Climate change concern and the desire to travel: How do I justify my flights?

Áróra Árnadóttir, Michał Czepkiewicz, Jukka Heinonen

Travel Behaviour and Society

There is an urgent need to reduce emissions from the aviation sector. Although awareness of climate change is growing, few are willing to alter their flight behaviour. Through a qualitative analysis of interview materials collected from Reykjavik Capital Region residents, this study explores how globally affluent, highly mobile young urbanites justify their international travel by plane, despite their climate change awareness, and if they are willing to change their behaviour. Six themes of justifications to continue air travel were identified; shifting responsibility, compensatory behaviours, lack of knowledge or awareness, lack of other options, benefits outweighing impacts, and carbon offsetting. Their use differed depending on respondents’ level of climate change awareness and willingness to reduce air travel, but willingness to reduce travel did not differ between awareness level scores. None were willing to quit flying regardless of their level of awareness. Compared with previous literature, we found a greater emphasis placed on the benefits of air travel. We suggest policy uptake for both individual and collective realms, such as kerosene tax and mandatory carbon offsetting, as shifting responsibility can delay action regardless of the way in which it is shifted, and reductions in these realms can only happen in concert. Other sources of well-being should be emphasized and the social norm around frequent travel actively challenged. Knowledge on the specific climate impacts of flights should be better communicated to the public and put into perspective with the global fair share of emissions and steep mitigation curves to keep warming below 1.5°.

Challenging practices: experiences from community and individual living lab approaches

Kaisa Matschoss, Frances Fahy, Henrike Rau, Julia Backhaus, Gary Goggins, Eoin Grealis, Eva Heiskanen, Tuija Kajoskoski, Senja Laakso, Eeva-Lotta Apajalahti, Audley Genus, Laurence Godin, Marfuga Iskandarova, Annika-Kathrin Musch, Marlyne Sahakian, ChristianScholl, Edina Vadovics & Veronique Vasseur

Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy

In this article, we examine a change initiative designed to involve households in testing ways to transform two everyday practices ‒ heating and doing laundry. The research design included an examination of the challenges of changing practices either in a setting that fosters collective engagement or with individual households. Two different types of living labs were carried out simultaneously in eight European countries in Autumn–Winter 2018. We reflect on differences in results in terms of both changes in practices and the experiences of participating households that we argue can be at least partially attributed to householders’ engagement in different types of living labs. We discuss the implications of an individual-focused vs. community-oriented approach for change initiatives seeking to challenge social norms for sustainability transitions, concentrating in particular on differences in the nature of participants’ engagement and their willingness and ability to challenge routine practices. This is complemented by analytical reflections on the differences in design, interaction, and performance between the two types of living labs. We show that an explicit focus on collaborative engagement in living labs can produce results that reflect shared experiences, community support, challenging established norms, and collective commitment toward change.

To keep or not to keep? Sorting out leftovers from a refrigerator

Séverine Gojard, Marine Masson, David Blumenthal, Bérangère Véronc

Appetite

Most literature on food waste shows that food that ends up in the garbage can is often no longer considered as enjoyable, or even as edible. In this paper, we decided to focus on assessments of whether leftover food is still considered as worth eating, to provide a better understanding of the production of domestic food waste. We constructed a pluridisciplinary approach, combining sensory analysis and sociology. The first part was conducted in a test kitchen under controlled conditions: 50 participants had to sort out and decide to keep or to throw away different types of refrigerated leftovers. The second part used in-depth interviews with half of these participants (N = 25) to explore their food habits and perceptions and handling of leftovers at home. The first section of the paper presents the theoretical framework of the study, which is grounded in practice theory. Then we detail the methodology and the results. We show that sorting out leftovers is a process mobilizing embodied knowledge and resulting from domestic practices implemented to avoid waste, such as storing or reusing leftovers. In the discussion, we analyze the sorting of refrigerated food products as a compound practice, situated at the intersection of provisioning, cooking, meal organization, and judgment of taste (Warde, 2013). Using this theoretical framework enables us to understand the heterogeneity observed in the outcome of the sorting process as the result of its weak degree of regulation. The sorting out practice is thus consistent with different modes of engagement such as food waste prevention, health maintenance, or providing enjoyable family meals. We conclude by providing suggestions of policy recommendations regarding domestic refrigeration, food storage, and assessment practices.