Abstract
Reframing Water Efficiency: Determining Collective Approaches to Change Water Use in the Home
Highlights
Over the last decade headway has been made in establishing and developing an agenda for demand management across the water industry of England and Wales to enhance the security and sustainability of water supplies and into the future
There is uncertainty regarding how climate change, population growth and other social changes will shape future water demand [2]. To address these emerging challenges the water industry is increasingly referring to approaches that intend to transform demand; from collaborative efforts to reconfigure everyday water consuming practices right through to developing collective infrastructures. This push towards discourses of ‘collectives’, ‘collaboration’, and ‘cooperation’ raises important questions for policy makers and managers; how can we understand water consumption as a collectively ordered activity? And how can we use the collective drivers of consumption to reduce household water demand? From an academic perspective it is important to critically consider the types of ‘collectives’ enacted through water efficiency campaigns, and whether or not these forms of interventions can create substantive long-term change towards sustainable water management
The purpose of this paper is to present an analysis of various paths that could be, and are being, taken to mobilizing collective action in order to achieve sustainable domestic water consumption in the UK, and to evaluate the salience of these in the experiences of consumers in the south of England
Summary
Over the last decade headway has been made in establishing and developing an agenda for demand management across the water industry of England and Wales to enhance the security and sustainability of water supplies and into the future. To address these emerging challenges the water industry is increasingly referring to approaches that intend to transform demand; from collaborative efforts to reconfigure everyday water consuming practices right through to developing collective infrastructures (e.g. water grids) This push towards discourses of ‘collectives’, ‘collaboration’, and ‘cooperation’ raises important questions for policy makers and managers; how can we understand water consumption as a collectively ordered activity? From an academic perspective it is important to critically consider the types of ‘collectives’ enacted through water efficiency campaigns, and whether or not these forms of interventions can create substantive long-term change towards sustainable water management This positioning of consumption as a collectively ordered activity reflects developments in the social science literature that push back on conventional approaches to sustainable consumption which prioritizes the individual [3,4,5,6]. The purpose of this paper is to present an analysis of various paths that could be, and are being, taken to mobilizing collective action in order to achieve sustainable domestic water consumption in the UK, and to evaluate the salience of these in the experiences of consumers in the south of England
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