Your search

The impetus for addressing climate change is real and present, but its translation into action lacks immediacy and severity, and involves reorientating our lifestyles and economies towards sustainability. Drawing on focus groups conducted in seven UK communities, specific interventions were identified as encouraging change in the short-term, maintaining momentum in the medium-term and sustaining sustainability in the long-term to address various enablers of, and barriers to, sustainable lifestyles. The findings illustrate that there are multiple entry points and influencing periods for sustainable living. Given the importance of the temporal dimension in encouraging and sustaining practices for sustainable lifestyles, the paper advances a “what works” approach to sustainable lifestyles that can be embedded with practical solutions. This approach creates a synergy between what individuals want to do to live sustainably and how they want to do this with interventions that are known to create meaningful lifestyles changes and maintain sustainable living.

There is substantial difficulty with effectively, and meaningfully, engaging the public with community-based sustainability projects as a method to facilitate sustainable lifestyles. Individuals engage with community projects in numerous ways: cognitively (knowledge), affectively (emotions), and behaviourally (actions). One prevalent consideration that individuals consider is other peoples’ (lack of) engagement; given that the success of community-based approaches addressing climate change is dependent upon the actions, and participation, of all local residents. Findings from focus groups in seven urban communities in the UK are presented that illustrate clear elements of ‘Othering’ as part of individual engagements with community-based sustainability projects. Primarily, there is substantial consideration towards what other people within the community know, feel, and do to engage with community-based projects. Residents distinguish themselves in opposition to those they view as engaging, and not engaging, in the same way as themselves and indicate the need for equitable participation amongst all residents. These considerations have the potential to project particular barriers on wider community engagement if left to develop, cause tension, and are not resolved. Implications for participatory strategies to meaningfully and effectively engage individuals with community-based sustainability and transformational change are outlined. Insights into how considerations of ‘Othering’ can be overcome so as not to cause negative engagements with other residents and attempts to live sustainably as part of a community approach are illustrated. © 2020

Offshore renewable, or Blue Energy, installations are a crucial component of many countries’ energy policies and pathways towards a sustainable low-carbon

Since 31 October 2018, Extinction Rebellion has advocated in numerous examples of civil disobedience across the UK in an attempt to call for further action to address climate change. Following this example, similar activism has also been seen across Europe and North America. Such activism falls within the context of climate justice (the framing of climate change as an ethical and political issue); given the disproportionate impacts that climate change has on the most vulnerable people in society, e.g., low-income communities, women, and future generations. What is noticeable about Extinction Rebellion is its ability to place climate change on the social agenda, a task that has proven difficult in the age of denialism, skepticism, false-balance media reporting, and far-right politics. With reference to recent examples of civil disobedience and protests in 2019, this paper evaluates how climate justice movements, specifically Extinction Rebellion, change meanings of urban landscapes into becoming more contested places and disrupt the consciousness of everyday routines toward sustainability. This disruption and contested nature is brought about through changing the sociocultural dynamics of urban landscapes during, and after, such protests. The meanings of urban landscapes thus change from being viewed as purely sites of materialist consumption to sites of initial resistance against business-as-usual approaches to climate change leading to changes in policy. Through substantial public engagement with the narrative of climate justice, civil disobedience protests, and urban art, it is clear that urban areas “held” for a number of successive days have started to be perceived differently. This article concludes with implications for subsequent spatial disruption and civil disobedience advocating for stronger climate policy.

Food waste has become an area of increasing concern in recent years, since unsustainable food waste practices have been associated with a range of adverse environmental, economic and societal impacts. Food waste is a multi-sectoral issue and must be addressed as such, by ensuring policymakers, practitioners, and consumers are equipped with the relevant knowledge and understanding of the importance of sustainable food waste practices. By exploring current attitudes and understanding of this topic amongst consumers, a lack of education about the importance of this issue has been identified as a barrier to carrying out sustainable practices at the household level, along with excess packaging, cultural norms of overconsumption and inappropriate social marketing. In contrast, a number of enablers, including social pressures, access to appropriate facilities and encouragement from media advertisements appear to have been highly influential in infringing on the consciousness of consumers. Investigating these enablers and barriers has allowed a number of potential interventions to be identified, with the intention of addressing this issue using a multifaceted approach and encouraging society to carry out sustainable food waste practices in the future. © 2020

At a time of substantial interest in the Blue Economy, it is surprising that sustainability dilemmas and justice components are not well integrated within its academic discourse or policy arena. Reviewing a number of existing U.S. coastal and marine policies, we identify that justice and equity components are essentially missing and advocate for a comprehensive policy framework for a just and inclusive transition for the Blue Economy. Looking forward, we review and critique the policy proposal of Elizabeth Warren’s Blue New Deal. While the current state of the Blue New Deal remains uncertain, we indicate that such a policy framework would integrate justice, equity and inclusivity as part of operationalising the Blue Economy. Given the proposal for a Blue New Deal is relatively new, we propose a research agenda to explore how comprehensive policy frameworks may seek to place justice and inclusivity at the centre of the Blue Economy.

