How Viable are Energy Savings in Smart Homes? A Call to Embrace Rebound Effects in Sustainable HCI

TL;DR

This paper investigates the limited consideration of rebound effects in smart home energy efficiency research and proposes actions for HCI to better address these effects, ensuring more realistic sustainability outcomes.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive literature mapping on rebound effects in smart home research and introduces a taxonomy of actions for HCI to incorporate rebound effects effectively.

Findings

Limited consideration of rebound effects in existing research

Significant opportunities for HCI to address rebound effects

Proposed taxonomy of actions for HCI to improve energy savings viability

Abstract

As part of global climate action, digital technologies are seen as a key enabler of energy efficiency savings. A popular application domain for this work is smart homes. There is a risk, however, that these efficiency gains result in rebound effects, which reduce or even overcompensate the savings. Rebound effects are well-established in economics, but it is less clear whether they also inform smart energy research in other disciplines. In this paper, we ask: to what extent have rebound effects and their underlying mechanisms been considered in computing, HCI and smart home research? To answer this, we conducted a literature mapping drawing on four scientific databases and a SIGCHI corpus. Our results reveal limited consideration of rebound effects and significant opportunities for HCI to advance this topic. We conclude with a taxonomy of actions for HCI to address rebound effects and help determine the viability of energy efficiency projects.