Government agencies have attempted to reduce energy consumption using executive orders, mandates, and agency policies. Despite these efforts, overall energy consumption of government facilities has not experienced significant energy reductions. Why haven't these efforts succeeded? The premise is that energy consumption decisions and their unintended outcomes contribute to this problem, and in this manuscript research focuses on cognitive bias, choice architecture, and decision making in relation to energy decisions answer this question. Potential impacts cognitive bias has on the decision maker is examined, and if it is possible to design better decision environments to account for cognitive bias and help decision makers maximize benefits (utility). This manuscript first examines the literature of cognitive bias, choice architecture, and government energy management, especially how these topics relate to meeting the country's energy goals. The next chapter examines cognitive bias that government facility managers encounter using qualitative analysis. In this study, the research indicates facility managers encounter loss aversion, risk aversion, choice overload, and the status quo bias during energy decisions. The last chapter examines applications of choice architecture, specifically attribute framing, to emphasize the utility maximizing choice of long term energy reductions over initial cost. This study found that decision makers did not see the utility of the energy efficient option without an intervention to draw their attention to the long term savings. Once the decision makers became aware of the potential savings, they chose the most efficient (and utility maximizing) option. / Master of Science / Government agencies have attempted to reduce energy consumption using executive orders, mandates, and agency policies. Despite these efforts, overall energy consumption of government facilities has not experienced significant energy reductions. Why haven’t these efforts succeeded? The premise is that energy consumption decisions made by facility managers, and their unintended outcomes, contribute to this underestimating of energy savings. This manuscript research focuses on how decisions can vastly effect energy efficiency, and how the structure of decisions can assist facility managers to make decisions which result in energy efficiency. This manuscript first examines the literature decision making in government energy management. The next chapter examines cognitive bias, which inhibits decisions that maximize benefits, that government facility managers encounter using interviews and survey results. In this study, the research indicates facility managers would rather avoid a loss of revenue than risk a potential gain in revenue, and are overwhelmed by the options of energy efficiency products and services available. The last chapter examines how to make the decisions easier for facility managers, by drawing attention to the benefits of long-term energy efficient products and services over initial (high) costs of products and services. This study found that decision makers did not see the benefit of the energy efficient products and services without an intervention to draw their attention to the long-term savings. Once the decision makers became aware of the potential savings, they chose the most efficient option.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/74954 |
| Date | 06 February 2017 |
| Creators | Delgado, Laura Ana |
| Contributors | Civil and Environmental Engineering, Shealy, Earl W., Garvin, Michael J., Pearce, Annie R. |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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