Comparative cross-country analysis on preliminary identification of key factors underlying public perception and societal engagement with nuclear developments in different national contexts: Deliverable D4.2 (update) of EU Project 662268 "HoNESt"

This report deals with the history of nuclear-society interactions from a social science perspective. Since the beginning of project HoNESt in September 2015, historians have elaborated 20 so called ‘short country reports’ covering most European and major non-European countries (e.g. USA). On the basis of this comprehensive collection of individual studies – each encompassing about 60 years of history – we have selected seven countries to be analysed in terms of public perception of, and public engagement with, nuclear energy: Austria, Bulgaria, the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), the Netherlands, Spain, the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States of America (USA). Our findings reveal that each country follows its own nuclear development path with corresponding preference profiles and engagement traditions. However, there are similarities among countries allowing researchers to classify them analytically as either neutral to supportive (e.g. UK) or refusing (e.g. FRG) with regard to deploying nuclear power for electricity production. The varying preference profiles of each country hints at the fact that people refer to a broad scope of heterogeneous evaluation criteria when assessing nuclear technologies. Arguments such as security of energy supply, (dis)trust in decision-makers, climate change, or national prestige play an important role in the debate. Citizens argue from different points of view. Their perceptions and arguments reflect the complexity of the debate comprising environmental, economic, social, and political considerations. Except for the UK and Bulgaria, where protests only occasionally occurred, all countries have faced active civil society opposition against nuclear issues, i.e. public forced communication activities. Pro-nuclear communication processes commissioned by regulators and industry promoters of nuclear power are part of the history of nuclear-society interactions in each country. However, there is only a handful of examples of consultation initiatives, and just one case of a public participation process

Learned Multi-Patch Similarity

Estimating a depth map from multiple views of a scene is a fundamental task in computer vision. As soon as more than two viewpoints are available, one faces the very basic question how to measure similarity across >2 image patches. Surprisingly, no direct solution exists, instead it is common to fall back to more or less robust averaging of two-view similarities. Encouraged by the success of machine learning, and in particular convolutional neural networks, we propose to learn a matching function which directly maps multiple image patches to a scalar similarity score. Experiments on several multi-view datasets demonstrate that this approach has advantages over methods based on pairwise patch similarity.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, Accepted at ICCV 201

Case studies reports: in-depth understanding of the mechanisms for efective interaction with civil society; selected case studies - Deliverable D4.3 (update) of EU Project 662268 "HoNESt"

This deliverable (D4.3) summarizes the key findings from the selected case studies of the HoNESt project in terms of societal perception and societal engagement. Reports from eight countries were selected from a total of twenty, according to the following key criteria: geography (location), political system evolution, and degree of public acceptance. The completed analysis reveals a broad overview of how actors have perceived nuclear developments over the past decades, and which types of engagement tools and mechanisms have been used in each case studied

La percepción del sentido de la sostenibilidad, las políticas energéticas y los hábitos de los ciudadanos con respecto al consumo doméstico de la energía. Un estudio de caso en Alemania

