Community Collaboration Participant Identification on Osan Air Base, South Korea

INTRODUCTION
Transforming the way the community at Osan Air Base, Korea, views its use of energy—including creating policies to promote recyclable and renewable energy is critical to promoting sustainment, saving money and preserving our community resources. The goal of this project is to develop sustained changed towards behavior and attitudes of current energy consumers at Osan AB. Research indicates in order to achieve sustained behavior change the organization must be educated and properly motivated to be willing to change their convenient patterns of behavior. By targeting collaborative groups for imparting knowledge in this field, the future consumers and decision makers can be prepared to play a meaningful role in energy conservation through their better habits and behavior. Currently the Republic of Korean government pays 41% of the US operating costs in Korea. This Host Nation Support assist with utilities, cost of land, and the overall cost of doing business in a foreign country for approximately 8000 active duty, civilian and dependent personnel assigned to Osan AB (usfk.mil, 2012).
U.S. military bases in Korea are experiencing exponential growth as more families are moving to the Korean in an effort to normalize tours to improve readiness, increase continuity by keeping troops in place longer and reduce lengthy family separations. As the standards of living increase so does the use of electricity which will not only raise the cost of HNS but also pose a challenge to the environment. Inefficient use of lights or excessive running water does not demonstrate effective stewardship of these resources.
One of the Department of Defense’s strategies for reducing energy use is through energy awareness programs targeted at the individuals base and/or installation-level (USAF Energy Plan, 2012). Base level collaborations include senior base leaders, base energy managers, active duty and civilian personnel, and active duty and civilian personnel family members. With the goal to motivate people to conserve energy in their homes and community, there needs to be an understanding as to what drives their energy use behavior and how it can be influenced.

Energy Managers Energy Managers are the owners of the installations’ energy conservation programs. Their job is to coordinate all aspects of installation energy management, from energy efficiency and reduction of carbon dioxide emissions to waste management and sustainable development. Their goal is to improve overall installation energy efficiency through first evaluating energy use and then implementing new policies and changes based on findings. They would be the ones to initiate the installation’s energy collaboration. They are connected to this project as it is their primary duties. They do not need a lot of convincing to change their behavior and are generally convinced of the benefits of energy conservation, however, they may additional motivation to seek assistance for the collaborative efforts and convincing the installation commanders of the importance of their program in order to compete with other base programs and projects that are seeking installation commander funding. They will need to do their research to set realistic goals that will appeal to the commander’s ego and nature to excel among peers. They will also need to develop educational programs that appeal and are not only readily accepted by the installation populace but meet the transit nature of a military community.

Base Senior Leaders (Base Commander) The base commander and his staff of senior leaders set the tone for energy conservation and must be convinced of the benefits of conservation. Although these individuals do not have the time nor the knowledge to manage day-to-day energy conservation activities, the installation commander would be seen as the “leader” or primary “decision-maker” of this collaboration providing the key messages and outlining the goals to the collaborating members—acting as a local figure head for a larger Department of Defense collaborative efforts towards energy conservation.
These leaders ultimately control base resources and funding, therefore it is critical for Energy Mangers to establish realistic base energy conservation goals and sell them to the commanders to obtain their support to compete for already limited base resources. As for their primary motivation, these commanders are often inspired by ego, reputation and the prospect of notoriety from installation awards and recognition. Since the Department of Defense has already set the minimum energy reduction goals for DoD installations, commanders will be required at a minimum to achieve the already set goals and often set higher goals in order to be more competition with other DoD installations to be the best in said area. Fear of failure, that might result in being fired or non-promotion are additional motivations. A final motivation for commanders is improving the quality of life of base personnel. Conservation efforts can reap additional funds for QoL programs at a base and again bring prestige to the installation and its commander. Active Duty and Civilian Employees Over 85% of Osan AB is mobile and is stationed at the base for twelve month tours with an opportunity to return state-side for up to thirty days at one time. Mobile populations, especially newcomers, require continual outreach and feedback. This group would be considered implementers of the collaboration and would need to have “buy-in” in order to effectively participate in the partnership. This group which consist of mid-management to low-ranking personnel (not senior leadership) are motivated by achieving rank and awards. Energy conservation must be incentivized in order to motivate this group to compete for savings and demonstrate the importance of energy conservation—without quick-term rewards, it will be difficult to move this group to action, considering their short stint here at Osan AB. Mid-level commanders must find ways to reach their subordinates and stakeholders to validate cost translation to effectively show cost-savings and how they benefit the individuals. “Looking good” and “Saving money” are good ways to motivate this collection of stakeholders. Finally, base organizations need to integrate energy efficiency as an important value in their policies, regulations, contractual obligations, decision-making and outreach (McMakin, Malone & Lundgren, 2002). Through these implements, energy efficiency can become a habit-forming process for residents, rather than being imposed upon.

Active Duty and Civilian Employee Family Members
Active duty and civilian family members also known as considered military families are mobile, have a high-than-average education, larger-than average family size and spend a large portion of time away from home (Deal, Adams & Adams, 1996). They have very competitive and patriotic natures yet they desire to have comfortable surroundings and seek healthy lifestyles for themselves and their children. The members of Osan AB are considered a small, close-knit community with approximately 180 families currently living on-base in two apartment buildings and 15 separate homes. Families who live on base do not pay their own energy bills, so their motivation must be non-economic. The lack of individual bills means that residents receive no feedback on their own energy use or savings and cannot effectively measure their individual contributions.
Studies have shown that military families are more likely to make permanent changes in their energy behavior, not only if the proposed changes were easy, convenient to do, and they had the skills and resources needed to change the behaviors, but also when their neighbors and friends were changing in similar ways and when they made commitments to change in public settings (Harrigan, 1991; Stern, 1992). Therefore education, community involvement (healthy competition) and incentives would be the best way to motivate them to change.

CONCLUSION

There are several challenges to maintaining sustained energy conservation efforts at the installation level. Studies have shown that the most challenging aspect of energy-efficiency programs aimed at changing behavior is sustaining new behaviors over time According to author (Tertzakian, 2009). For a variety of reasons, it is very difficult to change ingrained habits and underlying attitudes. (As evidence, recall how many years it took to get people to recycle, wear seatbelts, and exercise regularly—and many people still don’t do these things, despite the obvious benefits!) Added to this challenge is residential turnover on military bases, which makes it difficult to sustain messages and interest. The most significant challenge, of course, is the need to maintain motivation in the absence of individual utility bills. However, through persistent efforts and effective collaboration, there is a great opportunity for the residents of Osan AB to not only meet their energy conservation goals but exceed them while building resourceful habits for the future.

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