Speakers:
- Dr Angela Druckman (University of Surrey)
Addicted to carbon? The embeddedness of carbon in UK lifestyles, and why kicking the habit is so hard
- Dr Stewart Barr (University of Exeter)
A Smarter Choice? The limitations of behaviour change for environmental sustainability
- Professor Bas Verplanken (University of Bath)
Forces of Habit: On Repetitive Behaviour and Behaviour Change
- Dr Lorraine Whitmarsh (Cardiff University)
Climate scepticism: who is sceptical, why, and is scepticism rising?
- Dr Kiron Chatterjee (University of the West of England)
How life transitions stimulate changes in mobility: New insights from the UK Household Longitudinal Study
- Dr Ben Anderson (University of Southampton)
The uptake of domestic energy generation technologies
- Dr Simonetta Longhi (University of Essex)
Energy Use and Changes in Household Circumstances
- Professor Peter Lynn (University of Essex)
Distinguishing Dimensions of Environmental Behaviour
- Dr Adam Cooper (University College London)
Final remarks and policy implications
Energy overuse at the national level is both a direct and an indirect result of the millions of decisions made in homes across the UK. This may be directly through household energy and transport choices (how much gas and electricity we use, whether we take the car or travel by public transport) and indirectly through the consumption of goods and services provided by the industrial and service sectors.
Until now, the almost total absence of large scale longitudinal data in this field means that we know very little about the way in which attitudes, behaviours and actions change over time in the context of changes in a household, changes such as retirement, moving house, the birth of a child or the introduction of new ‘green’ technologies.
In January 2013 a new ESRC/SDAI research project began looking at attitudes and actions of the British population towards environmental issues – looking at our changing behaviours towards recycling in the home, green energy and energy consumption. This day long event brings together academics and policy makers to discuss early findings of this ground-breaking research project which will help local and national government, energy providers and environmentalists to understand the motivations and actions of the British population, as they work together to reduce UK greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 80% by 2050.
To achieve this, people living in the UK will have to radically and permanently change their behaviour to use significantly less carbon-intensive products and services and to reduce overall energy demand. This new research, which uses data from the UK household panel study Understanding Society to reveal how we are living today and how our attitudes are changing.
This project will uncover how these events and changes shape and influence our environmental attitudes and actions, and could help policy makers create better messaging and motivators for society to move towards more environmentally friendly behaviours.
The workshop is supported by the ESRC Research Centre on Micro-social Change and the ESRC Secondary Data Analysis Initiative.
Registration is free.