Policies tackling the “web of constraints” on resource efficient practices: the case of mobility

Marc Dijk,Julia Backhaus,Harald Wieser,René Kemp

doi:10.1080/15487733.2019.1663992

Marc Dijk, Julia Backhaus + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1080/15487733.2019.1663992

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Abstract

In practice, environmental policy is only moving slowly from a focus on promoting environmental technologies to a focus on greening socio-technical systems. Policy measures to stimulate resource efficiency (RE) typically address the national, sectoral, or company level. This article shows how an analysis addressing practices that citizens engage in, such as eating or mobility, can contribute to more effective RE policy. It is instrumental to highlight policy contradictions in the current mix of policies and offer suggestions for stronger policy synergies. We offer a conceptual and empirical analysis based on the results of a large-scale survey (1200+ respondents) in three countries (Austria, Hungary, and The Netherlands), focusing on one of the most resource intensive consumption domains: mobility. We apply a framework that includes the social context of resource consumption, addressing how practices that citizens engage in are shaped by both “collective” physical infrastructures, the business models of products, social meanings, and regulatory incentives, and also by “individual” knowledge and skills, values, and financial capabilities. Our “web of constraints” perspective on RE highlights the interrelatedness of individual actor and collective factors. It is instrumental for an integrative policy discussion, addressing a range of factors hindering RE, anticipating policy contradictions, to capitalize on synergies.

Highlights

Policy communities face major questions about how industrial economies can be radically decarbonized and how surges in resource efficiency (RE) can be achieved
We apply a framework that includes the social context of resource consumption, addressing how practices that citizens engage in are shaped by both “collective” physical infrastructures, the business models of products, social meanings, and regulatory incentives, and by “individual” knowledge and skills, values, and financial capabilities
Apply a framework that explicitly includes the social context of resource consumption, addressing how consumption behavior is shaped by both “individual-actor” knowledge, values, and financial capabilities and interacts with “collective” physical infrastructures, social norms, supply characteristics of products and resources, and policies

Summary

Introduction

Policy communities face major questions about how industrial economies can be radically decarbonized and how surges in resource efficiency (RE) can be achieved. This article seeks to contribute to this move by offering an approach that addresses practices that citizen-consumers engage in—so far largely neglected in RE policies—where people use resources more or less efficiently through activities such as eating, traveling, and working. The analytical focus on practices is important because, more than through technology alone, resource use is driven by people’s behavior and the ways that it unfolds within social structures and technical infrastructures, which are to a significant extent shaped by policies. Suggests that both approaches underestimate the importance of the social context and infrastructure. Apply a framework that explicitly includes the social context of resource consumption, addressing how consumption behavior is shaped by both “individual-actor” knowledge, values, and financial capabilities and interacts with “collective” physical infrastructures, social norms, supply characteristics of products and resources, and policies

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