Innovation is integral to 1.5oC mitigation. Policy and modelling analysis tends to focus on low c... more Innovation is integral to 1.5oC mitigation. Policy and modelling analysis tends to focus on low carbon innovations which are upstream (not directly consuming facing) and sustaining they improve upon existing attributes like affordability, efficiency or cleanliness currently valued in mainstream markets. Disruptive innovations are distinctive in offering novel product or service attributes to end users. Disruptive low carbon innovations challenge prevailing technologies or practices and may lead to step change reductions in emissions if adopted at scale. Many potentially disruptive low carbon innovations exist today, but in small numbers. As examples, car sharing, reuse networks and community food-growing challenge mainstream consumer attributes of ownership, autonomy and status.
This dataset was collected as part of the SILCI project ('Social influence and disruptive low... more This dataset was collected as part of the SILCI project ('Social influence and disruptive low carbon innovations'). The SILCI project ran from 2016 - 2021 at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of East Anglia and was funded by the European Research Council (ERC) through the Starting Grant #678799. Further details on the SILCI project and related publications can be found at: http://www.silci.org. The SILCI project explored disruptive low carbon innovations and how they spread through processes of social influence. As part of the SILCI project, a national online survey was conducted in the UK in 2019 to understand consumers' perceptions, communication behaviour, and adoption propensity towards a wide range of low-carbon innovations in four different consumer domains: transport, food, homes and energy. These datasets are published on ReShare at URL = https://reshare.ukdataservice.ac.uk/854723/ A repeat survey was conducted with respondents from the p...
Technological Learning in the Transition to a Low-Carbon Energy System, 2020
The concept of experience curves is normally applied to analyze cost or price developments of tec... more The concept of experience curves is normally applied to analyze cost or price developments of technologies, but studies have shown that the concept can also be extended to other applications and fields. In this chapter, we show the application of experience curves to analyze energy use in industrial processes, energy demand of household appliances and discuss its application to describe and project developments in environmental impact of technologies. A second part of the chapter shows a case study of applying the concept of technological learning to the field of social behavior in what is called social learning (SL). This part of the chapter shows how the diffusion of electric vehicles is affected by different SL mechanisms.
eries es www.iser.essex.ac.uk ww.iser.essex.ac.uk w.iser.essex.ac.uk iser.essex.ac.uk er.essex.ac... more eries es www.iser.essex.ac.uk ww.iser.essex.ac.uk w.iser.essex.ac.uk iser.essex.ac.uk er.essex.ac.uk.essex.ac.uk ssex.ac.uk ex.ac.uk.ac.uk c.uk uk
The VERD Study: In October 2011, the VERD project team at the University of East Anglia began a t... more The VERD Study: In October 2011, the VERD project team at the University of East Anglia began a two-year research project investigating homeowners’ renovation decisions, funded by the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC). This report and public conference summarises the findings, revealing why homeowners renovate and why they decide to improve their home energy efficiency.
We present a unique and transparent approach for incorporating social influence effects into glob... more We present a unique and transparent approach for incorporating social influence effects into global integrated assessment models used to analyse climate change mitigation. We draw conceptually on Rogers (2003) diffusion of innovations, introducing heterogeneous and interconnected consumers who vary in their aversion to new technologies. Focussing on vehicle choice, we conduct novel empirical research to parameterise consumer risk aversion and how this is shaped by social and cultural influences. We find robust evidence for social influence effects, and variation between countries as a function of cultural differences. We then formulate an approach to modelling social influence which is implementable in both simulation and optimisation-type models. We use two global integrated assessment models (IMAGE and MESSAGE) to analyse four scenarios that introduce social influence and cultural differences between regions. These scenarios allow us to explore the interactions between consumer preferences and social influence. We find that incorporating social influence effects into global models accelerates the early deployment of electric vehicles and stimulates more widespread deployment across adopter groups. Incorporating cultural variation leads to significant differences in deployment between culturally divergent regions such as the USA and China. Our analysis significantly extends the ability of global integrated assessment models to provide policy-relevant analysis grounded in real world processes. Highlights A formulation for adding social influences into global transport models is proposed This draws together strong conceptual thinking with robust empirical evidence Adding social influences speeds up the diffusion of alternative fuel vehicles And varied according to cultural differences between model countries/regions Keywords Social influence, behavioural realism, vehicle choice, AFV This work was funded by European Union's Seventh Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement number. 308329
