A Living Lab
to Encourage Short Showers
Shorter showers living lab
How can we motivate guests who don't pay the water and energy bill to consume less hot water?
Together with Innovation Lighthouse, Wageningen University & Research and valuable contributions from other partners, The Student Hotel hosted a living lab to find an answer to the question how to influence behaviour if financial incentives are not an option. The outcome: all you need is a little nudge!
Amphiro test
How can we motivate people who don’t pay water and energy bills to consume less without using financial incentives?
What did this project find?
01
Guests saved 17% of water during their showers
We measured the effectiveness of a technological innovation (Amphiro) on guest water-saving behavior. Our findings? A 17% reduction in water use and 60 kg less CO₂e emitted per room in one year as a result of the energy saved on heating water.
02
Hotels using this device have a low payback period
We produced new practical insights for organizations who want to stimulate savings in cases where users don’t pay for utility bills. The findings above translated into a payback period of around 3 years in the Netherlands. This could be less in other countries with higher water & energy prices!
03
Giving real-time feedback really works to reduce water use
We show that interventions providing real-time feedback help to significantly reduce costs, carbon emissions and contribute to the education and behavior of tenants. In fact, we noticed increased awareness & long term behavior change; water use was reduced by -10% for longer term guests, even after the device was removed!
Project Stages
Project design
Installations
Measurement phase
Analysis
Test & Iterate
Main
findings
Partners
