The Household Environmental Monitoring Project

The principal benefit of this type of assessment for participants is the ability to quickly and easily relate personal decisions such as vehicle purchases and methods of home heating to the contribution to the amount of greenhouse gases produced and natural resources consumed to fulfill individual needs. [...] Our project also incorporated this program as the primary means of assessing the home energy portion of the total environmental impact of each of the study households, and as an incentive for households to participate in the study and become eligible for federal funding for energy efficient upgrades. [...] Participant requirements (residence within a defined neighbourhood boundary, occupation of the home during the monitoring week in October 2004 and access by the study team to the previous year’s household utility bills) and benefits (an assessment by the research team and EnerGuide home assessment) were outlined in the introduction literature. [...] A chart of the measures implemented by the households is provided in Appendix 6. 3. Analysis of Results 3.1 Viability of Technique Participant Satisfaction The research project was successful in finding 20 households willing to participate in the research project, and in maintaining their participation throughout the study. [...] One of the main objectives of the study was to make homeowners very aware of their consumption and the resulting environmental impact, in order to motivate them to take action.