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Interdisciplinary research undertaken by Shaw, Barr and Coles at Exeter has examined the use of social marketing to influence pro-environmental behaviour policy and behaviour change for environmental sustainability. This body of research has resulted in three main types of impact: it has influenced public policy making, it has promoted product development for SMEs and it has informed public debate on the issue of sustainability. These impacts have been achieved through: reports for Defra that relate to UK behaviour change policy; collaboration with social marketing businesses that has resulted in mobile application development for UK and European travellers; and informed public debate around issues of behavioural change and flying. The latter has been achieved through coverage by journalists and the instigation of debate in national (UK) and international media outlets.
For the last two decades, sociologists at Lancaster have demonstrated the centrality of social organisation and practice for climate change policy. This case study focuses on the impact of Elizabeth Shove's research in particular. Shove's work challenges the prevailing emphasis on individual attitudes and behaviours and shows that the consumption of energy, water and other natural resources is an outcome of shared social practices. Through innovative forms of interaction and collaboration ("working parties"; exhibitions, etc.) Shove has inspired organisations such as WWF, the Environment Agency, DECC, DCLG, DEFRA, the Scottish Government and the International Energy Agency to take social practices seriously as topics of policy, planning and intervention. Individual behavioural models are no longer the only point of reference in policy design.
Research at the University of Manchester (UoM) using a `sustainable practices' approach has made a significant contribution to reconceptualising behaviour change in relation to sustainable consumption. Impact emerges via a landmark report written for the Scottish Government (focusing broadly on the field of environmental sustainability) which provides an alternative framework, alongside policy guidance for considering behaviour change. Working with policy partners, the ISM (Individual, Social, Material) approach to behaviour change, outlined in the report, has been converted into a scalable ISM toolkit; positioned as a `practical device for policy makers and other practitioners' who want to influence people's behaviours and bring about social change.' (Scottish Government Website).
Professor Andrew Geddes' research on international migration has directly impacted upon the thinking of officials and the subsequent reshaping of policy at national and international levels concerning connections between environmental change and migration. Impact has occurred in several countries and at different governance levels. The result is that a previously deterministic policy debate about environmental change triggering mass flight is now based on a changed and far more sophisticated understanding of the evidence with different assumptions now informing policy development. Geddes was appointed in 2009 by the UK Government's Chief Scientific Advisor to be a member of the 6-member Lead Expert Group overseeing the `Foresight' report Migration and Global Environmental Change: Future Challenges and Opportunities (MGEC) for the UK Government Office for Science, published in 2011. The report and associated work has had major international reach and has informed policies and practices in UK government departments (DFID, DEFRA) and the agendas and operations of the European Union (especially the Commission), World Bank and within the UN system.
Lived experiences of ordinary people and how they rationalise events provides rich insights for several disciplines e.g. medicine. With climate change, whilst the value of anthropogenic activity is increasingly recognised, models based on positivist scientific rationality still dominate. What is yet unclear is how a global citizenery understands climate change through its own individual and group "lived experiences". This research is significant in that it seeks to conceptualise and theorise what is meant by the "lived experience" of climate change and how this shapes the "lay rationality" and actions of people in both the developed and the developing world.
Impacts: I) Enhanced public engagement with, and understanding of, climate mitigation by individuals, delivered through two successful popular science publications and sustained bodies of media and outreach work. II) Public policy formation related to climate change mitigation.
Significance and reach: Impacts of the popular science books include >5,500 sales of a children's book (2009 - 2011) and documented household-level behaviour changes in energy usage. The European Commission issued new directives on energy saving appliances in December 2008.
Underpinned by: Research into the role of individuals in climate change mitigation, undertaken at the University of Edinburgh (2001 onwards).
Research by geographers at The Open University (OU) in the three research clusters, Space and Power, Culture and Practice and Environment and Politics, has led to changes in how global issues, including environmental change, are portrayed in the media, particularly by the BBC. Building on the notion of `interdependence', the research generated fresh thinking at a strategic level, leading to changes in the tone of broadcasts and the commissioning of new programmes, as well as introducing discussion of `interdependence' into wider public debate. These impacts have been rooted in geographical thinking about spatial relationships in producing places and publics, and media representations of these interrelations.
Sussex research has contributed to a shift in public policy away from seeing climate-induced migration as an imminent security, health and public order risk (c.f. the Stern Review) towards an understanding that migration can be an important adaptive response to climate vulnerability. Specifically, reference to migration as a potential adaptation to climate change in Paragraph 14f of the Cancun Agreement of UNFCCC in 2010 reflects the nuanced approach stressed in Sussex research; through their work with GO-Science and DFID, and international organisations including the Global Forum on Migration and Development, UNHCR, IOM and the European Commission, Sussex researchers have contributed to the development and implementation of this paragraph, and to a re-framing of international debates.
Loughborough University research into Problem Structuring Methodologies has resulted in PEArL, a device for framing the manner in which change occurs in organisations. The application of PEArL has changed organisational practice and policy in a variety of environments — including manufacturing, community and scientific settings — with far-reaching and long-lasting consequences. It has been used by the British Association for Chemical Specialities to achieve improved biocidal labelling; in homeless shelters to enhance outcomes for residents in adopting more stable lifestyles; and by Jaguar Land Rover to improve governance and achieve better oversight for senior management across product creation pipelines.
Preference-satisfaction models of welfare dominate environmental policy but are problematic both in respect to the value placed on environmental goods and as a basis for environmental decision making. The Philosophy Department at the University of Manchester (UoM) has developed an alternative characterisation of well-being, along with tools for its measurement and employment in policy making. Impact is delivered via a UK-based project on climate justice, focused on a need to conceptualise, measure and map vulnerability to the impacts of climate change associated with flooding and heatwaves. The framework developed has had a major influence on adaptation planning at both local and national levels, allowing authorities to identify concentrations of climate disadvantage, and to formulate policies that address specific sources of disadvantage in different locations.