes by contending that
a conception of human behavior that is both less rational and
less individualistic is needed to understand stability and change
of households’ energy consumption behavior.
Address correspondence to
Kirsten Gram-Hanssen, Ph.D., Senior
Researcher
Danish Building Research Institute,
Aalborg University
Dr. Neergaards Vej 15
DK-2970 Hørsholm, Denmark
[email protected]
http://personprofil.aau.dk/profil/107289
c 2009 by Yale University
DOI: 10.1111/j.1530-9290.2009.00194.x
Volume 14, Number 1
150
Journal of Industrial Ecology
www.blackwellpublishing.com/jie
R E S E A R C H A N D A N A LY S I S
Introduction
With global climate change high on the political agenda, energy consumption in households
is of major relevance, because households account for approximately one third of total energy
consumption in developed countries (Unander
et al. 2004). Individual consumer behavior and
everyday practices help to explain a substantial
part of household energy consumption, and usage in technically identical houses can vary by
as much as 300% or 400% due to these factors
(Gram-Hanssen 2004). Therefore, studies of consumer behavior of household energy use are
highly relevant, although research has generally
favored a focus on technical efficiency.
The field of consumer studies can be usefully
divided into three main disciplinary categories—
economic, psychological, and cultural—and all
three approaches have been used in energy studies. First, the economic perspective tends to presuppose rational behavior on the part of consumers; it assumes that they have sufficient
knowledge about alternative consumption technologies and will use this information to reduce energy consumption. Typical economic research focuses on the price elasticity of energy
demand, modeling how sensitive household behavior is to rising (or declining) prices (see,
e.g., Micklewright 1989; Narayan et al. 2007).
A customary critique of this economic approach
is that it ignores differences in consumer attitudes that are central to many psychological
perspectives.
Second, the work of Ajzen and Fishbein (e.g.,
Ajzen and Fishbein 1980) on the theory of
reasoned action has been influential in studies
centered on behavior and attitudes. Like the
economists, these authors view humans as rational beings who make systematic use of information and behave consistently on the basis
of particular intentions. Psychological research,
though, includes other rationalities beyond the
purely economic, such as, for example, attitudes
toward comfort, pleasure, and safety. A great
deal of work on individual attitudes and behavior related to residential energy consumption
builds on this psychological approach (see, e.g.,
Wagner 1997; Brandon and Lewis 1999; Abrahamse et al. 2007). The psychological perspective
is often criticized for its overly individualistic understanding of consumer behavior.
Finally, the cultural approach applies sociological and anthropological theories that focus on
the collective structures of consumer behavior,
in contrast to the emphasis on rational and consistent behavior inherent in the economic and
psychological studies. Lifestyle research analyzing
how different groups of consumers demonstrate
identity, status, and associativeness through their
consumption are core examples of this perspective (Featherstone 1991; Campbell 1995; see also
Kuehn 1998).
Recent scholarship in consumer studies, however, has criticized this cultural approach for focusing undue attention on the conspicuous and
communicative aspects of consumption and thus
ignoring ordinary consumption, such as, for instance, energy consumption (Gronow and Warde
2001). In response to this appraisal, a significant
body of literature has begun to emerge on routine
aspects of consumption, with particular emphasis on the influence of technological structures
on consumer behavior in relation to energy consumption (Shove 2003; Southerton et al. 2004).
This article is situated within a general cultural understanding of consumption and focuses
on routines and technological structures. It relies on the application of practice theory that
has been extensively developed within the field
of consumer studies (Shove and Pantzar 2005;
Warde 2005) but that, to date, has not been
commonly used within energy studies, although
Crosbie and Guy (2008) recently applied this approach to the case of household lighting. My intention is to make practice theory more operational within empirically based energy-consumer
studies. Accordingly, this treatment will advance insights on how routines and technological structures contribute to the construction of
energy-consumption practices while simultaneously highlighting how socially shared knowledge
and attitudes hold practices together. In contrast
to the individualistic perspectives, which is emblematic of economic and psychological theories,
practice theory views attitudes in a structural and
collective way and contrasts the rational tendencies presupposed by psychologists and economists
with the irrationalities found in experiential research of everyday practices.
Gram-Hanssen, Standby Consumption in Households
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R E S E A R C H A N D A N A LY S I S
The empirical basis for this article is a study of
standby behavior in households that consisted of
ten in-depth qualitative interviews with households participating in a research project that
encouraged reductions in standby electricity consumption. Standby consumption is energy consumed by appliances when they are not in active
use; according to recent estimates, this mode of
usage accounts for about 10% of household electricity consumption for lighting and appliances in
developed countries (Meier 2005). Research and
policy initiatives to date on standby consumption
have focused on changing consumer behavior and
on technologies that lower standby consumption;
much rarer are efforts to understand how technological structures and routines together constitute
the practice of standby consumption (cf. Crosbie
2008).
In this article, standby consumption practices
are used as examples of energy-consuming everyday practices because technical configurations
both in the house and related to the infrastructure
of communication technologies are central to this
type of usage and are similar to the small, unnoticed routines that trigger people to turn appliances on and off. The analysis seeks both to reveal
how to effectively introduce energy-saving measures in households that are relevant for energy
policy and to highlight how practice theory can
be developed for purposes of empirical analysis.
