Abstract

Consumption of raw materials, energy, manufactured goods, and services is increasingly concentrated in cities, as urbanization accelerates globally. Such consumption is influenced by complex interactions arising between the various socio-technical and natural systems that make up cities. To improve understanding of the interlinked factors that can perpetuate—or “lock-in”—unsustainable consumption, we build an explanatory framework that conceptually joins the literature on socio-technical systems and on urban consumption. Two questions guide our study: (1) What are the principal socio-technical systems in cities that influence consumption behavior? (2) How do these systems interact to lock urban dwellers into unsustainable consumption behavior? The resulting framework incorporates theories of socio-technical lock-in with factors relating to both “structure” and “agency” in consumption literature. Specifically, it describes the influence and interactions of physical, non-physical, and human systems on two interlinked scales: macro-scale (structure and collectively shared conditions) and micro-scale (agency and individually shaped conditions). To demonstrate the practical value of this framework, we apply it to a case study on mobility in Bangkok, Thailand. This allows us to systematically identify the interlinked mechanisms contributing to the growing dependence on and lock-in to individually owned passenger vehicles. Our study thus provides a comprehensive understanding of the multiplex drivers of consumption behavior, taking into account both structure and agency. The framework also provides a tool for other scholars to empirically identify lock-in mechanisms that hamper the adoption of more sustainable consumption behavior in other sectors and geographies.

Highlights

  • The intertwined relationship between cities and consumption is widely recognized (Hodson and Marvin, 2010; McMeekin and Southerton, 2012; Mylan et al, 2016; Vergragt et al, 2016)

  • This study aims to conceptually marry the two fields of socio-technical systems and urban consumption, in order to deepen understanding of the drivers of unsustainable consumption behaviors in urban areas

  • In studying urban consumption behavior, we identified that structural lock-in can wed agents to current and unsustainable practices as well as prevent agents from adopting sustainable alternatives

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Summary

INTRODUCTION

The intertwined relationship between cities and consumption is widely recognized (Hodson and Marvin, 2010; McMeekin and Southerton, 2012; Mylan et al, 2016; Vergragt et al, 2016). Their framework, which discusses energy systems, integrates the influence of exogenous context, rooting this in conceptions of a “landscape” from sustainability transitions literature (Geels, 2004; Geels and Schot, 2007; Edmondson et al, 2019), alongside other material, non-material, and human factors These recent studies consider the importance of broader contextual factors such as economic forces, natural conditions, and culture, their discussion on socio-technical lock-in is overwhelmingly placed in the context of understanding the self-perpetuating nature of fossil-fuel-based technologies or infrastructures. The sustainability of consumption behavior is structurally influenced by the general availability of technological artifacts (e.g., passenger vehicles, smartphones, household appliances), goods (e.g., foods, clothes, eco-bags), and services (e.g., sharing bike, Internet, and cellphone networks; repair services; restaurants) (McKinsey, 2020), and by their properties: size, energy efficiency, embodied emissions, environmental footprint, and so on. These structural conditions discourage residents from accessing stations on foot and push them further away from public transport, perpetuating demand for motorized travel, even for trips of just a few hundred meters

CONCLUSION AND CONTRIBUTIONS TO
Findings
DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
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