La finalitat d’aquest article és il·lustrar els principals resultats d’un estudi de cas sobre els coneixements i hàbits d’una mostra de persones a Alemanya pel que fa al consum domèstic d’energia i les polítiques públiques relacionades amb la sostenibilitat. Per a això, s’ha desenvolupat un mètode específic basat en la deliberació grupal, anomenat STAVE, capaç de generar evidències sobre els coneixements i els comportaments quotidians relacionats amb l’ús domèstic de l’energia. Els resultats mostren com els participants perceben que aquest ús està fortament relacionat amb riscos ambientals i, en particular, amb el canvi climàtic, així com els motius i les barreres percebudes per estalviar energia, o les limitacions dels grups més desfavorits per dur a terme estils de vida sostenibles. En aquest sentit, la metodologia utilitzada permet fer emergir algunes contradiccions i paradoxes en els discursos dels participants, la qual cosa permet observar que, malgrat la seva possible predisposició positiva, viure d’una manera sostenible constitueix un repte considerable per a aquestes persones. D’acord amb la bibliografia recent, l’elaboració de polítiques públiques sobre sostenibilitat requeriria el suport d’una potent recerca social dedicada a explorar els comportaments ciutadans en tota la seva complexitat. En aquesta línia, el mètode STAVE proporciona un protocol clar i un conjunt de tècniques útils per investigar els raonaments pràctics relacionats amb la sostenibilitat, així com els comportaments duts a terme pels ciutadans en una àmplia gamma de contextos del món real.The objective of this paper is to illustrate the main results of a German case study on citizen awareness and habits regarding sustainability, energy consumption and related public policies. A specific methodological tool, called STAVE, has been developed in order to create evidence about citizens’ daily energy-related behaviour at home and to investigate their motives, activities and obstacles as to saving energy. The results show how participants are aware that energy use is strongly linked to environmental issues and climate change. Moreover, they are able to deliver a rich picture of their everyday energy use at home including motives and barriers to save energy. Another major topic that goes beyond reasoning about energy use at home is the question of the social aspects of sustainability. Thus, there were interactions about the connections between social status and the opportunity to engage in a sustainable lifestyle. In this sense, the methodology used allows raising some contradictions and paradoxes among participant discourses, and it seems clear that to live in a sustainable way is a major challenge for participants. According to the recent literature, the need for a means to support policy making for sustainability by exploring the complexities of environment-related citizen behaviours is evident. In this sense, the STAVE method provides a procedure and a set of techniques that can be used in different ways to investigate and explore the patterns of sustainability-related practical reasoning and practical action deployed by citizens across a broad range of real-world settings.La finalidad de este artículo es ilustrar los principales resultados de un estudio de caso sobre los conocimientos y hábitos de una muestra de personas en Alemania con respecto al consumo doméstico de energía y las políticas públicas relacionadas con la sostenibilidad. Para ello, se ha desarrollado un método específico basado en la deliberación grupal, llamado STAVE, capaz de generar evidencias sobre los conocimientos y los comportamientos cotidianos relacionados con el uso doméstico de la energía. Los resultados muestran cómo los participantes perciben que dicho uso está fuertemente relacionado con riesgos ambientales y, en particular, con el cambio climático, así como los motivos y las barreras percibidas para ahorrar energía, o las limitaciones de los grupos más desfavorecidos para llevar a cabo estilos de vida sostenibles. En este sentido, la metodología utilizada permite hacer emerger algunas contradicciones y paradojas en los discursos de los participantes, lo cual permite observar que, a pesar de su posible predisposición positiva, vivir de una manera sostenible constituye un reto considerable para estas personas. De acuerdo con la bibliografía reciente, la elaboración de políticas públicas sobre sostenibilidad requeriría del apoyo de una potente investigación social dedicada a explorar los comportamientos ciudadanos en toda su complejidad. En esta línea, el método STAVE proporciona un protocolo claro y un conjunto de técnicas útiles para investigar los razonamientos prácticos relacionados con la sostenibilidad, así como los comportamientos llevados a cabo por los ciudadanos en una amplia gama de contextos del mundo real

Lebenszyklus – langes Lernen?

Produkte haben von der Rohstoffgewinnung und -verarbeitung über die Herstel­lung bis hin zur Entsorgung einen umfangreichen Lebensweg und hinterlassen dabei Spuren in der Umwelt. Mit produktbezogenen Umweltinformationssyste­men (PUIS) wie zum Beispiel Ökobilanzen können Unternehmen diese ökolo­gischen Belastungen transparent machen und organisationale Lernprozesse zur Erhöhung der Umweltqualität von Produkten initiieren. Die Analyse von Praxi­serfahrungen zeigt jedoch, dass dies nicht selbstverständlich ist

Making sense of sustainability, energy policies and citizens' related domestic behaviour : a case study in Germany

