'Inside the box': a cooperative game for co-creating energy efficient retail spaces

Although sustainability is one of the drivers of change in the retail sector, employees still treat energy management as a lower priority compared with other operational tasks. As digital technologies are flourishing, gamification is an emerging method of raising energy awareness, with most examples however targeting individuals, and therefore not supporting teamworking approaches to handling end user building energy demand. As such, combining behavioural incentivisation and technological development is a critical socio-technical challenge within the retail environments. The development of a new cooperative role-playing game that harnesses the participatory character of game theory to boost collegiality and encourage the energy-conscious behaviour of staff in a supermarket located in the UK, is described. By feeding the game with energy simulation results, this can be regarded as a novel synergy between behavioural science and game theory within the field of building energy. Future research will focus on testing the real-world potential of the game to engage retail staff in co-creating energy efficient stores.