Alternative fuel vehicle technologies are needed to mitigate rising greenhouse gas emissions from... more Alternative fuel vehicle technologies are needed to mitigate rising greenhouse gas emissions from transport. Social influence is integral to the diffusion of private vehicles which are highly visible and fulfil practical as well as social functions. This paper provides the first meta-analysis of empirical studies which measure the strength of social influence on consumer vehicle choice. A systematic literature review identified 21 studies that examined three types of social influence: interpersonal communication; neighbourhood effect; and conformity with social norms. A random effects metaanalysis found a significant and small to moderate effect of social influence on vehicle choices (r=0.241, p<.001). The overall effect size did not vary significantly between types of social influence nor between types of vehicle (conventional or alternative fuel). However, further analysis using meta-regression found that heterogeneity in social influence effect size across studies was explained by differences in countries' cultural receptiveness to normative influence. These findings have important implications for policy and modelling analysis of alternative fuel vehicle adoption, for which diffusion is both a socially and culturally-mediated process. Highlights (max 6, max 60 characters each) Meta-analysis of 21 empirical studies Robust evidence of social influence on vehicle choice Three types of social influence have similar effects Strength of social influence similar for conventional and alternative fuel vehicles Cultural differences between countries
Abstract Novel consumer goods and services in mobility, food, homes and energy domains are needed... more Abstract Novel consumer goods and services in mobility, food, homes and energy domains are needed to help mitigate climate change. Appealing attributes of low carbon innovations accelerate their diffusion out of early-adopting segments into the mass market [1,2] [1] , [2] . In this paper we synthesise insights on the attributes of low carbon consumer innovations across multiple domains. Using a directed literature review and content analysis, guided by Levitt's hierarchical ring model which distinguishes core from non-core attributes, we identified over 170 relevant studies across mobility, food, homes and energy domains. We extracted a set of 16 attributes generalisable to low carbon innovations across multiple domains of consumption, with the exception of energy innovations which appeal on a reduced set of attributes. Using multi-dimensional scaling techniques we found the appeal of non-core attributes varies between domains but core attributes are consistent across domains in line with Levitt's theory. As examples, low-carbon consumer innovations within mobility and food domains share non-core attributes related to improved private and public health, whereas innovations within food and home domains share non-core attributes related to technology acceptance and usability. We develop these findings to argue that many low carbon consumer innovations are currently positioned to appeal to a distinctive but limited group of early adopters who value novelty and climate benefits. To achieve mass market diffusion, product and service development, policy interventions, and communication strategies should focus on enhancing a wider set of attributes to broaden consumer appeal.
This is an exploratory study into the behaviour of people living in the same household. Through i... more This is an exploratory study into the behaviour of people living in the same household. Through it I have two main aims. The first is to discover the extent to which two people living in the same household follow the same sustainable or non-sustainable household behaviours. The second is to try and explain this behaviour by testing three particular theories for correlated behaviour suggested by Manksi (1993). Using Understanding Society, a nationally representative study of households in the UK, I examine the sustainable behaviour of over 7,000 married or cohabiting couples. My findings suggest that couples behave similarly. The first theory for this behaviour is that they face a common set of enablers or constraints to sustainable behaviour and I find this explanation has some value with respect to heating, electricity and water use in the home. The second theory suggests couples support each other’s views making them more or less likely to behave similarly. Here I find that indivi...
This paper investigates the potential for consumer-facing innovations to contribute emission redu... more This paper investigates the potential for consumer-facing innovations to contribute emission reductions for limiting warming to 1.5°C. First, we show that global integrated assessment models which characterise transformation pathways consistent with 1.5°C mitigation are limited in their ability to analyse the emergence of novelty in energy end-use. Second, we introduce concepts of disruptive innovation which can be usefully applied to the challenge of 1.5°C mitigation. Disruptive low-carbon innovations offer novel value propositions to consumers and can transform markets for energy-related goods and services while reducing emissions. Third, we identify 99 potentially disruptive low-carbon innovations relating to mobility, food, buildings and cities, and energy supply and distribution. Examples at the fringes of current markets include car clubs, mobility-as-a-service, prefabricated highefficiency retrofits, internet of things, and urban farming. Each of these offers an alternative to mainstream consumer practices. Fourth, we assess the potential emission reductions from subsets of these disruptive low-carbon innovations using two methods: a survey eliciting experts' perceptions and a quantitative scalingup of evidence from early-adopting niches to matched segments of the UK population. We conclude that disruptive low-carbon innovations which appeal to consumers can help efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C.