The next section provides a brief introduction
regarding research and policy initiatives related
to standby consumption, and this discussion is
followed by a summary of practice theory. I then
describe the design of the standby project and
the methodology for the study. The main part of
the article comprises an analysis of how everyday
practices of the respondent families changed as
a result of different communicative and technological interventions. The conclusion identifies
the advantages of applying practice theory to the
study of energy consumption and describes how
this type of analysis can improve energy policy
making.
Standby Consumption
Standby consumption was first identified as
a new challenge during the 1990s, when analysts began to draw attention to the growing
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Journal of Industrial Ecology
number of appliances with “leaking” electricity
(Sandberg 1993). On average, 20% of household electricity use is for consumer electronics
and information and communication technologies (ICTs), and half of this amount is consumed
when the equipment is in standby mode (GramHanssen et al. 2004).1 Any single appliance may
account for a very small amount of overall electricity consumption, but the increasing number
of computers, televisions, DVD players, and so
forth in each household consumes, in aggregate,
a substantial amount of electricity. Given this
situation, standby consumption seems to be an
obvious target for electricity-saving measures.
In recent years, in fact, there has been considerable political interest in reducing standby
consumption, and specific efforts have targeted
both consumers and producers. Standby consumption poses difficulties in terms of regulation
and measurement, however (Meier 2005). Consumer electronics and ICT devices are embedded
in global supply chains to a greater degree than is
the case, for example, for white goods, such as refrigerators and washing machines, and therefore
it has been necessary to formulate international
accords rather than to forge regional agreements
among European Union member countries. Furthermore, the fast pace of technical development
of these products makes it difficult for relatively
static regulations to keep up. Even agreement
on a definition of standby consumption in such
a dynamic context is challenging, and without
a clear meaning, it is difficult to draft effective
regulations (IEA 2001). From a technical standpoint, it is not a problem to develop devices that
lower standby consumption (IEA 2001). Japan
and Australia, for instance, have worked on local
regulations that prohibit the sale of devices with
more than 1 watt (W) standby (Harrington and
Holt 2003). Other countries, including Denmark,
have focused more on encouraging consumers to
switch off the standby capability as a routine or
to purchase specially designed instruments that
do it automatically. Even though many new technologies do have lower standby consumption, the
growing number of ICTs in households and the
way practices related to this equipment develop
indicate that standby consumption continues to
be a relevant energy-policy issue (Røpke et al.
2007; Crosbie 2008; Jensen et al. 2009).
R E S E A R C H A N D A N A LY S I S
This article develops a consumer approach to
standby consumption and focuses on how practices can (or cannot) be influenced by communicative and technological initiatives. In some
respects, the study of standby consumption from
the perspective of practice theory resembles the
investigation of other “classic” environmentally
friendly habits, such as turning off lights or shutting off running water, but in other respects,
standby consumption poses special challenges.
From a rational behavior point of view, it is obvious that one should strive to conserve energy
when it is not needed, thus simultaneously saving
money and protecting the environment. In other
words, efforts to reduce standby consumption are
tantamount to turning off the lights in unoccupied rooms or shutting off running water while
brushing one’s teeth. When one explores standby
consumption from a sociotechnical perspective, however, three critical differences become
apparent.
First, standby consumption, like appliance use
in general, is invisible, and a meter is required
to measure the amount of “wasted” electricity
associated with each device. Second, the issue
of standby consumption has been publicly acknowledged for less than a decade, which is an
exceedingly short period in which to embed a
new cultural tradition of awareness. Contemporary adults have not been instructed since childhood to turn off standby consumption, and this
situation differs rather dramatically from the cases
of electric light and water. Finally, standby consumption is different in the sense that it is an
integrated part of an electrical appliance. Technologies are designed to be left in standby mode,
which means that to ask people to turn off the
standby functionality is to instruct them to use
their devices in a way that differs from how they
were designed. This is not an impossible goal.
As studies of the domestication of technologies
have shown, users often reinterpret the intentions of designers (Haddon 2006; Brown 2008),
but it does present a further challenge.
Introducing Practice Theory
Alan Warde (2005) recently introduced practice theory into cultural consumer studies, in
response to arguments that excessive attention
had been devoted to conspicuous consumption
and to the symbolic and communicative aspects of consumption, at the expense of efforts
to understand more routine and ordinary consumption, such as, energy consumption (Gronow
and Warde 2001). Warde’s work draws mainly
on practice theory as formulated by Schatzki
(1996) and developed and discussed by Reckwitz (2002b). The approach originates with early
formulations advanced by Bourdieu (1976) and
Giddens (1984), who sought to overcome the
problem of structure−actor dualism, and it emphasizes how practices, rather than signs or abstract structures, are key to both constituting and
understanding the social realm. Despite some significant differences between Warde (2005) and
Reckwitz (2002b), one could argue that their understandings of practices and routines are quite
similar.
Giddens (1984) refers to the ways actors and
structures mutually constitute each other as the
recurrent nature of social life, and he sees actions
as processes rather than as distinct phenomena,
each with its own cause. Thus, on the basis of
a practical consciousness, we continually carry
out our daily tasks and, at the same time, reproduce the social structures of society. Even though
the agent, in Giddens’s view, is knowledgeable
and competent, his or her acts have both unintended consequences and unrecognized conditions. In his understanding of routines, Giddens is
inspired by insights from psychology, and he explains the repetition and recognition of routines
as a way to create safety. In other words, routines
help to reduce ontological insecurity.
