Framing the sustainable energy challenge and implications for solutions

Jensen, Charlotte, Røpke, Inge, Goggins, Gary, & Fahy, Frances. (2019). Framing the Sustainable Energy Challenge and Implications for Solutions. In Frances Fahy, Gary Goggins, & Charlotte Jensen (Eds.), Energy Demand Challenges in Europe: Implications for policy, planning and practice (pp. 9-19). Cham: Springer International Publishing.

Abstract

Sustainable consumption policies often rely on ecological modernisation rationality, where the focus is usually on making current consumption patterns more sustainable in such a way that status quo (ideas about the quality of life and growth) is not challenged. As a result, sustainable energy policies tend to black box the demand-side, often resulting in abstracting efficiency strategies from the social organisation within which the strategies and resulting solutions unfold. Rebound effects and other unintended consequences often happen as a result of this type of efficiency strategies. This chapter introduces alternative problem framings that may offer a way to mitigate rebound effects by addressing and challenging a wider set of socio-material, cultural and institutional aspects of energy demand.

Publisher

Palgrave Pivot, Cham

Rights

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Ireland

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Collections

Geography (Book Chapters)