How Viable are Energy Savings in Smart Homes? A Call to Embrace Rebound Effects in Sustainable HCI
🤖 AI Summary
Energy savings from smart home technologies are often undermined by rebound effects—behavioral or systemic compensations triggered by increased efficiency—rendering sustainability gains transient. Method: Through a cross-disciplinary literature mapping analysis across Web of Science, Scopus, IEEE Xplore, Springer, and ACM SIGCHI proceedings, this study systematically identifies research gaps concerning rebound effects in computing, human-computer interaction (HCI), and smart home domains. Contribution/Results: We propose the first classification framework for rebound effects tailored to sustainable HCI, along with corresponding intervention pathways. Findings reveal that current energy-efficiency evaluations routinely neglect rebound mechanisms, while HCI is uniquely positioned to advance rebound identification, computational modeling, and behaviorally informed interventions. This work establishes a theoretical foundation and methodological toolkit for accurately assessing the real-world environmental impact of smart home systems.
Application Category
📝 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.
Problem
Research questions and friction points this paper is trying to address.
Assessing rebound effects in smart home energy savings
Exploring interdisciplinary awareness of rebound mechanisms
Proposing HCI actions to address rebound impacts
Innovation
Methods, ideas, or system contributions that make the work stand out.
Literature mapping from scientific databases
Taxonomy of actions for HCI
Examining rebound effects in smart homes
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