Building capacity for low-carbon communities: The role of grassroots initiatives

Grassroots initiatives for change rely on people with limited power, limited resources and limited ability to influence others. From this position, people acting from the bottom up can change their own actions, seek to influence others around them and seek to change the social structures that they inhabit. These acts are invariably conceived, initiated and enacted within communities, and there is an emerging interest from practitioner, policy and academic circles in the importance of community as a space for realising pro-environmental change. In this paper, we ask what role grassroots initiatives can have in creating low-carbon communities. Using a theoretical framework from work on community-based practice change initiatives, we discuss the interplay between grassroots action and community capacity. We then present two cases of grassroots low-carbon community initiatives in light of this theoretical work. We conclude by discussing key themes emerging from the cases, including the potential for grassroots initiatives to build community capacity for low-carbon practices, and the importance of locally crafted solutions according to the structures specific to place.     

Building low carbon communities in China: The role of individual’s behaviour change and engagement

Low carbon sustainability has been addressed in China’s national development strategies. This research explores individual behaviour change and engagement in building low carbon communities in China through a case study looking at the building of a low carbon campus at Fudan University, Shanghai. Individual behaviour directly influences the overall energy consumption and carbon emissions on Fudan University’s campus. Even though relevant polices have been issued for energy conservation, the energy consumption increased by 5% every year, which suggests that the “top-down” approach telling students and staff “what to do” does not work effectively. Based on a comprehensive method which includes the individual and social aspects related to the energy behaviour, the research analyses the promotion of individual engagement in building a low carbon campus through behaviour change based on four main aspects: (1) awareness raising and behaviour forming; (2) approaches to encourage behaviour change; (3) beyond the barriers and the constraints; and (4) systems and mechanisms for the long-term engagement. A low carbon management system is proposed for not only addressing management and technical solutions at the university level, but also based on the contributions from behaviour changes in establishing a low carbon campus at Fudan University at the individual level.     

Individual environmental behavior: A key role in building low-carbon communities in China

People’s social behavior, especially environmental behavior, has a great impact on energy consumption and carbon emission. This paper explores both categories of individual factors (e.g., values, habits, education, motivation, etc.) and social factors (e.g., institution, infrastructure, encouragement, etc.), to clarify the correlation between them and their sub-factors. Low-carbon campus is a representative type of low-carbon community which is less difficult to build than other communities because university students are well-educated and, to some extent, are more environmental aware and more willing to change their behaviors. The energy-saving and environment-friendly policies implemented on campus are collected and overviewed in this paper. Additionally, the leaders and employees from the related administration departments are interviewed, and the data of electricity amount and water usage are analyzed and a well-designed questionnaire is handed out in a survey. The survey investigates the environmental knowledge, energy use habits, attitude toward low-carbon transformation, comments on the current institution and so on. The results show that different groups of students have varied levels of environmental knowledge, energy use habits, and attitude toward low-carbon campus management. To improve energy conservation and cut carbon emission radically, advices on building low-carbon community are also proposed including professional curriculums of environmental protection, economic initiatives, effect management, good communications, and sound infrastructures and facilities.     

Explaining the diversity of motivations behind community renewable energy

Community-based renewable energy initiatives may be important actors in the transition toward low-carbon energy systems. In turn, stimulating investments in renewable energy production at the community level requires a better understanding of investors' motives. This paper aims to study the heterogeneity of motivations that drive individuals to participate in community renewable energy projects and the underlying explanatory factors behind this, as well as the implications for their level of engagement in initiatives. Based on quantitative data from an original survey conducted with two renewable energy cooperatives in Flanders, the statistical analysis shows that cooperative members should not be considered as one homogeneous group. Several categories of members with different motives and levels of engagement can be distinguished. This heterogeneity is explained by contrasts in terms of institutional settings, spatial patterns and attitudes to the diffusion of institutional innovations. Regarding policy implications, the findings suggest that this heterogeneity should be taken into account in designing more effective supporting policies to stimulate investments at the community level. The activation of social norms is also shown to be a promising mechanism for triggering investment decisions, although the implications of its interplay with economic incentives should be further explored.     

