a b s t r a c tAchieving a 'step-change' in energy efficiency behaviours will require enhanced knowledge of behavioural drivers, and translation of this knowledge into successful intervention programmes. The 'Energy Cultures' conceptual framework aims to assist in understanding the factors that influence energy consumption behaviour, and to help identify opportunities for behaviour change. Building on a history of attempts to offer multi-disciplinary integrating models of energy behaviour, we take a culture-based approach to behaviour, while drawing also from lifestyles and systems thinking. The framework provides a structure for addressing the problem of multiple interpretations of 'behaviour' by suggesting that it is influenced by the interactions between cognitive norms, energy practices and material culture.The Energy Cultures framework is discussed in the context of a New Zealand case study, which demonstrates its development and application. It has already provided a basis for cross-disciplinary collaboration, and for multi-disciplinary research design, and has provided insights into behavioural change in a case study community. As the conceptual basis of a 3-year research project, the framework has further potential to identify clusters of 'energy cultures' -similar patterns of norms, practices and/or material culture -to enable the crafting of targeted actions to achieve behaviour change.
The energy cultures framework was developed in 2009 to support interdisciplinary investigation into energy behaviour in New Zealand. In this paper, we discuss the framework in light of 5 years of empirical application and conceptual development. The concept of culture is helpful in seeking to better understand energy behaviour because it conveys how behaviours are embedded within the physical and social contexts of everyday life, and how they are both repetitive and heterogeneous. The framework suggests that the energy culture of a given subject (e.g. an individual, a household, a business, a sector) can be studied by examining the interrelationships between their norms, practices and material culture, and how these, in turn, are shaped by external influences. We discuss the key theoretical influences of the framework, and how the core concepts of the framework have evolved as we have applied them in different research situations. We then illustrate how we have applied the framework to a range of topics and sectors, and how it has been used to support interdisciplinary research, in identifying clusters of energy cultures, in examining energy cultures at different scales and in different sectors, and to inform policy development.
ABSTRACT. The prevalence of widespread, human-caused ecological degradation suggests that fundamental change is needed in how societies interact with the environment. In this paper we argue that durable models of environmental relationships already exist in approaches of place-based peoples, whose values connect people to their environments, provide guidance on appropriate behaviors, and structure sustained people-place relationships. To illustrate, we identify and discuss concordant values of indigenous peoples at opposite ends of the Pacific Ocean: the Māori of Aotearoa (New Zealand), and First Nations of the West Coast of Canada. We find that values of relatedness to, respect of, and reciprocity with other species and places correspond with sustained long-term relationships between people and places, and illustrate with examples from both regions. We propose that by integrating a values-led foundation into management broadly, values-led management could enable similar sustained relationships in places where they have been recently disrupted or where they are altogether lacking. We characterize values-led management as being founded on values that underpin stewardship-like relationships between people and place and that in turn guide related objectives, policies, and practices. We examine two contemporary values-led management plans that follow this structure, and provide additional examples of emergent values-led approaches elsewhere. From these we compile a set of questions that might guide the conception of place-based values-led management in decolonizing contexts, in contexts where people have a desire for place-based approaches but have not yet distilled foundational values for guidance, or in contexts where people have a united set of values but have not yet translated them into specific management approaches. We conclude by discussing both the challenges and learning opportunities that the resumption, or commencement, of values-led management might entail.
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