Scope
Damiani & Sissa introduce an Agent-Based Model that explores how environmental awareness spreads within a community and influences resource consumption behaviors, such as energy or water use.
Summary
The model features five types of agents that range from resistant “blinds” to activists referred to as “evangelists”. It examines how the agents’ interactions shape overall community dynamics based on their proximity and individual awareness thresholds. Smart functions like metering availability, feedback, tips and neighbor comparisons are shown to empower households, fostering sustainable behaviours.
Through simulated scenarios, the model demonstrates that small interventions, such as introducing a single influential “evangelist” or enabling individual feedback, can lead to significant shifts toward sustainability. The findings highlight the importance of social influence and technology in reaching tipping points that establish sustainability norms, ultimately reducing overconsumption and promoting environmental goals.
Relevance for EXIGENCE
Damiani & Sissa‘s paper accentuates how influential behavioural incentives can be and the effect they have on the spreading of environmental awareness and the road towards a more sustainable future. In EXIGENCE, we plan to implement both behavioural and economic incentives. Drawing on this paper’s insights for the behavioural aspect, we can utilise real-time metering, feedback, neighbour comparisons, and tips, as outlined in the study.
- Damiani and G. Sissa, “An agent based model of environmental awareness and limited resource consumption,” in Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Management of Emergent Digital EcoSystems (MEDES ’13), Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 2013, pp. 54-59.
