Encouraging Collective Action
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Transcript of Encouraging Collective Action
Ashford’s Integrated Alternatives
Encouraging Encouraging Collective ActionCollective Action
Bradford University
Rachel Macrorie & Liz Sharp
The governance of domestic water & energy systems
Ashford’s Integrated Alternatives
Presentation contentPresentation content
• Local demand management policy perspectives
• Resource users’ understandings & experiences
• How can we explain differing perspectives?
• A complementary approach
Case StudyCase Study
Ashford’s Integrated Alternatives
• Domestic water & energy retrofit: Advice, easy & harder measures
• Trial in Kennington & Bybrook
• Roll-out across Ashford Borough to be funded by Ashford Carbon Fund
• 25% CO2 reduction & 10% water reduction in 60% properties & 60% CO2 reduction in 5% properties
Ashford’s Integrated Alternatives
Research approachResearch approach
Ashford’s Integrated Alternatives
‘Responsibility for delivering water efficiency is highly fragmented and ultimately depends upon the individual...user’ (AIWMS, 4-6)
Local policy perspectivesLocal policy perspectives
Governance Construction of the resource user
Regulatory approach
Passive – delegates decisions
Citizen Right to resource
Sharp, 2006
Economic approach
Active Individual consumer
Commodity
Ashford’s Integrated Alternatives
Local policy perspectivesLocal policy perspectivesFacilitate user engagement:
‘...by making it simple and easy to do the right thing...[we need to give] people the means to [use resources wisely] without impacting dramatically on their lifestyles’
Behaviour change vs. technical/structural fix:
‘It’s the behaviour of the people that’s most important....if you improve the building, but provide absolutely no awareness to the benefits of that, they can be as wasteful ...as if they were in a really leaky house with lots of gaps between all the doors and windows’
Commercial governance:
‘the role for the public sector is..packaging up the various private sector offers ... in a systematic, community by community [way]’
Ashford’s Integrated Alternatives
‘‘Savings at Home’ retrofitSavings at Home’ retrofit
More than 2,000 gadgets and advice, worth around £300 in total were given to participating residents to help save water, energy and money (AF press release)
Ashford’s Integrated Alternatives
Resource users’ perspectivesResource users’ perspectives
Collective challenge:
‘The costs are part of it but environmentally, the fact that it’s going to run out...we’ve really got to do our bit to save what we can’
Information & encouragement:
‘This is what we should be doing more of, actually giving people information, encouraging them,
reducing our resource use’
Technical focus:
‘The visit was mainly around the technical
measures...we didn’t get onto any broader issues’
Goal-orientated behaviour:
‘I’m not trying to get down to a particular unit of
electricity usage per week’
Ashford’s Integrated Alternatives
A B CAttitudes Behaviours ChoicesAttitudes Behaviours Choices
Explaining the differencesExplaining the differences
Shove 2010
Consumers ‘locked in’ to unsustainable resource-using practices by a complex set of interlinked factors
Ashford’s Integrated Alternatives
Resource Efficiency AlternativesResource Efficiency Alternatives
Governance Construction of the resource user
Community approach:(engagement & contestation)
Active Citizen Right to communal resources
• Reliance on changing practices
• Indirect sustainability benefits
Ashford’s Integrated Alternatives
Towards sustainable consumptionTowards sustainable consumption
Encourage public debate about resource use practices
Emphasise collective action as well as goal-orientated behaviour
Shift understanding of our roles and responsibilities: active user engagement & partnership working
Acknowledge different perspectives so society can renegotiate our demands on water & energy systems
Ashford’s Integrated Alternatives
Encouraging Collective Action
The governance of domestic water & energy systems
Thank youThank youAny comments or questions?Any comments or questions?