Emerging literature on coastal transitions in the face of the climate crisis establishes a need for identifying appropriate stakeholder engagement processes for

While there is growing consensus that human behaviours need to change to a more sustainable paradigm, community driven approaches, such as social enterprise, have yet to be explored as serious instruments of sustainability transition. Social enterprises sit within the third sector of the economy, typically where market or governmental failures exist in the provision of social welfare, and have increasingly become a key driver of social progress. The autonomous nature of the social-economic model applied by such organisations can represent a viable means to reduce state social welfare dependence, and is a proven model for social change. The capability of social enterprises to create both social and economic value is considered a `win-win'. Yet there are clear potentials for social enterprise models to be more extensively applied to address contemporary ecological challenges of neo-liberal market economies, moving towards `win-win-win' outcomes across social, economic and ecological domains. This paper investigates the value of social enterprises as drivers of low-carbon transition at the community level, with an emphasis on the energy sector. Evidence from seven organisations in the UK is presented and a socio-technical transitions conceptual framework is applied to analyse these social enterprise operations as a form of social innovation.

COVID-19 has extensively reshaped lifestyle practices, supply chain dynamics, and climate mitigation efforts. The resulting crises from the pandemic in relation to local and community sustainability practices have not yet been investigated in depth. There is a need to explore the individual characteristics and responses from rapid transitions of lifestyles at various scales. Analysing how the COVID-19 pandemic has shaped and altered sustainable living practices, and the motivations supporting them, has yet to be determined but is crucial to gain further insight to improve management responses to large-scale disruptive change. Presenting empirical findings from semi-structured interviews in New Haven County, Connecticut, this study elucidates the ways in which the lifestyles have been altered and how they responded while specifically highlighting the consequences for behavioural routines and sustainable lifestyle practices. As a result of lockdowns and pandemic mitigation responses, individual sustainability engagement fluctuated with participants shifting dietary, mobility, and energy and food consumption patterns. Specifically, participants emphasised substantial decrease in daily travel during initial phases of the pandemic alongside increased online shopping and energy use at home. Though changes to consumption practices were replaced former habits with unsustainable ones, individuals also noted how they co-opted the pandemic over time to pursue sustainable actions at home. As a macro-level ‘window of opportunity’ and disruptive change, this study illustrates how sustainable lifestyle practices were reshaped; some by choice, some by force, and some reflecting a forced choice. These findings have clear implications for the stability of maintaining sustainable practices influenced by landscape-level shocks.

This chapter provides an overview of public engagement, its importance and effective approaches to meaningfully involve the public with coastal sustainability transitions. It presents two case studies, Guernsey, British Channel Islands and Cape Wind, Massachusetts. These illustrate how concepts of identity, marginality and engagement are essential to the development of coastal sustainability transitions. As the case study of Guernsey outlines, coastal sustainability transition-related public engagement should seek to enhance the local distinctiveness of coastal areas and 'fit within the wider narrative of place identity and how individuals feel attached to places that are ascribed with specific meanings'. Furthermore, as the case study of Cape Wind illustrates, coastal sustainability transitions need to connect with local communities in terms of addressing immediate social and economic concerns. Therefore, as a research agenda, the human geographies of coastal sustainability transitions can be of substantial value to the practical application of sustainability. © 2019 selection and editorial matter, C. Patrick Heidkamp and John Morrissey.