Burgeoning demands for mobility and private vehicle ownership undermine global efforts to reduce ... more Burgeoning demands for mobility and private vehicle ownership undermine global efforts to reduce energy-related greenhouse gas emissions. Advanced vehicles powered by low-carbon sources of electricity or hydrogen offer an alternative to conventional fossil-fuelled technologies. Yet, despite ambitious pledges and investments by governments and automakers, it is by no means clear that these vehicles will ultimately reach mass-market consumers. Here, we develop state-of-the-art representations of consumer preferences in multiple global energy-economy models, specifically focusing on the non-financial preferences of individuals. We employ these enhanced model formulations to analyse the potential for a low-carbon vehicle revolution up to 2050. Our analysis shows that a diverse set of measures targeting vehicle buyers is necessary to drive widespread adoption of clean technologies. Carbon pricing alone is insufficient to bring low-carbon vehicles to the mass market, though it may have a supporting role in ensuring a decarbonized energy supply.
he Green Deal is a major new energy policy designed to support the diffusion of energy efficiency ... more he Green Deal is a major new energy policy designed to support the diffusion of energy efficiency measures in UK homes. This paper provides one of the first empirical examinations of the Green Deal′s success in influencing homeowners’ renovation decisions. Using a repeated measures design in which households were questioned before and after the Green Deal′s launch in January 2013, we assess the policy′s success in raising awareness of energy efficiency. In particular, we test the effectiveness of the Green Deal′s positioning to overcome barriers to renovation among homeowners already interested in or considering energy efficiency measures. Using the innovation decision process (Rogers, 2003)asa conceptual framing of the renovation decision process, we examine whether new information on energy efficiency provided by the Green Deal strengthened intentions and its antecedents. We find that (1) energy efficiency is of potential appeal to all renovators regardless of their attitudes about energy...
Innovation is integral to 1.5oC mitigation. Policy and modelling analysis tends to focus on low c... more Innovation is integral to 1.5oC mitigation. Policy and modelling analysis tends to focus on low carbon innovations which are upstream (not directly consuming facing) and sustaining they improve upon existing attributes like affordability, efficiency or cleanliness currently valued in mainstream markets. Disruptive innovations are distinctive in offering novel product or service attributes to end users. Disruptive low carbon innovations challenge prevailing technologies or practices and may lead to step change reductions in emissions if adopted at scale. Many potentially disruptive low carbon innovations exist today, but in small numbers. As examples, car sharing, reuse networks and community food-growing challenge mainstream consumer attributes of ownership, autonomy and status.
This dataset was collected as part of the SILCI project ('Social influence and disruptive low... more This dataset was collected as part of the SILCI project ('Social influence and disruptive low carbon innovations'). The SILCI project ran from 2016 - 2021 at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of East Anglia and was funded by the European Research Council (ERC) through the Starting Grant #678799. Further details on the SILCI project and related publications can be found at: http://www.silci.org. The SILCI project explored disruptive low carbon innovations and how they spread through processes of social influence. As part of the SILCI project, a national online survey was conducted in the UK in 2019 to understand consumers' perceptions, communication behaviour, and adoption propensity towards a wide range of low-carbon innovations in four different consumer domains: transport, food, homes and energy. These datasets are published on ReShare at URL = https://reshare.ukdataservice.ac.uk/854723/ A repeat survey was conducted with respondents from the p...
