Household time use, carbon footprints, and urban form : a review of the potential contributions of everyday living to the 1.5 degrees C climate target

The 1.5 °C mitigation challenge for urban areas goes far beyond decarbonizing the cities’ energy supply and needs to enable and incentivize carbon-free everyday living. Reviewing recent literature, we find that dense and mixed urban form enables lower direct emissions from mobility and housing, while income is the major driver of total household carbon footprints; importantly, these effects are not linear. The available urban infrastructure, services and societal arrangements, for example on work, all influence how households use their time, which goods and services they consume in everyday life and their subsequent carbon footprints and potential rebound effects. We conclude that changes in household consumption, time use and urban form are crucial for a 1.5 °C future. We further identify a range of issues for which a time use perspective could open up new avenues for research and policy.Peer reviewe

Arbeiten auf Augenhöhe

Das Ressort Kunst und Kultur in der Schule der MEDIENIMPULSE stellt in einer losen Interview-Serie führende Akteurinnen und Akteure der heimischen Medienkunst vor. Im Zentrum der Werkstattgespräche stehen künstlerische Positionen und medientechnologische Entwicklungen sowie Fragen nach Arbeitsbedingungen, Archivierung und Ausbildung

Strukturen für einen klimafreundlichen Alltag und Potenziale für Klima-, Sorge- und Geschlechtergerechtigkeit

Die Stabilisierung des Klimas ist nur mit raschen und umfassenden Maßnahmen erreichbar. Solche Maßnahmen und geeignete Strukturen für eine sozial-ökologische Transformation sind in allen täglichen Handlungsfeldern dringend notwendig. Ein Fokus auf die täglich notwendige unbezahlte Sorgearbeit ist dabei essenziell. Die derzeit ungleiche Verteilung von bezahlter Erwerbsarbeit und unbezahlter Arbeit für die gesellschaftlich notwendige Versorgung anderer Menschen ist stark von geschlechtlicher Arbeitsteilung geprägt und mindert Geschlechter-, Sorge- und Klimagerechtigkeit. Neubewertung von Arbeit und passende Arbeitszeitmodelle können Änderungen bei der Übernahme von Sorgearbeit bewirken. Ein solches "Fairteilen" von unbezahlter und bezahlter Arbeit als Umverteilung zwischen den Geschlechtern, ergänzt um Angebote öffentlicher Infrastruktur und Services (Leistungen und Dienstleistungen im Sozialstaat) und ausreichendes Einkommen, ermöglicht sozialen Ausgleich und schafft gleichzeitig die Grundlage für klimafreundlichere Lebensweisen und Praktiken sowie für Stressreduktion, erhöhte Lebensqualität und Gesundheit.Climate stabilisation can only be achieved with rapid and comprehensive measures. Such measures and the appropriate structures for a socio-ecological transformation are urgently needed in all everyday fields of action. A focus on unpaid care work that is necessary every single day is essential. The current unequal distribution of paid work and unpaid work for the socially necessary care of others is strongly influenced by gender-based division of labour and negatively impacts gender, care, and climate justice. Re-evaluation of work and appropriate working time models can bring about changes in the way people assume responsibility for care work. Such a "fair sharing" of unpaid and paid work as a redistribution between genders, supplemented by provision of public infrastructure and services (benefits and services in the welfare state) and adequate income, enables social balance and at the same time creates the basis for more climate-friendly living and practices as well as for stress reduction, increased quality of life and health

Green Facades – How they Matter for Working Environments, Public Spaces and the Livability of a City

Sustainable urban development is the focus of many research initiatives, especially due to increasing urbanization and climate change. Buildings and their renovation are central to the European "Green Deal". In the new Austrian climate and energy program, the topic of buildings comes first with a target renovation rate of 3%. Current climate change adaptation strategies call for an increase in greening of existing buildings and on facades. Public spaces are shaped by the surrounding buildings. The facades and roofs of these buildings can have a high potential to mitigate urban heat island effects. Social change and innovation in working cultures result in reshaping working environments and the need for public space. Large-scale glass buildings are widely considered architectural highlights, but pose problematic challenges to urban spaces. Glass has a significant impact on the microclimate inside the building and in the immediate outdoor environment: a concentration of radiant energy and high indoor temperatures put a strain on the energy balance and the well-being of the occupants. The retrofit greening of glass facades is a gap in building expertise and there is a lack of standard applications for the retrofit shading and insulation of glass buildings to obtain associated microclimatic benefits. The project GLASGrün aims to develop, implement, test and monitor modular vertical greening standards for active external shading by deciduous plants on commercial buildings with large glazed facades. Transferable modular-based designs are to be developed. Additionally, sociological surveys on acceptance and perception will be implemented. GLASGrün generates quantitative data on energy, temperature and microclimate balance as well as qualitative data on the perception of the building situation before and after greening interventions and on public awareness. New findings on the acceptance and well-being of employees and customers, on purchasing behavior and market-economic parameters will be available. GLASGrün is developing guidelines for constructive solutions, submission processes and care and maintenance management plans for the systems under consideration and for the vertical green standards tested, which are scalable and transferable and form an economic basis for future adaptations of further buildings as well as for their maintenance. A socio-ecological transformation faces the challenge of how integrated solutions can be developed in dialogue with the users and to what extent these produce the desired effects such as greenhouse gas reduction or better indoor climate. On the other hand, the best solutions in the technical sense can also fail due to social barriers: the acceptance of decision-makers, a lack of willingness to cooperate on the part of employees, or a loss of image in the neighborhood, to name just a few examples. Acceptance depends amongst other factors on both the concrete technical implementation and the process of introduction. Thus, acceptance is not a static variable, but is in a relationship with the technical solution options themselves. Public spaces are key to the discussion on sustainable urban development in their function against urban heat islands. Their diversity of uses and users allows for both a broad discussion and start of discourses and the testing of innovative sustainable measures, in this case greening of facades on buildings perceived in public space. In this paper we will present 2 case studies in Austria with the first results of interviews with employees and users of glass facade buildings and the users of public space

