Human Behavior Patterns: The Quiet Energy Waste Drivers
People are habitual animals, reactive, forgetful, and usually out of touch with the true cost of their choices, particularly in collective environments such as offices, hospitals, and institutions. In energy management, this disconnection costs.
Let’s consider a standard commercial setting. A worker enters a conference room, turns on the air conditioner, and leaves it running hours after the meeting. Or a person in a break room cranks up the thermostat unnecessarily low just for their comfort, unaware that five others are in the room, or none at all. These little things add up over time into enormous energy losses, all while going unnoticed and unmonitored. Another scenario, a person is changing the temperature just because he knows he is not responsible for the charges, so he is misusing the facility, which is basically the behaviour we usually notice in coworking spaces.
Why does this occur?
Because the use of energy is not tangible, and for most individuals, the cause and effect between personal action and environmental or economic consequence is insubstantial. Employees aren’t writing the cheques. They’re not reading the utility bills. And they sure don’t care about maintaining building efficiency. This results in overcooling: Setting air conditioners well below necessary levels for a fast cool blast, resulting in Forgetfulness, keeping cooling systems on in empty areas, Irregular usage: Inconsistent habits and no clear guidelines, and Lack of awareness, no immediate feedback to indicate what’s being wasted
As opposed to financial choices or visible activities, building energy usage is inactive. It’s something that occurs in the background, unless the electricity bill comes in or the system fails. Worst of all, manual systems are based on memory and rely on responsible behavior, both of which are fundamentally flawed when generalized across the entire organization. It’s not that folks are deliberately careless; it’s that they’re disconnected from consequences and don’t even know how much they’re costing the business (and the planet) each day.
Specifically relating to Pakistani culture, sometimes ego issues make managers waste energy by intentionally ignoring the temperature or by changing the temperature to an extremely low point. This is the very reason why behavioral inefficiency is the biggest, most underappreciated cause of energy waste and one that traditional controls can’t address.
Now, imagine walking into a meeting room on a Monday morning. The air is freezing. No one remembers who turned the AC on or when. It might’ve been last evening. Maybe a cleaner adjusted it. Or perhaps someone just “set it and forgot it.” Multiply this by 10 rooms, 6 days a week, across multiple floors, and you’ll start to see the invisible cost that quietly builds up.
This is the way energy is wasted, not due to a lack of care, but a lack of awareness. Climate control in office buildings is usually a haphazard decision, without realizing the effect. Room too hot? Turn the AC to 19°C. Go out for lunch? Go ahead and leave it on. It’s not malicious, it’s human nature.
According to research, variation of only 2°C from the ideal temperature increases energy wastage by 15%.
Yet there are hundreds of manual changes made every day in institutions, offices, hospitals, and schools left untracked, unaudited, and unmanaged.
The temperature graph below is for a co-working space during summers. The user initially sets the cubicle temperature to 20°C as shown by the first white arrow.
The IoT-based REMAC system takes control at 13.20, and brings the temperature to a moderate 24°C. The user again manually intervenes at 14.40 lowering the temperature to 22°C, but REMAC brings it back to the optimal level. At 15.30 the user again lowers the temperature.
These deviations aren’t mere statistical outliers; they expose a cycle of manual control that wastes energy and inflates costs. The key is replacing human-led manual control with smart automation that comprehends actual usage, responds in real-time, and delivers comfort without compromising on energy waste. The need to digitize these processes is important when there are low-cost IoT and AI systems available, and you can easily use them to convert manual tasks to automated ones.
The key is in replacing human-led, manual AC control with smart automation that understands real usage patterns, responds in real-time, and delivers comfort without energy waste. With the availability of low-cost IoT and AI technologies – resorting to manual control only undermines your business and planet.