Bourdieu’s (1984) understanding of practices
is closely related to his notion of habitus, which
refers to a practical sense of how people view and
divide the world. A habitus is an intuition that
is formed during childhood and that determines
one’s habits and one’s tastes, dreams, and wishes.
An important element of this theory is how one’s
parents’ possessions of cultural and economic capital are decisive for the constitution of habitus.
In this way, class position is an important determinant of how social structures are reshaped
in the physical surroundings through the things
a person possesses (Bourdieu 1984). Some critics, however, have argued that Bourdieu, with
his notion of a class society, has an overly static
Gram-Hanssen, Standby Consumption in Households
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R E S E A R C H A N D A N A LY S I S
Schatzki (2002)
Warde (2005)
Practical
understanding
Understandings
Rules
Procedures
Teleo-affective
structures
Engagement
Shove-Pantzar
(2005)
Competences
Items of
consumption
Reckwitz
(2002b)
Body
Mind
The agent
Structure/
process
Knowledge
Meanings
Discourse/
language
Products
Things
Figure 1 Key elements in the understanding of practices.
understanding of Western societies and their
mechanisms of distinction (see, e.g., Gabriel and
Lang 1995). Nonetheless, the notion of habitus
and its understanding of how the world is unconsciously embedded in people’s bodily actions from
early childhood are an important contribution to
the understanding of routines and practices.
Recent practice theorists, such as Schatzki
(1996) and Reckwitz (2002a, 2002b), who draw
on the work of both Giddens (1984) and Bourdieu (1984) in their descriptions of the routines
of everyday life, emphasize that both body and
things (or technologies) are important for understanding practice, through mind, knowledge,
structure, and agency are relevant as well (Reckwitz 2002a, 2002b). Furthermore, especially in
the theoretical perspectives advanced by Reckwitz (2002a), technologies are given a particularly prominent role. Both Schatzki and Reckwitz
also accentuate the collective aspect of practices.
Reckwitz (2002b, 249–250) observes that a single individual acts as a carrier of practices, and
Schatzki (1996, 89) writes that practices are coordinated entities that are temporally unfolded
and constitute spatially dispersed nexuses of doings and sayings. The idea that a practice forms a
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Journal of Industrial Ecology
nexus also means that certain elements hold the
practice together. A comparison of the ideas of
Schatzki and Reckwitz with the work of scholars such as Warde (2005) or Shove and Pantzar
(2005), however, indicates that the latter subscribe to slightly different descriptions of the elements that lend coherence to practices. Figure 1
lists and compares the interpretations put forth
by the different authors on this point.
Schatzki (1996) writes that practical understanding, also described as know-how or routines,
is one element for holding a practice together,
whereas explicit rules are other ways to achieve
this objective. As illustrated in figure 1, the third
element necessary for binding practices into useful sets, according to Schatzki, is the existence of
teleoaffective structures. A teleoaffective structure is a compound of something that is goal oriented (teleo) and that has a meaning in a substantive or ethical sense (affective). In this sense, the
notion that teleoaffective structures hold practices together thus implies that the practices are
guided by a direction toward an objective that
has a substantial meaning for someone.
Warde (2005) and Shove and Pantzar (2005)
are obviously inspired by Schatzki (1996), but
R E S E A R C H A N D A N A LY S I S
they rename and reduce some of the elements,
and, with reference to Reckwitz (2002b), they
add material stuff—things, products, or just items
of consumption. In a relatively straightforward
application, Shove and Pantzar (2005) rely on
just three elements—competences, meanings,
and products—to explain the emergence of the
practice of Nordic walking. For the purpose
of understanding energy-consuming practices as
standby behavior, I submit that this framework
is overly simple, as the authors do not distinguish between the two main types of competences: know-how or nonverbal knowledge
and explicit, rule-based, or theoretical knowledge. Warde more or less follows the description provided by Schatzki (1996), but he renames
the three different elements and implicitly adds
items of consumption. Reckwitz (2002b) takes
a slightly different approach: Rather than describing the different elements that hold practices together, he focuses on core sociotheoretical elements and how they are conceptualized in
practice theory as compared with other sociocultural theories. These core elements include body,
mind, things, knowledge, discourse, structure and
process, and the agent. As shown in figure 1, these
elements resemble the proposals of other authors
in terms of the coherence of practices. It is therefore possible to conclude that the following elements are most relevant and appropriate for the
study of standby consumption:
•
•
•
•
know-how and embodied habits,
institutionalized knowledge,
engagements, and
technologies.
The following case descriptions of standby
consumption of households illustrate the content
of these elements.
A comparison of this practice theory approach
with economic or psychological theories of reasoned action reveals that the main difference
is the degree to which individuals are seen as
independent and rational actors or the degree
to which they are seen as actors taking part
in collectively shared structures of knowledge,
engagements, or technologies. The theory sees
practices as collective though it is still open
for individual differences and for seeing rational
knowledge input and aspects of attitudes as part
of an explanation of practices.