The objective of this paper is to illustrate the main results of a German case study on citizen awareness and habits regarding sustainability, energy consumption and related public policies. A specific methodological tool, called STAVE, has been developed in order to create evidence about citizens' daily energy-related behaviour at home and to investigate their motives, activities and obstacles as to saving energy. The results show how participants are aware that energy use is strongly linked to environmental issues and climate change. Moreover, they are able to deliver a rich picture of their everyday energy use at home including motives and barriers to save energy. Another major topic that goes beyond reasoning about energy use at home is the question of the social aspects of sustainability. Thus, there were interactions about the connections between social status and the opportunity to engage in a sustainable lifestyle. In this sense, the methodology used allows raising some contradictions and paradoxes among participant discourses, and it seems clear that to live in a sustainable way is a major challenge for participants. According to the recent literature, the need for a means to support policy making for sustainability by exploring the complexities of environment-related citizen behaviours is evident. In this sense, the STAVE method provides a procedure and a set of techniques that can be used in different ways to investigate and explore the patterns of sustainability-related practical reasoning and practical action deployed by citizens across a broad range of real-world settings.La finalitat d'aquest article és il·lustrar els principals resultats d'un estudi de cas sobre els coneixements i hàbits d'una mostra de persones a Alemanya pel que fa al consum domèstic d'energia i les polítiques públiques relacionades amb la sostenibilitat. Per a això, s'ha desenvolupat un mètode específic basat en la deliberació grupal, anomenat STAVE, capaç de generar evidències sobre els coneixements i els comportaments quotidians relacionats amb l'ús domèstic de l'energia. Els resultats mostren com els participants perceben que aquest ús està fortament relacionat amb riscos ambientals i, en particular, amb el canvi climàtic, així com els motius i les barreres percebudes per estalviar energia, o les limitacions dels grups més desfavorits per dur a terme estils de vida sostenibles. En aquest sentit, la metodologia utilitzada permet fer emergir algunes contradiccions i paradoxes en els discursos dels participants, la qual cosa permet observar que, malgrat la seva possible predisposició positiva, viure d'una manera sostenible constitueix un repte considerable per a aquestes persones. D'acord amb la bibliografia recent, l'elaboració de polítiques públiques sobre sostenibilitat requeriria el suport d'una potent recerca social dedicada a explorar els comportaments ciutadans en tota la seva complexitat. En aquesta línia, el mètode STAVE proporciona un protocol clar i un conjunt de tècniques útils per investigar els raonaments pràctics relacionats amb la sostenibilitat, així com els comportaments duts a terme pels ciutadans en una àmplia gamma de contextos del món real.La finalidad de este artículo es ilustrar los principales resultados de un estudio de caso sobre los conocimientos y hábitos de una muestra de personas en Alemania con respecto al consumo doméstico de energía y las políticas públicas relacionadas con la sostenibilidad. Para ello, se ha desarrollado un método específico basado en la deliberación grupal, llamado STAVE, capaz de generar evidencias sobre los conocimientos y los comportamientos cotidianos relacionados con el uso doméstico de la energía. Los resultados muestran cómo los participantes perciben que dicho uso está fuertemente relacionado con riesgos ambientales y, en particular, con el cambio climático, así como los motivos y las barreras percibidas para ahorrar energía, o las limitaciones de los grupos más desfavorecidos para llevar a cabo estilos de vida sostenibles. En este sentido, la metodología utilizada permite hacer emerger algunas contradicciones y paradojas en los discursos de los participantes, lo cual permite observar que, a pesar de su posible predisposición positiva, vivir de una manera sostenible constituye un reto considerable para estas personas. De acuerdo con la bibliografía reciente, la elaboración de políticas públicas sobre sostenibilidad requeriría del apoyo de una potente investigación social dedicada a explorar los comportamientos ciudadanos en toda su complejidad. En esta línea, el método STAVE proporciona un protocolo claro y un conjunto de técnicas útiles para investigar los razonamientos prácticos relacionados con la sostenibilidad, así como los comportamientos llevados a cabo por los ciudadanos en una amplia gama de contextos del mundo real

Rent a Ski

Reparaturen, Miete, Contracting – im Kontext der Dematerialisierungsdebatte werden von solchen produktbegleitenden, produktersetzenden und ergebnisori­entierten Dienstleistungen relevante ökologische Entlastungseffekte erwartet. Inwieweit ist dies in der Praxis aber tatsächlich der Fall? Eine aktuelle IÖW-Untersuchung des Beispiels Alpinskimiete gibt Aufschluss

Strategic policy advice: group-based processes as a tool to support policymaking

This deliverable is about the group discussions (STAVE trials) that have been carried out in the partner countries of project PACHELBEL on various substantive policy issues in the field of sustainability. It focuses on the methods that have been used to interact with lay citizens in the STAVE groups, and on the feedback that has been provided to policy makers on findings from the groups. Building upon these elaborations, conclusions will be drawn as to STAVE as a policy tool. Furthermore, this deliverable provides key features of STAVE groups on a country-by-country basis

Evidences of lay people’s reasoning related to climate change: per country and cross country results

This deliverable is about lay citizens’ reasoning about sustainability, in particular environmental protection and climate change, in various consumption domains, and the relation of this reasoning to the day-to-day lives of the participants. It presents country and cross-country findings from all 18 STAVE trials conducted between May 2011 and February 2012 in all six PACHELBEL partner countries. Analyses demonstrate that participants in the STAVE trials predominantly display a clear awareness that citizen consumption as demonstrated in their everyday practices of energy use, mobility, waste etc. are strongly connected with issues of environmental sustainablility. The STAVE trials also demonstrated that to live sustainably is a daily challenge, and people are often not able to organize their everyday routines in an environmental-friendly manner. Frequently there is a gap between participants’ aspirations and their practical behaviours. Significantly, the group conversations enabled participants to become aware that the self-assessed soundness of their everyday lives in terms of sustainability was at variance from the actual impact of e.g. their energy use or or mobility practices