Heather Chappells

Debating the future of comfort: environmental sustainability, energy consumption and the indoor environment

Vast quantities of energy are consumed in heating and cooling to provide what are now regarded as acceptable standards of thermal comfort. In the UK as in a number of other countries, there is a real danger that responses in anticipation of global warming and climate change – including growing reliance on air-conditioning – will increase energy demand and CO2 emissions even further. This is an appropriate moment to reflect on the history and future of comfort, both as an idea and as a material reality. Based on interviews and discussions with UK policy makers and building practitioners involved in specifying and constructing what will become the indoor environments of the future, four possible scenarios are identified each with different implications for energy and resource consumption. By actively promoting debate about the indoor environment and associated ways of life, it may yet be possible to avoid becoming locked into social and technical trajectories that are ultimately unsustainable. The aim of th...Vast quantities of energy are consumed in heating and cooling to provide what are now regarded as acceptable standards of thermal comfort. In the UK as in a number of other countries, there is a real danger that responses in anticipation of global warming and climate change – including growing reliance on air-conditioning – will increase energy demand and CO2 emissions even further. This is an appropriate moment to reflect on the history and future of comfort, both as an idea and as a material reality. Based on interviews and discussions with UK policy makers and building practitioners involved in specifying and constructing what will become the indoor environments of the future, four possible scenarios are identified each with different implications for energy and resource consumption. By actively promoting debate about the indoor environment and associated ways of life, it may yet be possible to avoid becoming locked into social and technical trajectories that are ultimately unsustainable. The aim of this paper is to inspire and initiate just such a discussion through demonstrating that comfort is a highly negotiable socio-cultural construct. e.shove@lancaster.ac.uk E-mail: heather.chappells@tiscali.co.uk

Pathways of smart metering development: shaping environmental innovation

Utility meters are being transformed from simple measurement devices to complex socio-technical systems, enhanced by the addition of new informational and communication capacities. In this paper, we examine how there are multiple opportunities for the development of environmental applications within smarter metering systems. These include improving the efficiency of generation and distribution networks by more imaginative and customer-specific load and tariff control packages or providing customers with cost and environmental messages through user displays. The take-up of these potentials is strongly framed by the competing commercial priorities established by privatisation and liberalisation. Identifying four distinct metering technical development pathways (TDPs), the paper shows how the insertion of environmental functionalities into different smart meters is only partly a technological issue. Each TDP is designed to structure relations between users and the utilities. Different types of environmental opportunities exist within each TDP, but these potentials are often squeezed out by competing priorities. Implementing these environmental applications would require a powerful shift in regulatory and institutional frameworks within which utilities and manufacturers configure the functionalities of smart meters. It is only in this way that the flexible approach needed to recognise and reinstate environmental objectives into the development of smart meters could be realised and maintained.

The dustbin: A study of domestic waste, household practices and utility services

Abstract Although an intrinsic part of our everyday routines, the dustbins role as a mediator of changing waste practices has rarely been considered. As bins become reconfigured as environmental technologies for contemporary recycling programmes, is argued that they provide a revealing indicator of new waste relationships in society. These emerging relationships are explored by tracing through a number of past and present bin technologies, showing how they represent changing waste meanings, practices and responsibilities. The future of the bin and how adopting a bin‐centred approach can help researchers and planners reconceptualize waste ‘problems’ and so reconsider waste management strategies are speculated upon.

Disruption and change: drought and the inconspicuous dynamics of garden lives

It is now widely agreed that there is more to sustainable consumption than persuading individuals to make green their brand of choice. Instead, the focus is on how to understand the processes of change, particularly in relation to the transformation of inconspicuous habits. A dominant approach within sustainable consumption research suggests that changing embedded habits and practices requires making them visible and subject to overt decision-making and discussion. An alternative practice-based perspective suggests that enduring change emerges through the amplification of existing social orientations and does not necessarily depend upon explicit contestation and debate. We examine these positions with reference to a detailed study of changing outdoor domestic water consumption habits during the 2006 drought in south-east England. Our analysis of variable responses to the hosepipe ban leads us to suggest that the manner in which disruption generates change in consumption practices is mediated by pre-existing social orientations and by diverse configurations of garden infrastructures and water institutions.