Methodology
Empirical analysis consisted of ten in-depth
qualitative interviews that were conducted as part
of a research project related to standby consumption carried out by the Danish company Lokal
Energy A/S, in collaboration with the Danish
Building Research Institute (Gram-Hanssen and
Gudbjerg 2006). Thirty households were selected
to participate in the project, which involved a
year of continuous measurement of standby consumption associated with consumer electronic
appliances; participants also received various information about how to lower their electricity consumption. All of the respondent families
lived in owner-occupied, single-family detached
houses. This feature of the project was determined
by the technical aspects of the measurement process, which, under some circumstances, could require drilling into the walls. Such intervention
could more easily be carried out under conditions
of owner occupancy. Furthermore, all households
had at least the average number of consumer electronic appliances to ensure that there was ample potential to reduce standby consumption. In
view of these limitations, the families selected
for the project had wide variance with respect to
income, education, and age as well as varying levels of environmental awareness. The households
were chosen on the basis of a questionnaire distributed in two neighborhoods that differed from
each other in terms of socioeconomic status.
In all 30 households, meters were installed
on each electrical device, including televisions,
VCRs, game consoles, computers, printers, scanners, loudspeakers, and stereo equipment. The
metering system was accessible on an online basis
for more than a year, which allowed the research
team to track when an individual device was on
or off or was left on standby. The measurement
period was divided into three phases:
• Reference period of approximately 2 months,
during which baseline measurements of
standby consumption in the respondent
households were made (and during which
Gram-Hanssen, Standby Consumption in Households
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R E S E A R C H A N D A N A LY S I S
no effort was made to encourage the families to lower it).
• Communication period lasting for 4 to 6
months, when the respondent households
were educated in various ways, including
posted leaflets, visits from an energy adviser,
and invitations to follow their own standby
consumption on a Web site.
• Technology period extending for 4 to 6
months, when different types of technical
devices, lighting, and automation equipment (i.e., to control the manually operated
turn-off switch) were distributed. Technical
devices included automatic energy-saver
plugs for televisions and personal computers and remote control or time switches for
power boards.
families), to empty nesters in their 60s (three
families).
The interviews were conducted in the homes
of the interviewees, with one or both adults
present, and lasted for approximately 1 hr. Four
interviews were carried out with both spouses,
four interviews included only the husband, and
two interviews included only the wife. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed, with a focus
on questions of stability and change in routines.
Interviews were conducted in Danish, and all of
the quotations below are my own translations.
Furthermore, the names of the interviewees have
been changed to ensure anonymity.
Analysis of the metering revealed that roughly
one third of the standby consumption was reduced following the visit of the energy adviser,
whereas the other communicative initiatives had
no measurable effect. A further one third of the
standby consumption was lowered through the
use of the various technical devices, and the last
third of the standby consumption remained the
same throughout the period. These reductions,
however, were quite unevenly distributed across
the respondent households: Some responded to
the visit by the energy adviser, others used the
technical devices, and yet a third group evinced
very little uptake of any of the initiatives.2 On the
basis of these insights, ten families were selected
to participate in qualitative interviews. The specific selection criteria were designed to obtain
the largest possible variation in response patterns
and broad variation in sociodemographic characteristics. The ten families were not representative
of the Danish population but rather were a varied selection of families to ensure inclusion of as
many different approaches to managing standby
consumption as possible. The ten selected households included two families of unskilled workers,
four families in which at least one member was a
skilled worker or had middle-range training, and
four families in which one or both adults were
university graduates or were employed as managers. The age of the interviewees varied from
parents in their 30s and 40s with young children
(four families), to families with teenagers (three
The following discussion provides an analysis
of the interviews on stability and change of the
participants’ standby practices. To introduce the
different motivations toward standby consumption of the interviewed families, I first discuss the
families’ reasons for agreeing to be part of the
project. Families gave three basic explanations
for why they wanted to participate in this initiative, and these sentiments are illustrated in the
following quotes:
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Journal of Industrial Ecology
Standby Consumption
in Practice
Ms. Jensen: I found it exciting, because I
thought we had a huge standby consumption,
so it was funny to see how much we actually
used. (nonskilled worker, in her 30s)
Mr. Hansen: I think, we thought as much that
it was for helping you actually. . . . We did
not think that we should use it for anything.
(graduate, in his 30s)
Ms. Svendsen: I thought it was interesting to
hear about, and then I thought actually that
we did not have much on standby. I expected
just a pat on the back. (middle-range training,
in her 60s)
These differences in motivations related to the
project and to standby consumption in general
thus supported that we had succeeded in selecting
families with varying interests in the subject and
did not only recruit families who were already
committed to saving on standby consumption.
One element of the project entailed a visit
from an energy adviser, who walked through the
R E S E A R C H A N D A N A LY S I S
house with a small meter to visualize and explain to each family how much electricity was
being used on standby for different devices and
gave the households advice on how to reduce it.
For some of the families, this was an eye-opening
experience:
Mr. Olsen: There was this woman with a
meter. Really, there we could see it—clickclick—and she could say, ‘This is what it
cost’! It was very tangible, and she also gave
some pieces of advice. (nonskilled worker, in
his 40s)
From the monitoring of the household meter, we could see that after the visit by the
energy advisor, the Olsen family reduced their
standby consumption very significantly and continued to keep it low throughout the rest of
the project period. Mr. Olsen explained that
after the consultation, he reorganized wires
and plugs to make it easier to turn off all
devices relating to, for example, the television or the computer in one single move.
The only new routine that he added was that
every evening when he put out the light before going to bed, he also checked that all
standby consumption was turned off. To the question about whether it was easy to learn to remember, he responded, “That was not a problem, because I am always the last one to go to
bed.”
