Transitioning to low carbon communities—from behaviour change to systemic change: Lessons from Australia

Abstract

Transitioning to low carbon communities requires an understanding of community practices and resultant emissions, as well as the technologies, infrastructures and institutions associated with and accessed by communities. Moreover, it requires an understanding of the connections between these integrated system components, its dynamics, a defined transition, and potential 'levers' involved in 'transitioning'. This paper accepts the notion that 'levers' include programmes designed to achieve practice or behaviour change in households which result in less carbon intensive lifestyles, and focuses on the factors that shape human behaviour and influence householder energy consumption. Research to date by the authors and others indicates that a comprehensive socio-technical framework that considers both individual psychological factors as well as the systems, standards and norms under which individuals operate is fundamental to the development of successful strategies to shift towards low carbon communities.A database has been compiled of over one hundred local programmes aimed at realising carbon neutral communities across Australia largely through approaches to behaviour change. This paper presents the findings of an analysis of these programmes, particularly with regard to the extent to which they take account of a socio-technical framework or understanding of domestic consumption behaviours and whether they are aware of or aim to influence changing standards and expectations around consumption practices within the home. While a number of exemplary community-based programmes adopt an integrated approach to addressing both technical and behavioural dimensions in the shift to low carbon communities, it was found that most fail to take sufficient account of the systems, standards and norms shaping consumption. Conclusions include directions for policy and programme design based on the study findings.

Towards systemic domestic retrofit: a social practices approach

“…Moloney et al (2010: 7621) Community--based programmes of domestic retrofit complement conventional energy efficiency approaches of regulations, incentive programmes, and information provision while suggesting new forms of intervention that are experimental, flexible, and customised to particular locales (Karvonen, 2011). The examples summarised above provide clear evidence that these strategies of joined--up learning and doing can have wide--ranging and significant influence on domestic energy performance.…”

“…It has been argued that the: 'transition to low carbon communities requires an understanding of community practices and resultant emissions, as well as the technologies, infrastructures and institutions associated with and accessed by communities Moreover, it requires an understanding of the connections between these integrated system components, their dynamics, a clearly defined transition pathway and potential "levers" to catalyse "transitioning"'. Moloney et al (2010: 7614) Such a perspective resonates with the governance of social practices (Shove and Walker, 2010;Spaargaren, 2011) as well as recent work on 'grassroots innovations' (Seyfang and Smith, 2007;Seyfang, 2009;Seyfang et al, 2010;Seyfang and Haxeltine, 2012;Smith, 2012). To address the temporal aspects of domestic retrofit, it is also necessary to shift the social practices approach away from everyday routines and habits to account for domestic activities that span month, years, or even decades.…”

Low Carbon Urban Transitioning: From Local Experimentation to Urban Transformation?

“…Against this backdrop of upheaval and uncertainty at both federal and state levels around climate change policy, there has continued to be a growth in local government and community scale initiatives particularly focusing on energy efficiency, building retrofits, behaviour change programs and renewable energy projects [15,29]. We turn in the next section to focus on the types of initiatives emerging in Victoria and in particular on local government partnerships and alliances as key intermediaries working across levels of government and municipal boundaries, seeking to build capacities to achieve socio-technical change in their particular regions.…”

The Status, Potentials and Countermeasures of China’s Carbon Audit

“…Certificated objectively and impartially by independent third parties, they are required to issue an audit report according to the national laws, regulations and policies [3]. Intended to strengthen their determination of carbon disclosure and promote the transition from "high carbon" to "low carbon", an independent third party inspection agency counts [4]. From the current situation, carbon audit, a non-financial audit cannot compare with traditional financial audit on generating short-term profits.…”