I suspect this is a marketing gimmick, but this story I saw linked on Marginal Revolution will be a good test of incentives. A hotel is offering meal vouchers for people who “produce at least 10 watt hours of electricity” by riding an exercise bicycle. There is a 99 percent chance that I would cycle for 15 minutes in exchange for free meal, but mostly because I’m cheap rather than susceptible to faux environmentalism (indeed, I’m sometimes tempted to throw towels on the floor because I get nauseated by hotels trying to mask cost-saving strategies in environmentally-sensitive rhetoric):
The Crowne Plaza Hotel in Copenhagen says the idea is to get people fit and reduce their carbon footprint. Guests will have to produce at least 10 watt hours of electricity – roughly 15 minutes of cycling for someone of average fitness. The hotel already produces renewable energy with solar panels on its facade. Guests staying at Plaza Hotel will be given meal vouchers worth $36 (26 euros; £23) once they have produced 10 watt hours of electricity, hotel spokeswoman Frederikke Toemmergaard told the BBC News website. “Many of our visitors are business people who enjoy going to the gym. There might be the odd person who will cycle just to get a free meal, but I don’t think people will exploit the initiative overall,” she added.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8621038.stm
