Energies 2015,8 11009 dictates comprehension,relevance,and importance ofenergy consumption to associated problems [140]. Since commercial occupants have no direct financial responsibility about their energy consumption in the commercial sector,financial incentives(i.e.,monetary units)do not efficiently motivate occupants. However,sharing energy-consumption information with direct energy and/or environmental externality units has been shown to improve energy saving behaviors in the commercial sector [28,117,132,141].In fact,commercial building occupants who are aware of their ecological consequences are more likely to improve their behaviors [142,143]. A group of researchers [144]developed a site (StepGreen.org)that provides environmental externalities(e.g.,the equivalent CO2)ofoccupants'activities to them in order to motivate energy-saving behaviors.They deployed StepGreen on a case study of 32 students in a local community for a three-week period of time.Their findings indicate the effectiveness of the environmental externalities unit in changing behavior actions.However,such sites need to provide a motivation for occupants to use the data that is shared through the website.Conventional feedback delivers data to occupants;however, sharing data through a site may not actually deliver data since some occupants could forget to access the site.Matthies et al.[45]provided environmental externalities feedback over the whole period of November 2008 to January 2009 for 15 university buildings in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia.They gave information on the reduction of COz emission to all occupants through different methods such as posters,websites,e-mails,and brochures.Their results showed 8 percent reductions in electrical energy consumption,and therefore show how feedback using environmental externalities units is an effective strategy for improving occupant behavior.This research is a good case study for showing how a feedback study could be implemented within large-scale buildings.Further researcher might follow the methodology explored in this research to employ such feedback studies on large-scale buildings. However,in their work,the authors assumed that all objective data (e.g.,meter reading)is highly reliable, and this assumption inevitably affected their results.Employing a data analysis method in order to verify the data at the early stage of such works could be helpful in yielding more reliable results and conclusions. In addition to representative units,the means of communicating information also play a role in audience response.Staats et al.[145]provided feedback about heating-related behaviors to 384 office spaces at a large office building over the course of two successive winters;each study was performed during a four-week period.Their feedback sought to reduce natural gas used for radiators,and they used posters,brochures,and individual feedback to provide energy information to occupants.They assessed the long-term effects of the first feedback during the 11-month-long gap between the two feedback periods.The work overall achieved a 6 percent reduction in total gas consumption during the duration of the study.Such studies can reveal how occupants with previous experience using a feedback tool will respond to a similar feedback study after a short-term or long-term passage of time.Carrico and Reimer [132] provided energy feedback for occupants at a mid-sized private university in the southern United States; the case study's 24 buildings were used primarily for office space,research,and teaching,and the monthly feedback was presented to the 2300 employees via e-mail over the course of a four-month duration.Their feedback showed an average reduction of 7 percent in total energy consumption.Similar to the research of Matthies et al.[45],this research is also a good case to show how a feedback study can be implemented within large-scale buildings.In such studies,a single feedback method applies to hundreds of occupants who work in various commercial buildings,which means that handling suchEnergies 2015, 8 11009 dictates comprehension, relevance, and importance of energy consumption to associated problems [140]. Since commercial occupants have no direct financial responsibility about their energy consumption in the commercial sector, financial incentives (i.e., monetary units) do not efficiently motivate occupants. However, sharing energy-consumption information with direct energy and/or environmental externality units has been shown to improve energy saving behaviors in the commercial sector [28,117,132,141]. In fact, commercial building occupants who are aware of their ecological consequences are more likely to improve their behaviors [142,143]. A group of researchers [144] developed a site (StepGreen.org) that provides environmental externalities (e.g., the equivalent CO2) of occupants’ activities to them in order to motivate energy-saving behaviors. They deployed StepGreen on a case study of 32 students in a local community for a three-week period of time. Their findings indicate the effectiveness of the environmental externalities unit in changing behavior actions. However, such sites need to provide a motivation for occupants to use the data that is shared through the website. Conventional feedback delivers data to occupants; however, sharing data through a site may not actually deliver data since some occupants could forget to access the site. Matthies et al. [45] provided environmental externalities feedback over the whole period of November 2008 to January 2009 for 15 university buildings in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. They gave information on the reduction of CO2 emission to all occupants through different methods such as posters, websites, e-mails, and brochures. Their results showed 8 percent reductions in electrical energy consumption, and therefore show how feedback using environmental externalities units is an effective strategy for improving occupant behavior. This research is a good case study for showing how a feedback study could be implemented within large-scale buildings. Further researcher might follow the methodology explored in this research to employ such feedback studies on large-scale buildings. However, in their work, the authors assumed that all objective data (e.g., meter reading) is highly reliable, and this assumption inevitably affected their results. Employing a data analysis method in order to verify the data at the early stage of such works could be helpful in yielding more reliable results and conclusions. In addition to representative units, the means of communicating information also play a role in audience response. Staats et al. [145] provided feedback about heating-related behaviors to 384 office spaces at a large office building over the course of two successive winters; each study was performed during a four-week period. Their feedback sought to reduce natural gas used for radiators, and they used posters, brochures, and individual feedback to provide energy information to occupants. They assessed the long-term effects of the first feedback during the 11-month-long gap between the two feedback periods. The work overall achieved a 6 percent reduction in total gas consumption during the duration of the study. Such studies can reveal how occupants with previous experience using a feedback tool will respond to a similar feedback study after a short-term or long-term passage of time. Carrico and Reimer [132] provided energy feedback for occupants at a mid-sized private university in the southern United States; the case study’s 24 buildings were used primarily for office space, research, and teaching, and the monthly feedback was presented to the 2300 employees via e-mail over the course of a four-month duration. Their feedback showed an average reduction of 7 percent in total energy consumption. Similar to the research of Matthies et al. [45], this research is also a good case to show how a feedback study can be implemented within large-scale buildings. In such studies, a single feedback method applies to hundreds of occupants who work in various commercial buildings, which means that handling such