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

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.     

Tracing the emerging energy transitions in the Global North and the Global South

During recent centuries, in the Global North, every energy crisis has been overcome, sooner or later, with a transition that has led to an increase in the average per capita energy consumption. Currently, due to the environmental and social impacts of the dominant high-consumption and fossil-fuels based energy model, we are seeing some initiatives that pursue a transition towards a democratic, low-carbon and low-energy consumption level energy system. This work analyses some of the socio-cultural, technological, economic and political factors that are leading to different multi-scale transitions towards low-energy societies around the world. It examines several different cases of transition and proposals from the Global South and Global North. Furthermore, given the limitations of the local or partial nature of these case studies, we also analyse their national energy contexts taking into account the hidden energy flows. These data integrate the total energy needed to provide the goods and services consumed by citizens and indicate the sectors that should be targeted to bring about genuine change, which sometimes differ from the transition paths signposted by national governments. The specific lessons extracted from the case studies in this research may contribute to a social learning process, promoting democratic and sustainable energy models in different regions of the world: peak oil could be an opportunity; energy needs to be equitable, not only renewable; there should be more sincerity and transparency in public energy data communication; energy should be controlled in a public or cooperative way; citizens should take control of their own investments in the energy sector; energy should be a right, not a commodity; community based consumption could reduce energy consumption; and sustainable urban development should be applied in cities and towns, where energy consumers could also become producers.     

The influence of consumers' environmental beliefs and attitudes on energy saving behaviours

With a heightened focus on the concept of sustainability in the past few decades, government, business and individuals have become increasingly aware of the need to reduce our environmental footprint. Consequently there has been much research on consumer environmental behaviour, and the beliefs, norms and attitudes that influence this behaviour. In this article we develop a conceptual framework of consumer environmental behaviour and its antecedents, and test hypotheses within the framework by means of a survey of green consumers. The results show that general environmental beliefs do influence norms on environmental actions and prices, but only norms on price are correlated with environmental attitudes; both intrinsic and extrinsic environmental drivers together with social norms and community influence are associated with environmental attitudes, but cost barriers may have a negative influence. It was also found that there was a strong association between environmental attitudes and energy saving behaviours but the latter was not in any way influenced by government policies or subsidies.     

Energy conservation : Centralized versus decentralized decision making

Effective technological energy conservation requires the following: joint ventures of government and individual consumers; willingness of both parties to act; and coincidence of their interests. The compatibility of national energy conservation options (centralized decisions) with the restricted microeconomic behaviour of the individual consumers (decentralized decisions) is examined using a large linear programming model for the former, while the latter is represented by the usual cost-benefit models of investment decisions. In both cases similar scenarios and input data are used. A comparative analysis of the results shows significant divergence between the optimal solutions of the two models, indicating that no real coincidence of interest exists under the given conditions. To narrow the gap between the two perspectives, it is proposed that the government should take into consideration the economic criteria of the individual consumers, defining appropriate policy measures such as pricing and incentives.     

The building process of single-family houses and the embeddedness (or disembeddedness) of energy

People building their own houses have, at least theoretically, substantial autonomy when choosing, for example, a heating system and windows. In this article, focus is on the process of building new single-family houses and how energy efficiency and energy-efficient technology are incorporated into the building process. The conclusions emphasize energy as only one factor in housing purchase decisions. It is a big challenge to make low-energy building important to consumers. Consumer preferences for new products are unlikely to fully develop unless individuals have the opportunity to interact with them. It is difficult for consumers to know what to ask for if they lack experience of energy-efficient technologies. In the studied cases, the building codes and established standards became extremely decisive for how energy issues were included in the process. There is a need to change the design of incentives so as to make the least energy-efficient choice the most expensive. The most energy-efficient solution should be standard, and if the buyer wants to depart from that standard and build using less energy-efficient construction, then that should cost more.     

