IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/engenv/v15y2004i6p1053-1065.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Efficiency and Consumption: Technology and Practice

Author

Listed:
  • Elizabeth Shove

    (University of Lancaster)

Abstract

It is probably true that energy policy has paid more attention to resources and resource efficiencies than to overall consumption. Partly because of this, more needs to be done to conceptualise the dynamics of consumer demand. In this article I take stock of what sociological theories of consumption, technology and practice might contribute to energy and environmental policy. Recent research on a) the future of comfort and b) sustainable domestic technology is used to illustrate and elaborate on the part that technical systems (efficient and otherwise) play in redefining concepts of service and thereby structuring patterns of resource consumption.

Suggested Citation

  • Elizabeth Shove, 2004. "Efficiency and Consumption: Technology and Practice," Energy & Environment, , vol. 15(6), pages 1053-1065, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:engenv:v:15:y:2004:i:6:p:1053-1065
    DOI: 10.1260/0958305043026555
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1260/0958305043026555
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1260/0958305043026555?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Geels, Frank W., 2002. "Technological transitions as evolutionary reconfiguration processes: a multi-level perspective and a case-study," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(8-9), pages 1257-1274, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cosmo, Valeria Di & O’Hora, Denis, 2017. "Nudging electricity consumption using TOU pricing and feedback: evidence from Irish households," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 1-14.
    2. Strengers, Yolande, 2012. "Peak electricity demand and social practice theories: Reframing the role of change agents in the energy sector," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 226-234.
    3. Foran, Tira & Fleming, David & Spandonide, Bruno & Williams, Rachel & Race, Digby, 2016. "Understanding energy-related regimes: A participatory approach from central Australia," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 315-324.
    4. Bergman, Noam & Schwanen, Tim & Sovacool, Benjamin K., 2017. "Imagined people, behaviour and future mobility: Insights from visions of electric vehicles and car clubs in the United Kingdom," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 165-173.
    5. Ghanem, Dana Abi & Mander, Sarah & Gough, Clair, 2016. "“I think we need to get a better generator”: Household resilience to disruption to power supply during storm events," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 171-180.
    6. Moloney, Susie & Horne, Ralph E. & Fien, John, 2010. "Transitioning to low carbon communities--from behaviour change to systemic change: Lessons from Australia," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(12), pages 7614-7623, December.
    7. Morley, Janine, 2018. "Rethinking energy services: The concept of ‘meta-service’ and implications for demand reduction and servicizing policy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 563-569.
    8. Panwar, N.L. & Kothari, Surendra & Kaushik, S.C., 2013. "Techno-economic evaluation of masonry type animal feed solar cooker in rural areas of an Indian state Rajasthan," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 583-586.
    9. Torriti, Jacopo, 2012. "Price-based demand side management: Assessing the impacts of time-of-use tariffs on residential electricity demand and peak shifting in Northern Italy," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 576-583.
    10. Sovacool, Benjamin K., 2011. "Conceptualizing urban household energy use: Climbing the "Energy Services Ladder"," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 1659-1668, March.
    11. Verbong, Geert P.J. & Beemsterboer, Sjouke & Sengers, Frans, 2013. "Smart grids or smart users? Involving users in developing a low carbon electricity economy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 117-125.
    12. van Welie, Mara J. & Cherunya, Pauline C. & Truffer, Bernhard & Murphy, James T., 2018. "Analysing transition pathways in developing cities: The case of Nairobi's splintered sanitation regime," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 259-271.
    13. Ramírez-Mendiola, José Luis & Grünewald, Philipp & Eyre, Nick, 2019. "Residential activity pattern modelling through stochastic chains of variable memory length," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 237(C), pages 417-430.
