It’s all about community: On the interplay of social capital, social needs, and environmental concern in sustainable community action

Behavior change towards sustainable lifestyles such as adoption of renewable energy technologies is a significant element in the fight against anthropogenic climate change. Increasingly, private households can be observed to take up different renewable energy technologies; however, the introduction of these technologies is not accompanied by a broader adoption of pro-environmental behaviors, as recent studies have shown. At the same time, group settings and social capital seem to promote the uptake of wide-ranging sustainability measures. Six case studies were conducted among different sustainable community projects in Germany to shed light on why and how broad sustainability transformation in such settings comes about. Findings suggest that successful implementation of wide-ranging sustainable measures and changes in behaviors in community settings result from motivations that originate from an interplay of social needs, social capital, social norms, and environmental concern. Strong environmental attitudes, not among all, but a critical mass of members and key individuals are necessary. The desire for community and other motives, along with social influence and social norms push individuals with low environmental concern to participate in sustainable endeavors

Extreme events defined—A conceptual discussion applying a complex systems approach

‘Extreme event’, a term today most commonly understood and used in relation to extreme weather phenomena and experiencing an upsurge in its usage due to their increased frequency caused by climate change, is applied in a variety of scientific disciplines. Its multitude of users understands and defines the term differently. However, consistency in language is vital to eradicate confusion, support the transfer of knowledge from one field to another, and make results from different disciplines comparable. Therefore, this work gives an in-depth discussion of the various aspects of relevance, ultimately proposing a comprehensive, systems-based definition of the term.Novel to this definition is the complex systems approach, utilized throughout to allow the definition to be applied for both macrolevel and microlevel occurrences and across various disciplines. In contrast to most authors who separate incident and impacts and use either the former or the latter in definitions of extreme events, it is shown that a disruption to a system or systems is prerequisite. Only by applying this perspective can interdisciplinary research be successfully conducted on extreme events. This and other central aspects come particularly to light in a case study of the 2006 European Blackout, on which the meta-definition is tried

Macroeconomic impacts of energy communities and individual prosumers: An assessment of transformation pathways

Background Active citizen participation, especially as collective prosumers in energy communities or as individualprosumers, is vital for a sustainable energy transition. As such, it is explicitly supported by European Union policy. It isthe aim of policy-makers that a large proportion of the residential energy demand will be met in this way. At present,there is limited analysis on the macroeconomic impacts of such an increase in prosumers. In this study, we developand apply an approach for assessing the macroeconomic impacts of transformation pathways, which depict potentialdevelopments of individual and collective prosumers.Results The paper methodologically demonstrates how to macroeconomically assess scenarios and transformation pathways originating from cross-impact balance analyses by means of an input–output analysis. In particular,it is shown how qualitative data on future developments can be transformed into financial flows so as to enable aninput–output analysis. Based on the assessment of two transformation pathways, our main findings suggest thatthere might be positive regional and national effects on net value added and employment as well as reductions inCO2 emissions. We find that the scale of the effects strongly depends on the spatial distribution of heterogeneoushouseholds and the underlying economic structure.Conclusions Our study represents a methodological advancement by showing how scenarios and transformationpathways can be assessed in terms of their macroeconomic consequences. This study shows that energy communities and individual prosumers might generate positive effects on value added and on employment. Given that households fix their energy supply options for decades, political decisions to support the energy transition in the residentialsector should be taken as soon as possible

On the Future(s) of Energy Communities in the German Energy Transition: A Derivation of Transformation Pathways

Active participation of citizens in the sustainable energy transition—particularly in energycommunities—is explicitly desired by the European Union and considered vital for a successfultransformation of Europe’s energy system. Currently, energy communities, i.e., citizen-led groupsgenerating energy from renewable sources can be found across Europe, though current numbers aresmall. However, it is expected that the majority of EU households will be active in some form in thegeneration of energy by 2050. In order to understand how such a development could come about, andif desired, how it could be ensured, we developed and applied a quasi-dynamic model using the Cross-Impact Balance (CIB) approach and with it analyzed and assessed such a transition in detail. Data forthe CIB model was derived from case studies, interviews, three surveys including two discrete choiceexperiments, expert workshops, and complementary secondary data. A central consideration of themodel is a differentiated representation of the heterogeneity of actors in society and their interactions.Main results obtained from the application of the model are possible transformation pathways ofcitizen participation in the energy transition of Germany. A key finding was that if current trendscontinue, a citizen-driven energy transition based on energy communities will unlikely be successful.We conclude that several framework conditions must change simultaneously from the status quo sothat different social groups in society can be active in the generation of energy. These include changessuch as the abolition of hindering regulations and the expansion of financial support schemes witha focus on lower socioeconomic groups. Furthermore, only in a combination of conducive socialfactors such as neighborhood cohesion and conducive social influence, as well as favorable economicconditions, can energy communities become an important player in Germany’s future energy system

Why the trend towards gas-guzzlers? A closer look at the complex effects of social norms on German car buyers

Abstract: The transport sector is one of the major drivers of global climate change, with a large share related to the personal use of cars. Paradoxically, as efforts are undertaken to reduce this share, a trend to buy large, heavy cars with comparatively high fuel consumption is occurring nearly worldwide. In this article, we analyze the possible influence of social norms in car-buying decisions and in particular in the trend towards sport utility vehicles (SUVs). After giving a short introduction into the theoretical foundations underlying this research, we develop a model applying a multi-criteria decision analysis approach. By using data from surveys conducted by VuMA Touchpoints and ARAL, on German car buyers, preferences and characteristics of the different social groups in German society, as well as the ADAC on characteristics of different car types, we quantify the influence of social norms on car-buying decisions. Our results indicate that social norms play a significant role in driving the demand for heavyweight passenger cars across most social groups, while the desire for social esteem leads some groups in particular to purchase SUVs and off-road vehicles. By taking society’s heterogeneity into account, we show that social norms are group-specific and not universal in society, though car choice is always to a certain extent influenced by social norms and ranges from between 24% and 42% in our model calculations. The novel approach taken in this research can be applied beyond the mobility sector to other environmentally significant consumer behaviors