Technological Learning in the Transition to a Low-Carbon Energy System, 2020
The concept of experience curves is normally applied to analyze cost or price developments of tec... more The concept of experience curves is normally applied to analyze cost or price developments of technologies, but studies have shown that the concept can also be extended to other applications and fields. In this chapter, we show the application of experience curves to analyze energy use in industrial processes, energy demand of household appliances and discuss its application to describe and project developments in environmental impact of technologies. A second part of the chapter shows a case study of applying the concept of technological learning to the field of social behavior in what is called social learning (SL). This part of the chapter shows how the diffusion of electric vehicles is affected by different SL mechanisms.
eries es www.iser.essex.ac.uk ww.iser.essex.ac.uk w.iser.essex.ac.uk iser.essex.ac.uk er.essex.ac... more eries es www.iser.essex.ac.uk ww.iser.essex.ac.uk w.iser.essex.ac.uk iser.essex.ac.uk er.essex.ac.uk.essex.ac.uk ssex.ac.uk ex.ac.uk.ac.uk c.uk uk
The VERD Study: In October 2011, the VERD project team at the University of East Anglia began a t... more The VERD Study: In October 2011, the VERD project team at the University of East Anglia began a two-year research project investigating homeowners’ renovation decisions, funded by the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC). This report and public conference summarises the findings, revealing why homeowners renovate and why they decide to improve their home energy efficiency.
We present a unique and transparent approach for incorporating social influence effects into glob... more We present a unique and transparent approach for incorporating social influence effects into global integrated assessment models used to analyse climate change mitigation. We draw conceptually on Rogers (2003) diffusion of innovations, introducing heterogeneous and interconnected consumers who vary in their aversion to new technologies. Focussing on vehicle choice, we conduct novel empirical research to parameterise consumer risk aversion and how this is shaped by social and cultural influences. We find robust evidence for social influence effects, and variation between countries as a function of cultural differences. We then formulate an approach to modelling social influence which is implementable in both simulation and optimisation-type models. We use two global integrated assessment models (IMAGE and MESSAGE) to analyse four scenarios that introduce social influence and cultural differences between regions. These scenarios allow us to explore the interactions between consumer preferences and social influence. We find that incorporating social influence effects into global models accelerates the early deployment of electric vehicles and stimulates more widespread deployment across adopter groups. Incorporating cultural variation leads to significant differences in deployment between culturally divergent regions such as the USA and China. Our analysis significantly extends the ability of global integrated assessment models to provide policy-relevant analysis grounded in real world processes. Highlights A formulation for adding social influences into global transport models is proposed This draws together strong conceptual thinking with robust empirical evidence Adding social influences speeds up the diffusion of alternative fuel vehicles And varied according to cultural differences between model countries/regions Keywords Social influence, behavioural realism, vehicle choice, AFV This work was funded by European Union's Seventh Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement number. 308329
Alternative fuel vehicle technologies are needed to mitigate rising greenhouse gas emissions from... more Alternative fuel vehicle technologies are needed to mitigate rising greenhouse gas emissions from transport. Social influence is integral to the diffusion of private vehicles which are highly visible and fulfil practical as well as social functions. This paper provides the first meta-analysis of empirical studies which measure the strength of social influence on consumer vehicle choice. A systematic literature review identified 21 studies that examined three types of social influence: interpersonal communication; neighbourhood effect; and conformity with social norms. A random effects metaanalysis found a significant and small to moderate effect of social influence on vehicle choices (r=0.241, p<.001). The overall effect size did not vary significantly between types of social influence nor between types of vehicle (conventional or alternative fuel). However, further analysis using meta-regression found that heterogeneity in social influence effect size across studies was explained by differences in countries' cultural receptiveness to normative influence. These findings have important implications for policy and modelling analysis of alternative fuel vehicle adoption, for which diffusion is both a socially and culturally-mediated process. Highlights (max 6, max 60 characters each) Meta-analysis of 21 empirical studies Robust evidence of social influence on vehicle choice Three types of social influence have similar effects Strength of social influence similar for conventional and alternative fuel vehicles Cultural differences between countries
Abstract Novel consumer goods and services in mobility, food, homes and energy domains are needed... more Abstract Novel consumer goods and services in mobility, food, homes and energy domains are needed to help mitigate climate change. Appealing attributes of low carbon innovations accelerate their diffusion out of early-adopting segments into the mass market [1,2] [1] , [2] . In this paper we synthesise insights on the attributes of low carbon consumer innovations across multiple domains. Using a directed literature review and content analysis, guided by Levitt's hierarchical ring model which distinguishes core from non-core attributes, we identified over 170 relevant studies across mobility, food, homes and energy domains. We extracted a set of 16 attributes generalisable to low carbon innovations across multiple domains of consumption, with the exception of energy innovations which appeal on a reduced set of attributes. Using multi-dimensional scaling techniques we found the appeal of non-core attributes varies between domains but core attributes are consistent across domains in line with Levitt's theory. As examples, low-carbon consumer innovations within mobility and food domains share non-core attributes related to improved private and public health, whereas innovations within food and home domains share non-core attributes related to technology acceptance and usability. We develop these findings to argue that many low carbon consumer innovations are currently positioned to appeal to a distinctive but limited group of early adopters who value novelty and climate benefits. To achieve mass market diffusion, product and service development, policy interventions, and communication strategies should focus on enhancing a wider set of attributes to broaden consumer appeal.