Arbeiten auf Augenhöhe: Joachim Smetschka im Interview mit Petra Paterno

Das Ressort Kunst und Kultur in der Schule der MEDIENIMPULSE stellt in einer losen Interview-Serie führende Akteurinnen und Akteure der heimischen Medienkunst vor. Im Zentrum der Werkstattgespräche stehen künstlerische Positionen und medientechnologische Entwicklungen sowie Fragen nach Arbeitsbedingungen, Archivierung und Ausbildung.In a loose series of interviews, the department of art and culturein the school of MEDIENIMPULSE introduces leading players indomestic media art. The workshop discussions focus on artisticpositions and media technology developments as well as questions about working conditions, archiving and training suitable

Farmer Cooperation as a Means for Creating Local Food Systems—Potentials and Challenges

Facing the continuous loss of family-run farms across Europe, farmers are seeking new pathways to sustainability. One such pathway is involvement in local food supply systems. Often, this requires new forms of cooperation among farmers and with consumers. Little is known, however, about how this cooperation works in practice and how it might be better fostered. This paper aims to illustrate various forms of cooperation in relation to small-scale farming and the establishment of local food supply. It sheds light on challenges farmers are facing and on the potential measures they can adopt to tackle these challenges. By means of an Austrian case study, researchers applied a participatory method (Social Multi-Criteria Evaluation) and conducted workshops with farmers. Research shows that local production, processing and distribution infrastructure becomes more affordable when farmers collaborate with each other and with consumers and institutions. Furthermore, sharing and collectively developing know-how helps to optimise local farming and food supply systems. However, farmers often lack the knowledge and time to establish new collaborations and to re-organise labour, logistics and communication processes. They would benefit from the availability of cooperative schemes that help facilitate such processes and innovations

Partizipative Modellierung. Beteiligungsexperimente in der sozialökologischen Forschung

Österreichische Zeitschrift f. Soziologie, 2011, 36 (2): 74-97Folgt man aktuellen soziologischen Diagnosen, so lässt sich heute in ver- schiedenen Gesellschaftsbereichen eine Aufwertung des Partizipationsgedankens konstatieren. Im Umweltbereich kommt es dabei, so unsere These, zu einer Experimentalisierung von Partizipa- tion. Das heißt, neben traditionelle und zuweilen protestförmige Teilhabeforderungen ökologisch bewegter BürgerInnen treten neue Beteiligungsformate, die sich oft der Initiative seitens der Wis- senschaft verdanken. Solche Beteiligungsexperimente werden in der sozialökologischen For- schung genutzt, um konkrete Lösungen im Bereich nachhaltiger Entwicklung zu konzipieren und umsetzbar zu machen. Unsere empirische Analyse zeigt, dass die mit Partizipation erwarteten Ra- tionalitätsgewinne am Ehesten in solchen Kontexten zu erwarten sind, in denen Eigeninteresse, lebensweltliche Betroffenheit und ein Spezialwissen der Beteiligten vorausgesetzt werden können

Time-Use Patterns and Sustainable Urban Form: A Case Study to Explore Potential Links

Linking time use of the inhabitants of a city with their energy consumption and urban form is an approach which allows integration of the social dimension into research on sustainable urban development. While much has been written about the planning of cities and its implications for human social life, the question of the relationship between time-use patterns and urban form remains underexplored. This is all the more astonishing as time-use statistics offer a unique tool for analysing socio-economic changes regarding family and household structures, gender relations, working hours, recreational behaviour and consumption patterns. Furthermore, spatial planning plays a significant role in establishing time structures. With this paper we aim to explore the possibility of using the time-use data of an urban population to find links between individual time-use patterns and urban form. We describe a case study in Vienna where we addressed time use and mobility of citizens in a participatory approach to jointly develop an integrated socio-ecological model of urban time-use patterns and energy consumption

Gender Differences in Individual Time Use patterns and the Interlinkages to Urban Form

Proceedings of the IV World Planning Schools Congress, July 3-8th, 2016 : Global crisis, planning and challenges to spatial justice in the north and in the southThe objective of this paper is to learn about key factors which determine gender gaps in individual time-use preferences and its link to one’s neighbourhood. Results will highlight significant aspects that address the question how urban planning can influence time-use patterns and can contribute to changes on the reconciliation of work and family life and enabling gender balance therein. Introduction Present contributions to the social-scientific literature on time provide a range of clues about potential connections between city development and the evolution of (Western) time cultures. Beginning in the 1970s first approaches appeared to integrate time aspects in regional and geographical studies. The demand for equal opportunities for men and women and for a better work-life balance marks the beginning of time policy in the 1980s, a young interdisciplinary field aiming to integrate time aspects in urban development planning (f. e. Bonfiglioli 2005; Boccia 2013). When we talk about gender, we refer to prevailing gender roles of men and women and their impact in the unequal sharing of family responsibilities, the gendered division of the labour market, or socially and culturally formed behavioural patterns. Whereas categories of sex are defined along essential biological differences, gender is about roles that can change over the time. Gender differences are dynamic, constantly in flux (Fainstein and Servon 2005, 3) and are intersecting with age, race, class, etc..publishedVersio