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Greening some consumption behaviours: do new routines require agency and reflexivity?
Abstract
The scope of this paper is to analyse behavioural change and its rationales by comparing household- waste sorting practices with other habits and criteria that are related to ‘green’ shopping. Results obtained for Belgium are compared with results from other European countries, whether they come from research on household -waste sorting and green shopping or from studies on other aspects of green consumerism such as shifting to organically-grown food products or saving energy at home.
... Drawing on Giddens' structuration theory and on Iversen's work, Halkier (2001) shows that 'consumption practices are characterised by compartmentalisation in relation to environmental consideration'. Many illustrations are found in the literature: for example, between organic food consumption and mobility (Halkier 2001), between grocery shopping and sorting practices (Bartiaux 2007), in energy consumption (Lutzenhiser 1993, Shove et al. 1998). This compartmentalisation is observable even with persons or families with a strong environmental concern (Gram-Hanssen 2005). ...
... Another important result is that a wider openness to advice and information on environmentally friendlier practices is associated with a larger number of such practices. This finding confirms earlier results found by Bartiaux (2007Bartiaux ( , 2008 and suggests the variability of the amount of knowledge, especially on their environmental aspects, sustaining these practices of everyday life. Know-how and understandings are indeed one of the 'major avenues of linkage' of doings and sayings that constitute a practice for Schatzki. ...
This paper studies how consumers' reported practices related to food, energy use in housing, daily mobility, and tourism are combined and structured. Social practice theories are the main theoretical framework of this research. Data are drawn from a sensitisation campaign run by the WWF-Belgium and the methods developed to attempt to translate the theoretical focus to practices. Results show that both the low number of ‘green’ practices reported and the multiplicity of combinations of practices indicate a rather important compartmentalisation of ‘green’ practices and seem to refute the hypothesis of vast domino effects in these four different areas. In addition, a wider openness to information on environmentally friendlier practices is associated with a larger number of such practices, which raises questions about the design of such campaigns. Finally, there is no conventionalised way of linking practices and commitments taken by the respondents to reduce their environmental impact. A few policy recommendations are derived for sensitisation campaigns that often assume domino effects between ‘green’ practices, and for tools dealing with personal carbon awareness.
... Absence of regulations and repressive practices are a third constraint on pro-environment actions. Bartiaux (2007) finds that from the mid-1990s onward, a change in behavior toward significant positive attitudes to waste disposal in Belgium was mainly explained by the perception of intense political pressure. Giannelloni (1998) draws similar conclusions, attributing an inhibiting or an initiating role to the state, in terms of fostering ecological behavior and by means of an encouraging tax system. ...
This article aims at conceptually analyzing environmental concern and at understanding Tunisian citizens’ attitude toward this concept and at determining a typology of the different profiles of ecologically concerned consumers (ECCs). The results show a three-dimension structure of ECCs and identify four types of consumer profiles.
... As said above, an obvious reason to change windows and frames is their bad condition, the sensation of coldness and/or dampness and also the desire for (more) comfort, and possibly the influence on one child's asthma, as added by two mothers with low income. Still another "secondary benefit" (Bartiaux, 2002(Bartiaux, & 2007 cited is acoustic insulation, and often, this change is also the opportunity to make the windows larger for "Light! For light!" a mother exclaims, or as said by a teacher to enjoy "the charm of having an old house and to make it modern". ...
... To 'de-compartmentalise' consumption practices, an effective though radical tool would be the Personal Carbon Trading Scheme developed at the Environmental Change Institute of the Oxford University (Fawcett, 2005;Fawcett, Bottrill, Boardman and Lye, 2007). Routinisation as a relief from reflexivity may result from obligation and adequate public or private services as shown for some insulation companies (Guy and Shove, 2000) or household-waste collecting schemes (Bartiaux, 2007). Finally, routinisation legitimated by reflexivity via unquestioned legitimisations could be questioned and discussed through raising discursive consciousness (see above). ...