This is an exploratory study into the behaviour of people living in the same household. Through i... more This is an exploratory study into the behaviour of people living in the same household. Through it I have two main aims. The first is to discover the extent to which two people living in the same household follow the same sustainable or non-sustainable household behaviours. The second is to try and explain this behaviour by testing three particular theories for correlated behaviour suggested by Manksi (1993). Using Understanding Society, a nationally representative study of households in the UK, I examine the sustainable behaviour of over 7,000 married or cohabiting couples. My findings suggest that couples behave similarly. The first theory for this behaviour is that they face a common set of enablers or constraints to sustainable behaviour and I find this explanation has some value with respect to heating, electricity and water use in the home. The second theory suggests couples support each other’s views making them more or less likely to behave similarly. Here I find that indivi...
This paper investigates the potential for consumer-facing innovations to contribute emission redu... more This paper investigates the potential for consumer-facing innovations to contribute emission reductions for limiting warming to 1.5°C. First, we show that global integrated assessment models which characterise transformation pathways consistent with 1.5°C mitigation are limited in their ability to analyse the emergence of novelty in energy end-use. Second, we introduce concepts of disruptive innovation which can be usefully applied to the challenge of 1.5°C mitigation. Disruptive low-carbon innovations offer novel value propositions to consumers and can transform markets for energy-related goods and services while reducing emissions. Third, we identify 99 potentially disruptive low-carbon innovations relating to mobility, food, buildings and cities, and energy supply and distribution. Examples at the fringes of current markets include car clubs, mobility-as-a-service, prefabricated highefficiency retrofits, internet of things, and urban farming. Each of these offers an alternative to mainstream consumer practices. Fourth, we assess the potential emission reductions from subsets of these disruptive low-carbon innovations using two methods: a survey eliciting experts' perceptions and a quantitative scalingup of evidence from early-adopting niches to matched segments of the UK population. We conclude that disruptive low-carbon innovations which appeal to consumers can help efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C.
Burgeoning demands for mobility and private vehicle ownership undermine global efforts to reduce ... more Burgeoning demands for mobility and private vehicle ownership undermine global efforts to reduce energy-related greenhouse gas emissions. Advanced vehicles powered by low-carbon sources of electricity or hydrogen offer an alternative to conventional fossil-fuelled technologies. Yet, despite ambitious pledges and investments by governments and automakers, it is by no means clear that these vehicles will ultimately reach mass-market consumers. Here, we develop state-of-the-art representations of consumer preferences in multiple global energy-economy models, specifically focusing on the non-financial preferences of individuals. We employ these enhanced model formulations to analyse the potential for a low-carbon vehicle revolution up to 2050. Our analysis shows that a diverse set of measures targeting vehicle buyers is necessary to drive widespread adoption of clean technologies. Carbon pricing alone is insufficient to bring low-carbon vehicles to the mass market, though it may have a supporting role in ensuring a decarbonized energy supply.
he Green Deal is a major new energy policy designed to support the diffusion of energy efficiency ... more he Green Deal is a major new energy policy designed to support the diffusion of energy efficiency measures in UK homes. This paper provides one of the first empirical examinations of the Green Deal′s success in influencing homeowners’ renovation decisions. Using a repeated measures design in which households were questioned before and after the Green Deal′s launch in January 2013, we assess the policy′s success in raising awareness of energy efficiency. In particular, we test the effectiveness of the Green Deal′s positioning to overcome barriers to renovation among homeowners already interested in or considering energy efficiency measures. Using the innovation decision process (Rogers, 2003)asa conceptual framing of the renovation decision process, we examine whether new information on energy efficiency provided by the Green Deal strengthened intentions and its antecedents. We find that (1) energy efficiency is of potential appeal to all renovators regardless of their attitudes about energy...
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Papers by Hazel Pettifor