The development and deployment of low-carbon energy technologies: The role of economic interests and cultural worldviews on public support

Large-scale deployment of low-carbon energy technologies is crucial to mitigating climate change, and public support is an important barrier to policies and projects that facilitate deployment. This paper provides insights to the origins of public opposition that can impede the adoption of low-carbon technologies by investigating how perceptions are shaped by local economic interests and individual cultural worldviews. The research considers both carbon capture and storage and wind energy technologies because they differ in maturity, economic impact and resource base. Further, for each technology, the research examines support for two types of policies: deployment in local community and public funding for research and development. Results indicate the influence of economic interests and cultural worldviews is policy specific. Individual cultural worldviews do not affect support for the deployment of technology, but they do significantly influence a person׳s support for publicly funded research and development. Conversely, local economic interests have a significant role in determining support for deployment, while they do not affect support for research and development.     

广东省主体功能区碳排放特征及驱动因素研究

基于不同类型主体功能区的发展定位与碳排放驱动要素分解,提出有针对性的区域差异化低碳发展路径是推进主体功能区可持续发展的重要内容。基于调研资料,分析了广东省各主体功能区自2010年以来的碳排放演变特征,从人口效应、经济效应、能源强度效应、产业结构效应以及碳排放因子效应五个因素对造成不同主体功能区碳排放差异的原因进行了分析。要素分解发现,经济规模和人口数量增长对优化开发区碳排放量增长的贡献率最大;产业结构的优化从2012年开始成为使优化开发区碳排放量降低的影响因素,对重点开发区和生态发展区碳排放量降低的作用仍不明显;产业能源强度变动均使三类功能区碳排放量降低,但是贡献率呈现明显差异。建议：（1）加快发展优化开发区服务业,积极推动实施居民碳排放管理;（2）重点开发区应以提高能效和推进低碳技术为主实施低碳转型;（3）生态发展区要大力推广清洁能源,促使农业低碳化发展。     

Community energy planning in Canada: The role of renewable energy

An emerging trend in Canada is the creation of community energy plans, where decisions that used to be left to regional level energy agencies or private individuals are now being considered at the community level. A desire to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to become more energy self-sufficient is driving this change. Theoretically, local level management is desirable because it achieves these goals through improvements in the three areas of energy efficiency, energy conservation and switching to renewable energy sources. The analysis of 10 of the first community energy plans in Canadian communities, ranging in population size from 500 to one million, finds that communities are choosing policies and programs centred on increasing energy efficiency and conservation while renewable energy receives much less attention. Municipal operations were called upon to set higher targets than the general community. Communities that recognized the substantial potential of renewable energy often focused on technologies that the municipal sector could implement, such as bio-fuels for their transportation fleet. Wind, passive solar design, solar photovoltaics and solar thermal options were only recommended in a few cases. Overall, only one of the five larger communities (Calgary) recommended implementing multiple renewable energy technologies while three of the five smaller communities proposed multiple renewable energy sources. The implication is that smaller and more remote communities may be the most willing to lead in the planned introduction of renewable energy systems.     

Should we design buildings that are less sensitive to occupant behaviour? A simulation study of effects of behaviour and design on office energy consumption

In an ideal world, occupants have an understanding of how building systems work and are motivated to use the systems as they were designed to be. There is considerable evidence, however, that occupants do not understand the principles of how buildings function and that they use the systems non-optimally. The purpose of the paper is to quantify the effect of occupant behaviour on energy consumption and show how it is affected by design strategies. Numerical simulations of an office were performed with the dynamic thermal simulation software TRNSYS. Three types of behaviour (‘careless’, ‘normal’, and ‘conscious’) and two types of design (‘ordinary’ and ‘robust’) were considered. The results show that the effect of occupant behaviour on energy consumption is greatly diminished with robust design solutions, solutions that make buildings less sensitive to occupant behaviour. The careless user consumes 75–79 % less energy if the robust design solutions are applied rather than the ordinary design solutions. It is argued that a realistic view of occupant behaviour is advantageous in the creation of energy-efficient buildings (that is, leaving less need to learn how buildings work, to be motivated to save energy, or to perform specific energy-saving actions). However, the possibility of personal control should not be eliminated.     