Mr. Olsen was also asked whether he had
heard of standby consumption before and why he
had not made such changes sooner. He answered,
It does not interest me a shit. All this eco .
. . sometimes it becomes a bit too religious,
and I become stubborn. . . . All this standby,
it did not really interest me. I thought it was
too little to be worried about, but it was not.
. . . We had a VCR; it just stood there and
bobbled and cost more than €10 [10 euros] a
month. That is completely insane.
From this family, one can learn three things
related to the change of routines. The first lesson is that Mr. Olsen reacted to a change in
motivation partly on receipt of more knowledge
(the metering) and partly from what was, in his
view, a persuasive and pleasant energy adviser.
He had previously regarded attempts to reduce
standby consumption as on par with religious fa-
naticism. The energy adviser, however, induced
him to change his attitude, so that he saw reducing standby consumption as “normal” and wasting
energy as “not normal” and “insane.” This shift in
attitude should be seen not only as a consequence
of obtaining more or better knowledge but as a
result of meeting a person who challenged him
to change his perspective of what was normal
or not normal, insane or “religious.” The second
lesson is that when Mr. Olsen did implement the
changes, he did so by first rearranging the technology configuration to make it simpler to turn off
and then finding a procedure that he could easily
incorporate into the family’s everyday routines.
The third lesson is that this new evening routine
was easily maintained. The metering showed that
during the rest of the 9-month project period, the
Olsen household maintained this habit of turning
off standby consumption.
Another family who also significantly reduced
their standby consumption during the project explained how this was partly related to a side effect
of participation:
Mr. Petersen: Really, it’s becoming like a
sport or competition. It is interesting to see
how far we can come down. Though actually concerning electricity consumption in
our home I think there are other things [than
standby] we should rather look at [washing
machine and tumble dryer were mentioned
later]. (skilled worker, in his 40s)
In the Petersen family, changes in routines
were not primarily responsible for reductions in
standby consumption; rather, for example, the
family unplugged the VCR, which had huge
standby consumption and was only very rarely
used. This device, like 20% of all the appliances
generally measured in the project, used more
than 90% of its consumed electricity while it
was in standby mode (Gram-Hanssen & Gudbjerg 2006). This family still had one device that
contributed to major standby consumption, however, and that actually annoyed the husband. A
satellite dish in their daughter’s bedroom served
the televisions in the parents’ bedroom and the
living room. Entering her room and disturbing
her after she had gone to sleep in the evening
was too much trouble, so the family always
left the dish on. Mr. Petersen’s solution to this
Gram-Hanssen, Standby Consumption in Households
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R E S E A R C H A N D A N A LY S I S
problem was to wait for a broadband network
with cable television to arrive in the neighborhood, which he expected would happen within a
year or 2.
The Petersen family confirmed some of the
insights gleaned from the Olsen family—namely,
the change in motivation after the energy adviser’s visit and the importance of the technical
organization of the family’s appliances. In this
household, however, the technical organization
of the satellite dish, together with the family’s
everyday routines, made it complicated for them
to institute any adjustments. Instead, they decided to wait for a change in the technical infrastructure, for a solution that would make it
easier for them to devise a routine for turning off
standby consumption. Finally, the Petersen family was also an example of how consumers might
be aware that they are not rational. The family
hunted for energy savings related to standby consumption rather than other energy-consuming
practices, even though they were aware that they
could save more on the latter. Being part of the
project and being measured were apparently more
fun than just saving energy.
In the Kristoffersen family, the wife was quite
encouraged by the project, and this family serves
as an example of how this inspiration spread to
other areas:
Ms. Kristoffersen: At my workplace, I am part
of the security board, and this little thing
that she [the energy adviser] had to meter
with, I went to the library to borrow one of
these, and then I metered my computer at the
workplace, because it is never turned off, and
then I went through the house and counted.
We have a lot of computers, and then I
wrote a little message to the boss. I think
it is rather interesting if we can do something about it, because we don’t have that
much money. (middle-range training, in her
60s)
Although Ms. Kristoffersen was obviously engaged in reducing standby consumption, some
things in her everyday life remained unchanged.
She had a fax machine on which she used to
receive a significant number of messages related
to her hobby, but now that email had become
much more commonly used, she had not received a fax in 6 months. Still, she disliked let158
Journal of Industrial Ecology
ting go of her fax machine and thereby disconnecting one of her communication possibilities,
even though she knew that it was a huge standby
consumer.
The Kristoffersen family contributed two more
insights relevant to an understanding of practices.
The first lesson is that changes can spread from
one practice to another by carrying the motivation from the home to the office. The second
lesson is that the regular use of certain communication technologies can develop into a norm
of being available and “connected” via several
media (e.g., phone, email, fax) and that some
people do not want to lose any of these possibilities, even though they may not be regularly
used. This particular norm may be considered to
constitute a fourth C (connectedness) that can
be added to the three Cs (comfort, cleanliness,
and convenience) that Elizabeth Shove (2003)
demonstrated contribute to the development of
new energy-consuming practices.
Not all families were convinced during the
project that it was really worthwhile to reduce
their standby consumption. An interesting example of inflexible practice was seen in the Hansen
family. During the technology phase, they received a device to install on their television that
would automatically shut down the VCR when
the television was turned off. When the family
was interviewed, this device had been lying on
the windowsill for 2 months without being installed, partly because the Hansens were not sure
whether the VCR would lose its settings. They
were asked why they had not tried to install it
yet.
