Turn your thermostat down: From energy saving advice to public policy?

Turn the thermostat down. Put on a warm jumper. It’s hard to imagine more archetypal energy saving advice. It is a long-time stalwart of the Energy Savings Trust. When energy prices soared in the winter of 2022, Martin Lewis’ Money Saving Expert website revamped and popularised the wisdom to ‘Heat the human, not the home’. Meanwhile, many European countries brought in emergency legislation to restrict thermostat settings in public buildings to no more than 19°C.

Reducing indoor temperatures, say from 21°C to 20°C, can be highly effective in reducing energy use, by 10% or more. All the same, it is a political hot potato. Perhaps not surprisingly, then, there is no energy policy that seeks to constrain space temperatures in UK buildings, beyond financial support for energy saving advice.

So should governments do more? An emerging literature on energy sufficiency suggests so. Partly inspired by the crisis measures of 2022 and the ambition of the French Energy Sobriety plan to move towards average winter temperatures of 19°C, several researchers propose more concerted policy action, including campaigns and regulations, to limit thermostat settings.

In a forthcoming article, I explore different definitions of energy sufficiency and examine what they mean for potential policy strategies. I conclude that sufficiency can offer new inspiration. But it does not necessarily mean regulations to limit setpoints or more of the same advice to turn the thermostat down.

Because sufficiency refers both to desirable states and strategies, public policy could pay attention to both. This means articulating desirable room temperatures to help design and co-ordinate policies and also aiming to improve the design and use of supplemental, lower-energy techniques and technologies.

The term ‘energy sufficiency’ is increasingly used to refer to forms of energy demand reduction that go beyond efficiency. To many, this means behavioural or non-technological changes to reduce consumption. In this light, energy sufficiency seems to be just a new term for energy saving. Only with more of a nod to protecting well-being at the same time.

A more distinctive version of sufficiency, however, is based on the integration of ‘two types of enough’.  This is the idea that people should have affordable access to enough of a resource to ensure health, wellbeing and a decent standard of living, whilst not using ‘too much’ of resources that are damaging for the environment. This doesn’t imply a single threshold of ‘enough’ (such as 19°C) above which consumption is excessive. Instead, it suggests a corridor, of sorts, as defined between upper and lower levels of consumption. Better put, this can be described as a variable and inclusive ‘space’ that supports flourishing and comfort. It depends, nevertheless, on a judgement about where ‘comfort’ transgresses into ‘excess’.

In my research, I don’t take a view of where such a threshold should be agreed. It depends on evidence and collective negotiation. As such, I think it could shift over time. But I do think that any definition of excess should be broad enough as to exclude a wide variety of experiences and expectations of a diverse population. This suggests not 19°C but something more like 21°C or 22°C.

Thresholds can themselves be interpreted in different ways. In my view, a definition of winter over-heating should not be treated like a speed limit. It need not be a regulation, but more of a guideline. In fact, I see it’s value, at least initially, as a guideline for policymaking rather than for households and other building owners.

It is equally important to define a lower temperature expectation. There already exist policies to increase indoor temperatures over winter (such as insulation and fuel subsidies), as well as public health and housing policies. To define a desirable range of indoor winter temperatures means that policies to increase temperatures need not work against objectives to save energy: they can both be assessed and evaluated across different government departments on a shared metric.

This is a simple idea but an important one. All too often, averages are used to articulate changes in consumption, including room temperature. But they are too coarse for policy goals in this area. Defining a range of desirable temperatures for public policy action makes it clear that not everybody is expected to make a change or to follow the advice to turn their thermostat down. It also clarifies that some increases are desirable (even for climate policy!).

Moreover, defining over-heating is an important step towards policies that more actively enable ‘energy saving’.

Whilst a guiding temperature range is useful, it is far from enough for a sufficiency strategy. Putting up with a cooler house because you can’t afford to turn the heating up is a fundamentally different from living well at the same temperature by choice. Moreover, focusing only on changes to room temperature neglects the other elements of thermal comfort and wellbeing that interact with and shape demand for heated space.

So thinking about sufficiency in another sense is helpful. Here, sufficiency is seen as a contingent and variable achievement in practice: that is, where health and wellbeing are supported and improved through comparatively lower energy means. This might be on an individual or household level, but also at a societal level.

This points to policy goals to improve the use, design, quality, safety and promotion of clothing, smaller local heaters, personal heating devices, and the management of radiant heat within the home through fabrics and furniture. Such ‘societal energy saving’ implies working with retailers, designers and manufacturers across diverse industries to improve the shared, background conditions in which people in diverse situations draw benefit from space heating whether that is ultimately provided by a heat pump or gas boiler.

However, there is little discussion of energy sufficiency within policy debates in the UK. There are good reasons for this and it likely won’t change any time soon. But this does not mean that the emerging academic debate can’t offer useful insights and ideas for energy policy here. Equally, the academic debate could usefully strengthen and widen the way that it envisages policy. There is an opportunity to think beyond regulation and energy saving advice to explore the many ways that ‘equitable and healthy energy saving’ could be pursued through public policy at a societal level. The familiar ground of thermostat settings are an ideal place to start.