A socio-motivational perspective on energy conservation in the workplace: the potential of motivational interviewing

This chapter addresses the challenge of motivating employees regarding energy conservation, by providing a socio-motivational and micro-interactional perspective on energy conservations in the workplace. Building on change management research, we highlight the socio-relational and motivational dynamics between energy managers and employees in conversations about energy-related behaviour change. Further, we introduce Motivational Interviewing (MI) as a socio-relational approach that offers potential to help energy managers in discussing energy savings with employees. In this regard, we outline how introductory training in MI for energy managers can be designed, can provide detailed information on procedures, and present methodological approaches to evaluate these types of interventions. Finally, we provide a detailed analysis of conversational dynamics between an energy manager and an employee who we evaluated as part of a training evaluation study.