Mr. Hansen: It is a question of using 10 minutes to do the test, and I haven’t done that,
so it’s a question of, what do you call it, lack
of engagement? (graduate, in his 30s)
He explained that every time someone in the
family cleaned the windowsill, he or she lifted
the device and cleaned beneath it, so the family
actually was reminded of it regularly. He said, “In
relation to myself, I have often stood looking at
it and thought, ‘Well, I should remember to do
something about this. . . . I should remember it,’
and then suddenly someone shouts at my back.”
(They had two small children).
R E S E A R C H A N D A N A LY S I S
So, on the one hand, the Hansen family
had made a conscious decision to test whether
the device worked for them, although in actual
practice they did not do anything. The question was, would they just throw it out in the
end?
Mr. Hansen: No, the idea is that we “throw
it in” sometime. Though I keep thinking that
the only thing I can gain is the standby from
the VCR, and then there is the risk that we
can’t gain anything, because we lose the settings.
Thus, under continued questioning, Mr.
Hansen provided a justification that sounded like
a rational explanation with pros and cons. This
does not mean, however, that change of practices builds on rational arguments. Rather, the
actual practice—the doing—is an assemblage of
what is easy and straightforward, what knowledge one has, and what engagements and meanings are associated with that knowledge. In the
Hansen family, an obstacle to turning off the
VCR was the fact that they expected the device to lose its settings, which is normal among
older models and thus an obvious example of how
technology design rather than laziness can be the
cause of standby consumption (see also Crosbie
2008).
The Svendsen family (skilled workers in their
60s) also recognized problems related to technology design when they wanted to reduce their
standby consumption on computers and the Internet. The family had two computers placed in
different rooms that were served by one Internet connection in one of the rooms. Through
the project, they received a remote control for
switching the Internet on and off from each of
the rooms. If they forgot to turn on the Internet
before the computer, however, and only realized
it after turning on the computer, they needed to
restart the computer again to gain Internet access. “That was a bit annoying,” as Ms. Svendsen
said, and in the end they stopped turning off the
Internet.
Mr. Sørensen, whose family did not reduce
their standby consumption at all, concluded,
It has to be built into the appliances, and not
something we have to go around and manage.
Because if you say €150 for us, that is not
something we can ponder over for a very long
time how much trouble we want for that. I can
see the economics in a societal perspective. .
. . If we all use for €150 it is a lot, but I do
not believe in it, except if it is built into the
appliances. (manager, in his 50s)
Again, one can interpret this observation as a
way to rationalize why the family did not change
their practices. In the detailed description of why
all the different small things that they could
have done did not work for them, however, the
Sørensens gave other types of explanations. One
of the automatic saver plugs for the computers did
not work, and the family did not bother to find
out why, partly because they thought that these
plugs were clumsy and unsightly. Furthermore,
the household had two satellite dishes, each serving two different televisions in separate rooms,
with various family members watching each of
them. The family included two teenagers, and the
family members’ daily television-watching routines varied a lot and were not controlled by one
of the adults, as was the case in the Olsen family. Altogether, this meant that turning off the
satellite dishes would be unduly complicated. Finally, the family also described how they watched
television in bed before going to sleep and said
that they would not bother to get out of bed to
turn off the television. In the Sørensen family,
a combination of technology structures, interior
decoration, daily routines, and lack of motivation
led to no change in standby practices.
These interviews illustrate how changes in
standby practices vary across families according
to differences in daily rhythm, knowledge, motivation, household composition, housing arrangements, aesthetics, and technology design. The
routines in each of the households can thus be
seen as different sociomaterial configurations of
the practice of standby consumption. The actual
outcome in each family varied according to differences in how practices were held together and
what different families considered easy or difficult
related to the constituent elements. In the following discussion, I continue to use and develop the
practice theory approach in a way that is suited
to interpreting this variation and to understanding how it contributes to the development and
change of practice.
Gram-Hanssen, Standby Consumption in Households
159
R E S E A R C H A N D A N A LY S I S
Reflecting Empirically
on Practice Theory
Before I continue with the application of practice theory to this empirical material concerning standby consumption, it is relevant to discuss in what ways one might view habits related
to standby consumption as practices. According to Schatzki (2002), it is instructive to distinguish between dispersed and integrated practices, wherein dispersed practices are elements
in the integrated practices. Different dispersed
practices can be part of the same integrated practice, and a dispersed practice can be part of a
multiplicity of different integrated practices. Furthermore, dispersed practices are not guided by
all the elements mentioned previously but usually are governed only by a practical understanding, the know-how. Thus, the dispersed practices
are most often free of both knowledge and engagement. Actually, it is precisely because of the
absence of these structures that it is possible for
the dispersed practices to work in different types
of settings. In the current context, the question
has been whether habits of standby consumption
should be viewed as a dispersed practice or as an
integrated one. The following discussion builds
on the idea that making people aware of their
standby consumption, through information campaigns and so forth, is trying to actually change
habits of standby consumption from a dispersed
practice into an integrated practice by introducing knowledge and engagement.
The following discussion uses the four previously introduced elements to systematize what
characterizes the standby practices described in
the interview analysis.