The United States has only recently begun investing in commercial-scale offshore wind energy (OWE). Although the United States is slow to progress, it is uniquely positioned to build on the existing knowledge that coastal European countries have applied for their own energy transitions. In this study, we analyze how federal and regional plans for expanding the OWE sector in the United States brought to the surface decade-long tensions related to multi-scale governance mismatches, jurisdictional conflicts, and unclear pathways for implementing national industrial policies. Drawing upon the European experience with OWE, we employ a dynamic multi-level perspective framework enriched by socio-ecological elements to examine the United States energy transition through its most promising technology. From our framework we identify six categories of OWE developments characterized by both unique and shared elements between the United States and European coastal countries. These elements are: (1) role of local communities, (2) governance structures, (3) multi-scale government interactions, (4) regional socioeconomic structures, (5) socio-ecological impacts, and (6) relationships with existing industries. Drawing upon our analysis, we identify and conceptually map four research areas in need of further development for the United States and the research community— (1) knowledge, (2) potential, (3) adaptation, and (4) learning. These insights provide critical information to ensure that the United States expansion into offshore energy generation is characterized by elements of justice, equity, and inclusive regional economic development.

In August 2018, Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg started to strike from school on Fridays to protest against a lack of action on the climate crisis. Her actions sparked a historically large youth movement, leading to a series of school strikes across the world. Over the course of one week in September 2019, striking school children, students and other grassroots movements, such as Extinction Rebellion, called for everyone to participate in a global Climate Strike. This paper is based on comparative research with climate protesters in six cities: Brighton and London (United Kingdom), Montreal (Canada), New Haven and New York (USA), and Stavanger (Norway). Based on original interviews with 64 protesters, the study examines their knowledge, emotions, motivations, and actions in relation to climate change, including any lifestyle changes they have undertaken before or after their protests. Our findings show that protesters have varying degrees of knowledge about climate change, and have taken a range of actions in their own lives to address climate change. They also manifest a wide spectrum of emotions about climate change, and different motivations for taking part in climate strikes. These features are under-studied and dynamically evolving at the present conjuncture. On this basis, we call for expanded academic attention to human, emotional, epistemic, and seemingly mundane aspects of climate protests, their structural tendencies and relational expressions, and the implications for our ability to address underlying drivers. © 2020 Elsevier Ltd

There is currently no generally accepted definition for the “blue economy,” despite the term becoming common parlance over the past decade. The concept and practice have spawned a rich, and diverse, body of scholarly activity. Yet despite this emerging body of literature, there is ambiguity around what the blue economy is, what it encapsulates, and its practices. Thus far, the existing literature has failed to theorise key geographical concepts such as space, place, scale, and power relations, all of which have the potential to lead to uneven development processes and regional differentiation. Previous research has sought to clarify the ontological separation of land and sea or has conceptualised the blue economy as a complex governmental project that opens up new governable spaces and rationalises particular ways of managing marine and coastal regions. More recently, geographers have called for a critical—and practical—engagement with the blue economy. This paper critically examines the existing literature of the geographies of the blue economy through a structured meta-analysis of published work, specifically its conceptualisations and applications to debates in the field. Results offer the potential to ground a bottom-up definition of the blue economy. In so doing, this paper provides a clearly identifiable rubric of the key geographical concepts that are often overlooked by researchers, policymakers, and practitioners when promoting economic development and technological innovation in coastal and marine environments. © 2019 The Author(s) Geography Compass © 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Behaviour, practices and culture constitute a powerful human factor in the energy system; in particular the interactions between technologies, practices and norms lock individuals in to certain patterns of (often inefficient) energy use. Consequently, behaviour change has gained traction amongst policy makers as a key area of intervention given the impact energy-related behaviours have on climate change. Given the increasing emphasis within policy perspectives in the European Union, it is surprising that a gap in understanding of the success factors of behaviour change initiatives remains. This paper addresses this gap by identifying and characterising behaviour change initiatives across five European countries (the UK, Ireland, France, Italy, and Spain). The paper provides insights into the success factors and commonly encountered barriers to behaviour change initiatives. Initiatives are classified into 6 broad categories (community-based interventions; information and awareness based interventions; eco-districts; show-case events; energy switching; and smart-technology focused interventions). The results suggest that there are significant knowledge gaps between what is known to work to engage individuals in behavioural change and what is currently being applied in practice. An over-reliance on education and awareness-raising projects is evident, illustrating that such projects do not sufficiently aim for sustained behavioural changes. A dearth of projects incorporating fiscal measures, regulations or legislation to drive behaviour change reflects reluctance on behalf of decision-makers to engage widely with diverse approaches to foster lifestyle change. This paper contributes understandings of the different models and delivery tools employed to change energy-related behaviours; insights into the critical success factors that underpin best practice and the barriers to action; and a `what works in practice' overview of the meaningful approaches to change behaviour. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.