Subsidy strategies for energy technologies

The principal types of direct consumer subsidies to encourage the commercialization of unconventional energy sources (solar, conservation, synthetic fuels) are investigated. Although such subsidies can be justified on grounds that the prices to consumers of conventional energy alternatives do not reflect their full social costs, they all have serious drawbacks. Basically those subsidy schemes that are easy to administer encourage inefficient consumer behaviour while subsidies schemes that are efficient raise intractable problems of measurement. Subsidies for unconventional energy provide energy below its full social cost, thus giving the wrong price signals to the consumer. It would be more rational and effective to tax conventional energy up to its full social cost.     

Energy efficiency in residences—Challenges for women and men in the North

In a Northern country such as Sweden, energy use in the home may be reduced by 20% through changes in behaviour. However, little is known about how households respond to policy instruments encouraging such change or to what degree this in turn may affect the workload of women and men in such communities. The current study presents findings from interviews with 30 households in Sweden that participated in intervention measures aimed at reducing energy use in the home and explores how the sexes divided the new household chores and their opinions regarding these. The empirical findings are analysed against a theoretical framework of behavioural change. Results from the interviews indicate that lower indoor temperature and fewer hot baths had a greater impact on women than on men. When electricity charges varied, the workload of women increased as they washed clothes and dishes at night and at weekends when electricity was cheaper. Women also refrained from using clothes’ driers resulting in more time spent completing this chore. Based on these results we argue that a gender perspective in future intervention programmes in Northern communities may be useful as residential energy conservation in its present form affects the timing and types of household chores with resulting increased workload for women. How energy policy should change requires further analysis.     

Efficient technologies or user behaviour, which is the more important when reducing households’ energy consumption?

Much policy effort focuses on energy efficiency of technology, though not only efficiency but also user behaviour is an important factor influencing the amount of consumed energy. This paper explores to what extent energy efficiency of appliances and houses or user behaviour is the more important, both for understanding why some households consume much more energy than others, and when looking for relevant approaches to a future low-carbon society. The paper uses several sources to explore this question, most of them from a Danish context, including results from the researcher’s own projects and Danish national statistics. These Danish data are discussed together with international studies. Through the presentation of these different projects and examples, it is shown how user behaviour is at least as important as the efficiency of technology when explaining households’ energy consumption in Denmark. In the conclusion, these results are discussed in a broader international perspective and it is concluded that more research in this field is necessary. In relation to energy policy, it is argued that it is not a question of technology efficiency or behaviour, as both have to be included in future policy if energy demand is actually to be reduced. Furthermore, it is also argued that not only individual behaviour is relevant, but also a broader perspective on collectively shared low-carbon practices has to be promoted.     

The research agenda on social acceptance of distributed generation in smart grids: Renewable as common pool resources