Sociological works dealing with change in energy consumption are rather recent and less numerous than economic studies or researches in social or environmental psychology. This paper presents the sociological and anthropological approaches that are the most relevant for getting a better understanding of the complexity of the factors shaping individual and household energy-related practices and the change thereof. Several brakes and levers are in co-evolution – this concept of co-evolution is one of the most relevant contribution from sociology to the study of energy using and saving practices – and include: technological developments, energy policies (namely information), market pressures (e.g.: energy prices, social pressure to consume, income repartition), practices and routines, norms (how comfort, convenience, cleanliness and connectedness are socially defined), social networks supporting or not energy savings, and distribution among people of motivational and attitudinal factors (namely agency feeling and environmental values). Theoretical references as well as field experience force to be very careful about predictions in the field of future energy behaviours. Consumers are indeed pushed by a combination of several factors, which are not only numerous and complex, but also in competition and even paradoxical: the same argument has a double valence, being possibly a lever or a brake to changes in a more energy-saving behaviour.
... Les répondants n'étaient pas informés du fait que les montants en euro stipulés dans les questions correspondent aux valeurs des quartiles de revenu. L'encadré 1 reprend les questions telles qu'elles figuraient dans le questionnaire.Kestemont et al., 2001 ; Bartiaux, 2007 : 106). Collomb et Guérin- Pace (1997) avaient déjà montré tout l'intérêt de ces associations de termes, mais ils les avaient recueillies dans le cadre d'entretiens. ...
Cet article décrit et évalue les procédures de mise en place d’une enquête téléphonique
effectuée en 2004 en Belgique sur un échantillon représentatif de 1 000 ménages.
Cette enquête était consacrée à l’étude des pratiques et représentations liées à la consommation
d’énergie des ménages. Nous présentons le questionnaire, les pré-tests et l’échantillon
aléatoire ainsi que les procédures de pondération, deux questions innovantes et quelques
aspects liés à l’organisation. Finalement, cette enquête a permis de recueillir un grand nombre
de données de bonne qualité, avec un budget modéré.
... Creating a feeling of obligation It seems misguided to reduce "needs" in an authoritarian or paternalist way, even if paternalistic measures might be applied transiently. In environmental matters, the creation of a feeling of obligation as well as public infrastructure to enable fulfilling this obligation made behavioural change possible for sorting domestic waste during the 1990s in Belgium (Bartiaux, 2007). This obligation also relieved the consumers from making individual choices that would conflict with what they perceived as social normality. ...
This paper begins with a deconstruction of the notion of "needs" and energy "needs", with insights from anthropology, sociology and philosophy. The paper continues by recasting energy consumption and production into a socio-political stake with a reference to our common human condition and a list of several policy options to reduce energy consumption: the creation of a feeling of obligation, the green option by default, the necessity to address the desire for transgression, a call for social and cultural diversity of the socio-technical systems, the paradigm of climate justice, and an inverse scale of permissibility. The paper"s main conclusions are that a local perspective is the best way to examine the links between energy consumption and its environmental consequences and that to join the relative necessity of "needs" and the paradox of the choice to be made for others while respecting the global ecological constraints, personal carbon trading could respect these two dimensions. A few prospective suggestions are made to make this tool more efficient in reducing social inequalities. This paper summarises and develops a long chapter (See Bartiaux et al., 2010) where we criticize the notion of energy "needs" and recast energy consumption and production into socio-political stakes. We thus attempt to continue the discussion initiated by Douglas et al. (1998) who noted that "the present social science con-ceptualization of human needs and wants sits awkwardly in the global climate change debate." (pp. 259-60).
... In a previous paper, Descola (1999: 128) argues that in Western societies, this predation mode is made acceptable only thanks to a strong division " between humans and non-humans " (Descola, 1999: 128). Elsewhere (Bartiaux 2007: 93), I have hypothesized that this radical separation is echoed by the human-exemption paradigm, according to which our human societies, especially in developed countries, are the only ones to exempt themselves from the constraints that nature opposes to social activities, thanks to culture and technique. Several environment sociologists (Vaillancourt 1996; Macnaghten and Urry 1998) have uncovered this paradigm. ...
