Abstract:
There is increasing appreciation that energy efficiency measures are not enough to address the climate crisis, and a shift of focus to include sufficiency measures is needed. Broadly, sufficiency describes the aim of reducing absolute consumption while ensuring decent living standards. Public support is a crucial aspect in policymaking and successful implementation. While some sufficiency-oriented policies have been in place for some time, many high-potential measures are not widely implemented. These policies challenge widely accepted values of consumerism and unfettered economic growth. On the other hand, they have equity and fairness – the most influential factors in previous studies of support – baked in.
This webinar presents results from a large sample of people in Ireland, showing broad support for sufficiency measures, with few – but notable – exceptions. It also shows significant disparities between actual support and perceived support and covers recommendations for designing and communicating policy changes to increase public buy-in particularly amongst people for whom climate is not a high priority.
Presenter(s):
Ciarán Lavin – Senior Behavioural Scientist at the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI)
Hannah Julienne – Programme Manager, Behavioural Economics Unit, SEAI
Presentation slides and related publications/links