The rapid developing literature on ‘smart grids’ suggests that these will facilitate ‘distributed generation’ (DG) preferably from renewable sources. However, the current development of smart (micro)grids with substantial amount of DG (“DisGenMiGrids”) suffers from a focus on mere ‘technology’. Ongoing problems with deployment of renewable energy have shown that implementation is largely determined by broad social acceptance issues. This smart grid development is very important for further renewables deployment, but again there is a tendency to continue the neglect of social determinants.Most technical studies apply implicit and largely unfounded assumptions about the participation in and contribution of actors to DisGenMiGrid systems. This lack of understanding will have severe consequences: smart grids will not further renewables deployment when there are hardly actors that are willing to become part of them. This review is a first attempt to address the social construction of smart electricity grids. As institutional factors have proved to be the main determinants of acceptance, these will also be crucial for further renewables deployment in micro-grid communities. Elaboration of the institutional character of social acceptance and renewables’ innovation calls for an institutional theory approach involving Common Pool Resources management, because these socio-technical systems aim to optimise the exploitation of natural resources. Citizens/consumers and other end-users increasingly have the option to become more self-sufficient by becoming co-producers of electricity.They may optimise the contribution of DG when they cooperate and insert their renewable energy in a cooperative microgrid with mutual delivery. Moreover, the option to include ‘distributed storage’ capacity (electric vehicles) in these microgrids, enables an increasing share of renewables deployment. However, all these options should be institutionally opened. This requires much self-governance and flexible overall regulation that allows microgrids.The research agenda should focus on how such new systems become institutionally embedded, and how they are socially constructed.     

我国城市绿色低碳发展问题与挑战——以京津冀地区为例

城市化是推动我国经济和社会发展的主要动力,促进城市绿色、低碳发展是破解资源环境约束、加快转变发展方式、改善民生、应对全球气候变化的重要内容.本文以京津冀地区为例,分析了我国城市绿色低碳发展现状、存在问题、面临挑战等,提出城市化发展要优化区域和城市布局,构建系统优化的绿色、低碳能源供应系统,大幅提升能源利用效率,创新区域和城市管理体制机制,推动城市发展向绿色、低碳方向尽快转型.     

Evaluating the impact of energy interventions: home audits vs. community events

New Zealand’s housing stock tends to be of low thermal quality that can adversely affect the health and well-being of occupants as well as costing more than necessary to heat. Householders need information and motivation to make material changes and adopt new practices to achieve warmer and more energy-efficient homes. This study compares two different types of energy interventions with householders in three different suburbs in Dunedin, New Zealand. Two suburbs received a home energy audit whereby an auditor surveyed each house and provided personalised advice. Householders in the third suburb took part in community energy events that included general advice and practical workshops. The impacts of these interventions were evaluated through pre- and post-intervention surveys and post-intervention interviews. Home energy audits were successful in encouraging change both behavioural and practical, where it was possible. The energy events promoted community engagement and awareness relating to energy-saving actions. Participant feedback suggests that a combination of both types of intervention may be most effective in promoting household change, beginning with energy events in communities before offering home energy audits. This would enable people to share their thoughts and concerns about energy with the support of their social networks and engender trust in the process, before offering personalised audits. Overall, the results show that interventions need to be correctly targeted to appropriate communities to be effective.     

Energy and economic growth: Grounding our understanding in physical reality

This article attempts to summarise the complex, wide ranging and unresolved debate within the economics literature on the possibility of decoupling economic growth from energy use. It explores the difference between neo-classical and ecological economic worldviews and highlights how the ecological economic approach attempts to ground its analysis within the physical limits implied by the laws of thermodynamics. Once these laws are accounted for, the possibility of decoupling economic growth from energy use seems more limited than neo-classical economics implies. Analysis of empirical evidence also demonstrates that observed improvements in GDP/energy use ratios in the USA are better explained by shifts towards higher quality fuels than by improvements in the energy efficiency of technologies. This implies a need to focus on decarbonising energy supply. Furthermore, where energy-efficiency improvements are attempted, they must be considered within the context of a possible rebound effect, which implies that net economy-wide energy savings from energy-efficiency improvements may not be as large as the energy saved directly from the efficiency improvement itself. Both decarbonising energy supply and improving energy efficiency require the rapid development and deployment of new and existing low-carbon technologies. This review therefore concludes by briefly outlining areas of economic thought that have emerged as a result of engagement between economists and experts from other disciplines. They include ecological, evolutionary and institutional economics, all of which can make policy-relevant contributions to achieving a transition to a low-carbon economy.