Forbrukerfleksibilitet: Et kunnskapsgrunnlag for å forstå husholdningers oppfatninger og muligheter

I Norge ble en ny modell for beregning av nettleie innført 1. juli 2022. Formålet med den nye nettleien er å motivere husholdninger til å fordele strømforbruket jevnere utover døgnet. På tidspunktet hvor den nye nettleien ble planlagt innført var det liten kunnskap om virkninger av slike virkemidler på forbrukere. Flexeffect-prosjektet startet har undersøkt virkninger virkemidler for fleksibel strømbruk på forskjellige husholdningsgrupper. Resultatene viser at mange av forbrukerne forstår og er enige med formålet for ny nettleie. Samtidig gjør utformingen det vanskelig å forstå og tilpasse seg i hverdagslivet og det er konkurrerende signaler og hensyn de må ta. Videre har mange uttrykt bekymring for at den nye nettleien kan få uheldige og urettferdige fordelingsvirkninger. Våre funn viser også at det er krevende for forbrukere å ta i bruk ny teknologi for å øke forbrukerfleksibiliteten. Selv om forbrukerhensyn er nevnt i den politiske rosessen for å innføre ny nettleie er forbrukerne svakt representert i utformingen og forbrukerhensynene som inngår i konsultasjonene har en tendens til å være generelle. Dimensjoner som systembehov er blitt mer vektlagt enn orbrukerbehov og ikke minst forbrukeres evne til tilpasning

Performing meat reduction: exploring how existing food practices enable and complicate meat reduced diets in Norwegian households.

Consumers in Western societies are increasingly called upon to reduce their consumption of meat to help alleviate the many environmental consequences of industrial livestock production. Dominant discourses around sustainable consumption, including meat reduction, understand consumption as driven by the attitudes, values and choices of individuals, portrayed as responsible for consuming in unsustainable ways and change to come about when individuals choose to act differently. In contrast, by framing consumption as embedded in social practices, this thesis emphasises how broader cultural, social and material condition’s structure eating and hence meat consumption. A focus on practices shifts attention away from the individualisation of responsibility towards the many actors who has a hand in reproducing and sustaining meat-intense eating. The thesis explores the experiences, approaches and challenges of nine Norwegian meat reducers through in-depth interviewing coupled with structured food diaries. In doing so, it seeks to understand what enables and complicates efforts at meat reduction in Norwegian households. A main finding is how efforts to reduce meat consumption are influenced by social forces of which individuals do not assert much control. The findings suggest that through processes of socialisation and habituation, performances of eating often intuitively conforms to the prevailing conventions inscribed in socio-material environment in which they are embedded, thus, emphasising the influence of social norms and material affordances in enabling and complicating meat reduction. Furthermore, the findings suggest that the dependence on timesaving and hassle-free ways to eat in everyday life, coupled with a meat-intense repertoire of convenient cooking and a foodscape that heavily facilitates convenient meat-eating, pushes people towards meat-dependent convenience. Moreover, the analysis elaborates on the concept of bounded creativity to highlight how informants’ creative and innovative efforts at doing meat reduction are rooted in and circumscribed by bodily, material and social elements – which in essence limit the possible ways in which meat reduction might be carried out. In sum, the research findings in this thesis suggest that a radical change towards meat-reduced diets seems unlikely without fundamental changes to the social, physical and economic structures that reproduce meat consumption as the appropriate, easy and cheapest way to eat