Sustainable Lifestyles: Sites, Practices, and Policy

Abstract

Pro-environmental behaviour change remains a high priority for many governments and agencies and there are now numerous programmes aimed at encouraging citizens to adopt sustainable forms of living. However, although programmes for addressing behaviour change in and around the home are well developed, there has been significantly less attention paid to activities beyond this site of practice. This is despite the environmental implications of consumption choices for leisure, tourism and work-related activities.Through focusing on sites of practice as a key framing device, this paper uses data from a series of in-depth interviews to identify three major challenges for academics and practitioners concerned with understanding and promoting more environmentallyresponsible behaviour. First, attention must shift beyond the home as a site of environmental practice to consider the ways in which individuals respond to exhortations towards 'greener' lifestyles in other high-consumption and carbon-intensive settings, Second, in broadening the scope of environmental practice, policy makers need to re-visit their reliance on segmentation models and related social marketing approaches. This is in the light of data that suggest those with strong environmental commitments in the home are often reluctant to engage in similar commitments in other sites of practice. Third, researchers and policy makers therefore need to move beyond the traditional 'siting' of environmental practice towards a spatially sophisticated conceptualisation that accounts for the multiple settings of consumption through mapping the relationships that exist between sites of practice.

Time preferences and risk aversion: Tests on domain differences

“…Segmentation models are a popular way of investigating the behavior of individuals as it pertains to specific functions of their everyday life, such as transportation choices and water consumption. The advantage of the DEFRA model is that it targets attitudes towards many different environmental sectors, thus achieving a classification that captures an individual's overall attitude to issues of an environmental nature (Jesson 2009;Barr et al 2011). necessary to ensure complete transparency of the process. However, the choices of the subjects selected were not revealed to the other subjects as that would violate the confidentiality with respect to their earnings.…”

Strengths and weaknesses of using mixed methods to detect the sustainable practices of backpackers: a reflexive account

“…Whether framed as consumers, citizens or "the community", a burgeoning response to the question of gauging public involvement in sustainability has been through focusing on social practices (Bartiaux, 2008;Doyle and Davies, 2013;Hargreaves, 2011;Lane and Gorman-Murray, 2011;Pink, 2012). Scholars have invented a range of techniques for capturing practices, from interview or questionnaire-based formats (Barr et al, 2011a;Halkier and Jensen, 2011) to performance-based methods (Morton, 2005) and video ethnography (Simpson, 2011). But when conducting practice-based sustainability research, identifying the practices of interest remains a methodological challenge.…”

Nature-Based Solutions Accelerating Urban Sustainability Transitions in Cities: Lessons from Dresden, Genk and Stockholm Cities

“…Bussu and Bartels (2014) point at embedding engagement and conflict resolution practices from community to the city governance and as a way of "formalizing" community projects and participation methods (also addressed by Barr et al 2011). Embedding involves the alignment of efforts, strategies and agendas/goals between transition initiatives and local government across scales (Horsford and Sampson 2014, p. 961;Garcia et al 2015).…”