Discussion with Adam Levine

As a kid, Adam Levine was heavily influenced by the drought in the 80’s and joined the energy club in school which met to discuss the worlds energy problems. From that point on, he has felt a deep connection to the natural world around him and has made it’s protection his life’s work. These days, amongst other things, Adam is a consultant and historian for the Philadelphia Water Department(PWD). He played a seminal role in the creation of their Interpretive Center, an educational facility located at the Water Works center along the Schuykill River. I met with Adam last Thursday to get a better understanding of some of the more pressing issues that the City of Brotherly Love faces in regards to its water supply. While we discussed everything from the Marcellus Shale fiasco to the newly-appointed Water Commissioner of Philadelphia, Howard Neukrug, there were several specific topics which seemed most relevant.

How Recycling Became "The Norm"

Rethinking: The Standard Faucet

Everyone wants to tell the user how much water they're using but for some reason it always requires an LED screen and a power cord. Why can't it be simpler and therefore, easier to implement?

Rethinking: The Hardware Store

Daily Water Usage (US)

Walmart Supply Model

History Lesson: How Walmart and the Government Changed America's Light Bulb Standard

As we delve further into the challenge of changing consumer behavior, we find it useful to research methods used in the past to foster the adoption of new standards. It turns out that Walmart played a huge role in promoting the widespread adoption of CFLs (Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs). How did they achieve this?

WaterSense

Donovan and I discovered the WaterSense label while observing the retail space at Home Depot. You can see it displayed on the bathroom faucet placard above. Some of the promotional materials in the aisle declared that we could use 20% less water by upgrading our fixtures to those that meet the WaterSense criteria. What exactly does the WaterSense label mean?

Profile: Kerry P. (Contractor)

Kerry P.

General Information

• 32, female, married to Casey P., pregnant, no children, two cats
• Education: BFA Sculpture
• Occupation: Project Supervisor at a construction company
  
• Interests: Painting, sculpture, home improvement

Profile: Morris P. (Resident)

Morris P.
General Information

• 66, female. Married, separated. Two daughters, Morgan, 33, and Felicia, 28
• Lives alone with cat, has visitors multiple times per week.
• Education: Bachelor’s degree, Liberal Arts,
  
• Occupation: Independently wealthy, volunteer chair of local historical society
• Interests: Entertaining, gardening (mostly ornamental), working out three times a week, drinking

Profile: John C. (Resident)

John C.
General Information

• 35, male. Married to Meghan C. Three kids, Regan, 6, Ian, 4, Gavin, 1
• Education: Bachelor’s in Fine Arts, Metals
• Occupation: Custom jewelry design
• Interests: Listening to music, political economics, E-Cigarettes

The Decision Makers

One of the things we're working on is developing an understanding of all the relevant parties involved in the world of water fixtures. From our interviews so far, we put together this basic map of these parties.

Some people told us that the resident, is typically the one who chooses the fixture they want installed. We also learned that this person is almost always the woman of the household, a development which was supported by some preliminary observations at a local Home Depot. On the other hand, several interviewees contradicted this notion that the resident is the decision-maker. Instead, they pointed to the contractor or designer who they had hired to remodel their kitchen, for example. In these cases, the hired-help was entrusted with the selection process. While we have yet to talk to a designer, the contractor we spoke to also introduced the fact that they were limited to their selection by their distributors and manufacturers who were, in turn, regulated by a variety of government mandates.

Meeting Recap (1.25.11) - Slavko Milekic

To begin the meeting, we gave Slavko our problem statement and tentative goal:

Problem:

The routine behaviors associated with household water consumption among Americans produce negative long-term consequences without producing noticeable short-term effects.

End Goal:

Global: Reduce water consumption patterns among Americans.

Local: Design a system that effectively reduces a household's water consumption. This system should be easily adoptable and scalable.

Slavko pointed out that we were making assumptions in our problem statement that all routine behaviors associated with household water consumption among Americans produce negative long-term consequences, while in reality, some routine behaviors produce positive consequences. He also pointed out that we did not specify who was affected by these consequences. The problem statement will have to be revised considering this input.

Meeting Recap (2.1.11) - Slavko Milekic

As we sat down with Slavko, we explained our recent experiences interviewing and observing a few stakeholders. We interviewed two end users, two contractors, and a worker at home depot. We also observed customers at Home Depot in the water fixture aisle. Our interviews and observations led us to believe that wealthy end users usually don’t make decisions regarding what fixtures are purchased; these decisions are made by the designer, usually based on aesthetics. However, we interviewed a plumber who stated that his upper middle-class clients usually pick their own fixtures out online or from a retail outlet. He also explained that 95% of the time, women made the purchasing decisions regarding fixtures. This supported our observations at Home Depot, where the majority of shoppers for fixtures were women. This presented women as a possible target audience.

Meeting Recap (2.2.11) - Jonas Milder, Sherry Lefevre, Neil Kleinman

We presented our project’s current status, including our project context, problem statement, interviews/observation, literature review, project strategy and timeline. Neil, Jonas, and Sherry gave us feedback on our presentation as well as our design strategy and potential hurdles. They recommended we take the following actions:

1. Talk to a designer to get their perspective regarding their role and the role of contractors in the process of assisting clients make decisions

2. Look into literature pertaining to ways in which similar audiences as ours (women, manufacturers, contractors), have been addressed in projects of changing behavior

3. When presenting, be wary of referring to situations in a negative tone and instead, reinforce positive attributes

4. Understand more deeply the ways in which other resources have been reduced in consumption. (how did energy efficient lightbulbs come to be so common?)

5. Look into the businesses that advise their clients to make their whole house more energy efficient

6. Talk to PECO - i.e. What do they do to educate the population?

7. Talk to Waterworks

8. Look deeper into how water bills are designed, could be re-designed

9. Talk to a manufacturer - What do they use to make their products visible and appealing to distributers and consumers? What are their intentions beyond sales?

10. Look at and compare European fixtures to American ones. How did they make efficiency the norm? When did they improve efficiency? What types of fixtures exist in the US vs Europe?

11. Research previous examples of changing stakeholder behavior (e.g., the 1996 toilet flow mandate) and understand how to initiate this type of change for each audience

12. Look into the WaterSense seal; its adoption may be fueled by the interests of corporations. Does WaterSense truly lead to efficiency, or is it just another selling point?

13. Identify additional touch points along the water fixture lifecycle (e.g., bill design, feedback systems, retail display, etc.) to serve as possible entry points

14. Work on presenting the efficiency/purchasing behaviors vs. curtailment behaviors more clearly

Welcome to our thesis blog!

Here you will be able to keep up with the ongoing development of our thesis work. Donovan and I are working on designing an approach to reduce the water consumption patterns of Americans. We are a few weeks into our design process and have performed a decent amount of research so far, so you can expect some updates shortly that will give you a sense of where we are.