Know-How and Embodied Habits
This element of holding together the standby
practice is the actual and often unconscious way
of turning appliances and electronic devices on or
off. The practice of leaving devices in a standby
mode rather than in the off mode emerged during
the 1980s and 1990s in the wake of a technical
change whereby remote controls became normal.
When this practice emerged, people simply handled the devices as they were designed to be used,
and, with their daily use, this routine became em160
Journal of Industrial Ecology
bodied. In this phase, standby consumption could
be seen as a dispersed practice that could be a
neglected element in different practices, such as
watching television or using a computer. Only
later, when the energy consumption of this practice was called into question, would it be meaningful to call standby consumption an integrated
practice or perhaps to see it as a new element in
the integrated practice of energy saving.
In this project, the participants were encouraged to change their daily habits related to
standby consumption. Some families did this easily, whereas others did not do it at all. When
habits changed, it was most often because of a
change in knowledge and motivation, and these
developments often occurred together with a
technological rearrangement. In these instances,
changing routines was uncomplicated, which is
interesting, as we often assume that when a practice is embodied, it becomes subject to inertia
that inhibits changing the practice. Actually, in
the households that did change habits, the inertia of habits could be seen as providing a positive
inducement, as it helped to perpetuate the new
habits after they were initially established. For
the families who did not change their habits, this
lack of change was only to a minor extent due
to the inertia in routines. The main reasons related to technology configurations and design and
to housing arrangements combined with lack of
motivation.
Knowledge
Especially in relation to energy consumption,
the knowledge component is important, as energy
utilization and its consequences are invisible and
abstract. Here, the notion of the disembedding
mechanism described by Giddens (1991) is relevant, as it describes how social systems in modern society are lifted out of their local context
and reorganized over long time−space distances.
Expert systems within the sociotechnical organization of people’s everyday life in modern society provide one example. Fully understanding
the relationship between energy production and
consumption is beyond the interpretative capabilities of any single individual, whether expert
or layperson. All people take part in this system
as consumers and thus have to rely on and trust
R E S E A R C H A N D A N A LY S I S
the system and the knowledge that is provided
concerning the role of consumers in it.
For the last 3 or 4 decades, energy savings in households have been part of the general knowledge disseminated to the public, and
lately standby consumption has been added
as part of these efforts. The knowledge transfer takes place in many venues, including primary school, general education, and public campaigns. In the knowledge transfer, intermediators
(Marvin and Medd 2004)—such as, for instance,
the energy adviser in this standby project—
translate and communicate knowledge to a wider
audience. Another important element in the
consumer−producer relationship is the metering of energy consumption in each household
(Marvin et al. 1999). Apart from the payment
aspect of metering, the meters themselves can
provide feedback to the consumer about his or
her responsibility with respect to the environmental consequences of electricity production.
Many experiments are being conducted on different ways to provide consumers with feedback
on their electricity consumption (Fischer 2008);
the so-called “informative bill” is the most widely
established in Denmark.
The interviews in this project contain several
examples illustrating that knowledge about the
electricity consumed by different appliances in
standby mode encouraged change in user practices. It is also obvious, however, that the way
this knowledge was provided strongly influenced
its uptake. The personal contact with the energy
adviser was also part of the effect, and this shows
how knowledge is also shared socially.
Engagement
Whether one is motivated is important for
changing the practice of standby consumption,
and the impetus can come from quite different
approaches. In this project, personal contact with
the energy adviser and the fact that households
participated in a project and had their electricity usage measured had an impact on the level of
enthusiasm that each family brought to the effort. This observation suggests that engagement
emerges out of social relationships—that it is, as
noted above, something that people share with
each other—and consumers are influenced by
others with whom they relate or sympathize. The
actual content of the motivation associated with
efforts to reduce standby consumption can also
relate to the private economy, although quite a
few of the interviewees also mentioned the societal economy or environmental concern. It is
important to note, from an everyday-life perspective, that there is seldom conflict between these
different motivators, and money is often used as
a way to measure the amount of both saved energy and help to the environment. In relation to
the environment, some respondents mentioned
that it was difficult to see the relationship between invisible standby consumption and distant
and largely indiscernible environmental problems, and it was therefore a challenge to increase
their levels of motivation. Several of the interviewees explained that it was much easier to think
of the environment when it came to water consumption or waste handling, because the relevant
activities were more tangible. In relation to the
economy, it is obvious that €150—the average
amount of money a household can expect to save
per year by reducing its standby consumption—is
less consequential for a high-income family than
it is for a low-income one. This is, however, not
only a question of economic capacity; it also concerns how people relate to the economy. Even
though they can easily afford to do so, some people hate to waste money, whereas others always
lack money but still do not focus on saving. With
inspiration from Bourdieu (1984), one way to understand this paradox is to see the logic of being
a saver or a spender as part of the habitus, the
cultural orientation, into which people are socialized, and that relates as much to social class
as to the actual economic situation.
Technologies and Material Structure
The practice of standby consumption is indisputably connected with technologies such as
televisions and computers, and it is therefore obvious that the devices themselves are strong components for holding this practice together. As
many studies have shown, technologies do not
determine a specific use but are open to individual interpretation (see, e.g., Jensen et al. 2009).