Social theories of practice are more and more used as conceptual framework in studies on energy consumption. These theories are first summarized in this paper. The main part of the paper draws on several empirical studies using the practice approach and done in several countries by different authors. Depending on the practice(s) studied, it may be useful to add to the conceptual framework some geographical or environmental characteristics as they are locally interpreted (e.g. climate for heating and/or ventilating practices). Several empirical studies also show the relevance of including social interactions – within the family, the enterprise, the multi-apartment building, the neighborhood and so forth – into the conceptual framework derived from the social theories of practices, to take into account the rearticulating role of social interactions and the power claims when carrying a practice or a set of practices, and when changing it/them.
... In addition, there have been innumerable awareness campaigns drawing links between ordinary life behaviors and their effects on climate change. Even if precise knowledge about the effects of such or such practice is not widely distributed (Bartiaux 2007), the general idea of a causal link between individual behaviors and climate change is fairly present in industrial countries, and therefore fuels interest for CC. CC storylines predict changes that are directly linked to consumption and technology, providing a powerful moral coda. ...
Climate change and biodiversity loss have a central position in policy debate about global environmental change; however, of the two, climate change has a higher profile. This paper explores the similarities and difference between the two issues. Climate change is better defined and better understood as a policy issue, it is underpinned by a strong scientific consensus and practical units of measurement (CO2 and financial impacts), and mitigation involves a key economic sector in energy. Biodiversity loss is less easily understood, more diffuse and less tangible, and policy responses do not engage major economic sectors. We argue that these differences contribute to the higher public and policy profile of climate change and can inform attempts to enhance responses to the problem of biodiversity loss.
... All these disciplines share the common view of a rational and individual consumer whose behaviour and behavioural change can be predicted by appropriate price signals, adequate information, and -as psychologists add -by favourable attitudes, following the theory of planned behaviour (Ajzen, 1991). ddHowever it constitutes a quite narrow perspective (Bartiaux, 2007), this individualist view is central to many climate policies: 'policy -as currently configured -is incapable of moving beyond the ABC -this being an account of social change in which 'A' stands for attitude, 'B' for behaviours, and 'C' for choice' (Shove, 2010(Shove, : 1274. Similarly, Hargreaves (2011: 80) argues that 'in line with neoliberal political economy, most current policy responses focus on "sovereign consumers' instead of planning for 'more fundamental structural change in society''. ...
Do apartment owners in Bulgaria and Latvia carry out energy-saving practices in their homes, and what are the justifications thereof? Do they relate these practices to climate change or to their environmental knowledge? These are the main questions investigated in this research. Data are drawn from a qualitative survey of dwellers’ renovation activities and the motivations thereof. Results indicate that the poor conditions of multi-apartment buildings and the feeling of being cold or uncomfortable are sufficient levers driving energy-related renovations in privately-owned apartments. Environmental concern is never expressed as a lever for undertaking renovation, either in Bulgaria or in Latvia and there exist some scepticism and misunderstanding concerning climate change.
In today’s struggle against climate change and for less dependence on fossil fuels, why do people who adopt practices with a lower impact on the environment forget them during their holidays? This contribution sheds new light on sustainable tourism by focusing on daily practices during holidays. Based on the concrete practices of holidaymakers, this contribution proposes to understand some factors and contexts favouring the persistence, the transformation or the abandonment of sustainable practice(s) during holidays. The theoretical framework of this research mainly draws on social practice theories. The empirical material is made of 38 biographical in-depth and crossed interviews: twenty on daily practices with young adults (25–35 years old) who have adopted at least one more sustainable daily practice and who went on holidays for the past year reinforced by 18 interviews with some of their parents.
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