THE INFLUENCING POWER OF YOUNG PEOPLE

The Case for School-based Education Outreach Programming to Reach Residential Energy Consumers

The Future of Energy

The future of energy and the building of resilient communities, requires utilities to re-image how they produce energy and for energy consumers to invest in changing their energy habits. To do so, utilities need to expand their outreach around energy literacy and begin building lifelong habits in energy-saving behavior among their consumers. This presents utilities with an opportunity to reach a part of the population that can make an invaluable difference — children.

Although younger household members haven’t traditionally been utilities’ direct constituents, children have been found to play an important role in changing behaviors within their households. Energy literacy programs in schools can make inroads in how energy is viewed, understood, and consumed. Not only can these engagements modify the behaviors of students’ parents and caregivers today, but they also instill a lifelong commitment to energy-wise behaviors in the consumers of tomorrow. A commitment of resources aimed at engaging and educating young people can assist utilities in making significant strides in the energy transition, both now and long-term.

While they may not pay the bills, children — even those as young as kindergarten age — exert a powerful influence on their parents’ and caregivers’ behaviors and consumption patterns. Recent research has found that kids age 11 and younger wield over a trillion dollars in annual purchasing power.

But that influence goes beyond just affecting what their parents buy. In a study by Procter & Gamble, 90% of parents responded that their children are most likely to influence them to be more sustainable. This environmental awareness among young people is also driving calls to action worldwide. For example, a pressure campaign spearheaded by young people, influenced Lego to phase out plastic packaging.

This interest in pro-environmental behaviors and the influencing power that comes with it are effective for changing adults’ short- and long-term energy consumption habits. Utility sponsored educational programs in schools provide students with information on how energy is produced, what energy efficiency is and why it’s important.

Programming that can bring this messaging to life, that speaks to the developmental age of the students and is relatable and memorable, has the best chance of sticking with students and inspiring them to share that messaging in their households and communities.

Influencing through Action

Teaching students about energy literacy topics, such as clean resources, consumption, and positive energy behaviors, can include actions students can take, which parents and family members then see when the children are at home.

Dr. Hilary Boudet, associate professor of sociology and public policy at Oregon State University, works specifically with energy policy and behaviors, and she explained, “It’s good to focus on behaviors young people have control over. Young children don’t typically control the thermostat or the water heater temperature, but they can do things like layer up or layer down.” Parents then see these behaviors and are prompted to change things they have control over, such as home temperatures.

Similarly, children can influence longer-term behaviors for energy savings. “Kids can get engaged by looking at different Energy Star labels and thinking about what it means to purchase one type of refrigerator versus another in terms of energy use,” Boudet said. “And you can teach behaviors not necessarily associated with purchasing but with action, like thinking about what you want to eat before opening the fridge.”

Crucially, these educational efforts affect parents’ and adults’ behaviors as well. One of Boudet’s research programs, called Girls Learning Environment and Energy, worked with 30 Girl Scout troops and found that these lessons affected the energy-saving behavior of parents for over eight months after the program ended. As Boudet explained, “The thing that stands out from the study is that it shows that environmental programs for children can impact parents.”

How the Influence Process Works

Why are children so effective at changing the behavior of adults in their lives? This field of study in relation to positive behavior is still relatively new, but researchers are actively exploring how these influencing processes work. “We talk about socialization of children and the re-socialization of parents, and it’s really an ecosystem with a push-and-pull effect,” said Dr. Reuven Sussman, director of the Behavior and Human Dimensions Program at the nonprofit research organization American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.

“When you get a message that your attitudes aren’t matching up with your behavior, that cognitive dissonance motivates you to change one or the other,” Sussman explained. “We would prefer people change their behaviors than explain away the discrepancy by just changing their attitudes, which is why children may be such effective messengers. When your child brings you that message, it is harder to explain away because of the familial, emotional connection. Children can also be very persistent, and repeated messages are important. So essentially, children have all the tools they need to be one of the most effective actors for persuading parents,” he added.

Short and Long-term Benefits

Engaging young people today can drive immediate changes in energy literacy and energy-related behaviors since they have the ability to affect their parents’ actions. But investing in education now will also bring future benefits to utilities as these messages and behaviors learned by young people through educational programming is carried with them into adulthood.

For example, the phrase “reduce, reuse, recycle” was introduced in the 1970s and had become ubiquitous by the 1980s. Ask any Gen Xer or millennial, and they’ll know exactly what that phrase is and how it taught generations of kids to put metals, paper and plastics in the recycling bin.

Those who were young in the ’70s and ’80s carried that messaging and activity into their adult years, and in turn affected long-term recycling rates. According to the EPA, recycling rates hovered at 15% for decades only to make a considerable jump in 1990, just as those young people started entering adulthood. In recent years rates have been up to 32% of all waste and nearly 70% of paper.

Just as recycling rates still have room to improve, so too does energy-wise behaviors and conservation habits. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), a massive and unprecedented transition towards more efficient buildings, transport and industry is needed, adopting the full spectrum of energy efficiency-related measures to avoid higher energy demand.

And, just as children were crucial to adopting behaviors related to messaging about recycling, they will be key to normalizing and expanding energy-friendly behaviors as well. By reaching students and instilling energy-wise behaviors now, utilities will see future benefits as today’s children become tomorrow’s adults: those who are kindergartners today will be 30 years old in 2050. How different will the energy landscape be when they reach adulthood? By becoming energy literate today, they can have a positive influence on that future energy landscape.

The Best Way to Engage Young People

The question then becomes, what is the best way to reach today’s youth? With so much information bombarding them, particularly from all sorts of digital content and social media, utilities may struggle to break through the noise. This is why it’s crucial to reach them with memorable messaging that stands out in their daily routine, particularly in an educational environment like their school.

As organizations like NTC know, reaching students with creative interactions in their school setting makes lessons engaging, particularly for environmental-themed topics such as energy resources, consumption, and conservation. Learning that is fun and memorable — that has a creative element to it to help students connect it with their everyday lives — those are the lessons that stick with students and inspire them to share with their parents. This stickiness becomes even greater with the use of story-based learning techniques.

These story-based engagements can make a meaningful difference in deepening the learning process. With digital content, simple interactions such as enabling chat functions or getting students to calculate how much energy they use, can make these lessons more relatable. These memorable experiences increase the likelihood of students sharing what they learned with their parents when they come home from school.

Driving these conversations at home is one of the most important effects of educational programs. “We encourage kids to start a conversation and engage with their parents about what kind of changes the family could make,” Boudet said. Engaging kids in a school or other educational environment can inspire them to bring those lessons home and work collaboratively with the rest of their family. If messaging is “sticky,” children are likely to bring it up when parents ask, “what did you learn in school today?”

In this way, messaging around energy literacy can have a personalized resonance with different family members. “There may be other values for families that matter beyond environmental concerns, such as saving money or resources,” Boudet added.

The most important factor is giving young people important information in an engaging way that empowers their behavior and inspires them to share it.

Moving towards 2050

With the energy transition accelerating and energy resources diversifying, it’s crucial for utilities to connect with their residential energy consumers, foster better relationships and trust, and support positive energy behaviors that go beyond simple behavior change, but deeper into building resilient communities with shared benefits. This is only going to become more important over time. As we get closer to 2050 and have less time to meet decarbonization goals, utilities must start changing consumer behaviors and build long-term strategies to maintain those changes.

Reaching students today means engaging their parents and caregivers to practice more energy-saving behaviors now, but it also instills lifelong habits in these future energy consumers. Engaging with children now can be the start of the energy resilient future we all want.

THE INFLUENCING POWER OF YOUNG PEOPLE