When standby consumption appeared as an unrecognized dispersed practice during the 1990s,
Gram-Hanssen, Standby Consumption in Households
161
R E S E A R C H A N D A N A LY S I S
it could have been viewed primarily as a consequence of technology design. People simply used
the technologies in the easiest and most straightforward way: It required less effort to leave the
appliance in standby mode than to turn it off,
because this was how it was designed to be used.
The practice has evolved since then, however,
and knowledge and engagement have come to
influence standby practices. Furthermore, technologies have also developed over time, and they
are often connected in different ways in individual households, which makes the technological
picture much more varied. Finally, particular innovations have been developed with the specific
aim of reducing standby power in other technologies, such as the devices that were distributed to
the respondent households in the project.
Altogether, this means that apart from differences in engagement and in knowledge about
standby consumption, one can also find quite a
varied picture of technologies and, thereby, of
what is easy and what is difficult in relation to
reducing standby consumption. The interview
material is very extensive in certain cases with
respect to the obstacles that households encountered in turning off standby consumption. Part of
the challenge stems from the fact that technologies that are placed in different rooms and used
by different family members at different times
are connected and consequently highly interdependent. The households thus take part in the
codevelopment of technological solutions in the
home by combining various devices available on
the market, and thereby they also individualize
and differentiate the technological element in
the practice of standby consumption. Furthermore, the practice is not only influenced by individual devices and the way they can be connected; the infrastructure of electricity, satellites,
broadband networks, and so forth also strongly
shapes standby consumption.
Conclusion
This detailed study of how the practice of
standby consumption has developed and unfolded in different families’ everyday lives provides insights for understanding the practice of
standby consumption and thereby offers potentially useful background knowledge for policies
162
Journal of Industrial Ecology
to regulate it. Furthermore, the research provides
an example of the use of practice theory in empirical work.
First, it is instructive to compare the experience of using practice theory to analyze energy
consumption behavior in households to the experience of using other theoretical perspectives.
As described in the introduction, economic and
psychological approaches presuppose that human
action is based on a rational analysis of the extant situation. The prevailing view is that implementation of the correct economic instruments and the provision of appropriate information will induce people to change their behavior.
In these types of studies, researchers normally include technology in the analytic framework only
by distinguishing between more and less efficient
applications. As shown in several of the cases in
this project, rationality alone cannot explain to
what extent people change their habits with respect to standby consumption. With respect to
technology, it is important to consider not only
efficiency but also the way technology is used,
configured, and designed. In contrast, previous
studies based on more sociotechnical and cultural
approaches to understanding household energy
consumption have demonstrated how individual
behavior is bound up in technological and cultural structures. The problem with this type of
study, compared with the economic and psychological research, is that it ignores and undervalues
the actions of individuals. In light of this situation, the advantage of deploying practice theory
in the way it has been developed in this study is
that it maintains a sociotechnical structural understanding of practices while remaining open to
how individuals take in new knowledge and relate
their consumption to the economy. Furthermore,
identification of the four elements that hold practices together provides an easily understandable
and usable analytic tool.
The next question concerns what we can learn
from an energy-policy perspective about standby
consumption through this kind of practice theoretical analysis. On one hand, this methodology
confirms the value of elements that are already
part of policy programs, namely campaigns focused on knowledge and attitudes (engagements)
together with economic instruments such as taxes
and subsidies. On the other hand, the practice
R E S E A R C H A N D A N A LY S I S
theory approach provides us with new understandings of how these elements are connected
and how, when combined, they help hold together what people do and say surrounding a
specific practice. Furthermore, the study shows
how the efficiency of technologies, as well as
their design and the way they can be combined
and used, is an important factor that can be
incorporated into the technology-design phase.
To date, policy makers have implicitly relied on
the idea that rational householders will change
their behaviors in light of new knowledge, economic incentives, or attitudes. The practice theory approach does not reject this strategy, but
it contributes new insights into how these elements work together with a more diverse array
of additional factors. This point is especially relevant in the evaluation of policy initiatives and
thereby also for decision processes to formulate
innovative policies. On the basis of a practice
theory approach, one cannot expect simple correlations between knowledge and practice, between attitudes and practice, between economy
and practice, or between technology and practice. We need to understand changes in practice as part of long-lasting and ongoing processes
that incorporate all these elements, and therefore the evaluation of energy-policy initiatives
requires more comprehensive evaluation methods. At the moment, Danish consumer-oriented
energy policy is focused on evidence-based energy
saving, whereby only strategies that can provide
cost-effective energy savings receive support. A
practice theory approach can be used to argue
against an overly instrumental understanding of
how practices change.
Acknowledgement
I thank the interviewees who agreed to take
part in this project and my partners in Lokal
Energy A/S for their inspiration and cooperation. The empirical research reported here was
funded by Danish Public Service Obligations
Funds (PSO-2003), administrated by Dansk Energi (Danish Energy Association), and the theoretical analysis was funded by the Danish Social
Science Research Council. A previous version of
this article was presented at the meetings of the
European Sociological Association’s Network on
the Sociology of Consumption, held in Helsinki,
Finland, in 2008. I also thank Bente Halkier, Allan Warde, and other participants in this event
for their valuable comments.
Notes
1. This percentage is based on households that are not
heated by electricity.
2. Further metering results are available from GramHanssen and Gudbjerg (2006).
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About the Author
Kirsten Gram-Hanssen is a senior researcher
at the Danish Building Research Institute in
Hørsholm, Denmark. The institute is part of Aalborg University.
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