What is fair? Tensions between sustainable and equitable domestic water consumption in England and Wales.

Recent shifts in the institutional arrangements of the water sector in England and Wales have witnessed an explicit move away from the goals of social equity and universal provision towards implementing the principles of economic equity and efficiency through cost-reflective pricing. Coupled with widespread recognition that there is a need to promote environmentally sustainable water use, there are growing concerns about the implications of new charging systems in providing fair and affordable water for low-income households. In this article, we argue that current strategies for equitable charging, based on the valuing of water as a resource, inadequately account for social and geographical differentiation in supply and demand. We examine how developing an understanding of demand situated within social and geographical context can inform debates about cross-subsidisation and the emerging tensions between social inequality and economic and environmental sustainability.

Control and flow : rethinking the sociology, technology and politics of water consumption

This chapter summarizes the control and flow of water consumptions, where spatial dimensions parallel different temporal dimensions, in which sustainability discourses are employed. The domain of human choice and consumption is heavily contested, and “eco-tourism,” however rhetorical, is a convenient label on which to hang contrary messages. Practical and theoretical implications for the representation and analysis of sustainable consumption are explained. The processes of ordering and management of the specific technologies involved in channeling and organizing water are also discussed. By implication, policy analysis that considers the institutions of water supply without taking note of the technological and other infrastructures through which actions and practices have effect are severely limited. To simplify the task, three genres of water technology are considered: “barriers” which is used to separate wet from dry, “containers” used to store water, and “purifiers” that is used to create and distinguish among different types.

Resilience in practice : the 2006 drought in Southeast England

Resilience is utilized in socioecological research as a powerful concept for understanding the dynamics of complex, nonlinear systems, especially in relation to adaptation to environmental stresses and climate change. In sociotechnical systems research, resilience is less well developed with the emerging debate indicating the need for understanding how resilience is defined by different sociopolitical agencies operating at different spatial and organizational scales. Using a case study of the 2006 drought in southeast England, we illustrate how resilience is invoked in the context of contemporary water management. The multiple meanings of resilience that emerge are broadly construed in accordance with market-environmental discourses and are aligned to the highly variable objectives of water managers, regulators, and households operating across regional and local scales. We highlight the relative influence of different sociopolitical constructions of resilience in defining the possibilities for more and less sustainable manifestations of water management practice.

Control and Flow

This chapter summarizes the control and flow of water consumptions, where spatial dimensions parallel different temporal dimensions, in which sustainability discourses are employed. The domain of human choice and consumption is heavily contested, and “eco-tourism,” however rhetorical, is a convenient label on which to hang contrary messages. Practical and theoretical implications for the representation and analysis of sustainable consumption are explained. The processes of ordering and management of the specific technologies involved in channeling and organizing water are also discussed. By implication, policy analysis that considers the institutions of water supply without taking note of the technological and other infrastructures through which actions and practices have effect are severely limited. To simplify the task, three genres of water technology are considered: “barriers” which is used to separate wet from dry, “containers” used to store water, and “purifiers” that is used to create and distinguish among different types.

Chapter 9 – Control and Flow: Rethinking the Sociology, Technology and Politics of Water Consumption

This chapter summarizes the control and flow of water consumptions, where spatial dimensions parallel different temporal dimensions, in which sustainability discourses are employed. The domain of human choice and consumption is heavily contested, and “eco-tourism,” however rhetorical, is a convenient label on which to hang contrary messages. Practical and theoretical implications for the representation and analysis of sustainable consumption are explained. The processes of ordering and management of the specific technologies involved in channeling and organizing water are also discussed. By implication, policy analysis that considers the institutions of water supply without taking note of the technological and other infrastructures through which actions and practices have effect are severely limited. To simplify the task, three genres of water technology are considered: “barriers” which is used to separate wet from dry, “containers” used to store water, and “purifiers” that is used to create and distinguish among different types.