    14. Axsen, Jonn & TyreeHageman, Jennifer & Lentz, Andy, 2012. "Lifestyle practices and pro-environmental technology," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 64-74.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fábio T. F. Silva & Alexandre Szklo & Amanda Vinhoza & Ana Célia Nogueira & André F. P. Lucena & Antônio Marcos Mendonça & Camilla Marcolino & Felipe Nunes & Francielle M. Carvalho & Isabela Tagomori , 2022. "Inter-sectoral prioritization of climate technologies: insights from a Technology Needs Assessment for mitigation in Brazil," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 27(7), pages 1-39, October.
    2. Hirt, Léon F. & Sahakian, Marlyne & Trutnevyte, Evelina, 2022. "What subnational imaginaries for solar PV? The case of the Swiss energy transition," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    3. John A. Mathews, 2020. "Schumpeterian economic dynamics of greening: propagation of green eco-platforms," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 30(4), pages 929-948, September.
    4. Marco Gallegati, 2019. "A system for dating long wave phases in economic development," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 29(3), pages 803-822, July.
    5. Oliver Falck & Anita Dietrich & Tobias Lohse & Friederike Welter & Heike Belitz & Cedric von der Hellen & Carsten Dreher & Carsten Schwäbe & Dietmar Harhoff & Monika Schnitzer & Uschi Backes-Gellner &, 2019. "Steuerliche Forschungsförderung: Wichtiger Impuls für FuE-Aktivitäten oder zu wenig zielgerichtet?," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 72(09), pages 03-25, May.
    6. Wiegand, Julia, 2017. "Dezentrale Stromerzeugung als Chance zur Stärkung der Energie-Resilienz: Eine qualitative Analyse kommunaler Strategien im Raum Unna," Wuppertaler Studienarbeiten zur nachhaltigen Entwicklung, Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy, volume 11, number 11.
    7. Oliver Wagner & Thomas Adisorn & Lena Tholen & Dagmar Kiyar, 2020. "Surviving the Energy Transition: Development of a Proposal for Evaluating Sustainable Business Models for Incumbents in Germany’s Electricity Market," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-17, February.
    8. Jordi Molas-Gallart & Alejandra Boni & Sandro Giachi & Johan Schot, 2021. "A formative approach to the evaluation of Transformative Innovation Policies [The Need for Reflexive Evaluation Approaches in Development Cooperation]," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 30(4), pages 431-442.
    9. Spaniol, Matthew J. & Rowland, Nicholas J., 2022. "Business ecosystems and the view from the future: The use of corporate foresight by stakeholders of the Ro-Ro shipping ecosystem in the Baltic Sea Region," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    10. Upham, Dr Paul & Sovacool, Prof Benjamin & Ghosh, Dr Bipashyee, 2022. "Just transitions for industrial decarbonisation: A framework for innovation, participation, and justice," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    11. Francesco Lamperti & Giovanni Dosi & Mauro Napoletano & Andrea Roventini & Alessandro Sapio, 2018. "And then he wasn't a she : Climate change and green transitions in an agent-based integrated assessment model," Working Papers hal-03443464, HAL.
    12. Capellán-Pérez, Iñigo & Campos-Celador, Álvaro & Terés-Zubiaga, Jon, 2018. "Renewable Energy Cooperatives as an instrument towards the energy transition in Spain," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 215-229.
    13. Sylvain, Dernat & Bertrand, Dumont & Dominique, Vollet, 2023. "La Grange®: A generic game to reveal trade-offs and synergies among stakeholders in livestock farming areas," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).
    14. Funcke, Simon & Bauknecht, Dierk, 2016. "Typology of centralised and decentralised visions for electricity infrastructure," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 67-74.
    15. Bessi, Alessandro & Guidolin, Mariangela & Manfredi, Piero, 2021. "The role of gas on future perspectives of renewable energy diffusion: Bridging technology or lock-in?," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    16. Eleftheria Vasileiadou & Boukje Huijben & Rob Raven, 2014. "Crowdfunding niches? Exploring the potential of crowdfunding for financing renewable energy niches in the Netherlands," Working Papers 14-11, Eindhoven Center for Innovation Studies, revised Nov 2014.
    17. Florian Knobloch & Hector Pollitt & Unnada Chewpreecha & Vassilis Daioglou & Jean-Francois Mercure, 2017. "Simulating the deep decarbonisation of residential heating for limiting global warming to 1.5C," Papers 1710.11019, arXiv.org, revised May 2018.
    18. Pigford, Ashlee-Ann E. & Hickey, Gordon M. & Klerkx, Laurens, 2018. "Beyond agricultural innovation systems? Exploring an agricultural innovation ecosystems approach for niche design and development in sustainability transitions," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 116-121.
    19. Okereke, Chukwumerije & Coke, Alexia & Geebreyesus, Mulu & Ginbo, Tsegaye & Wakeford, Jeremy J. & Mulugetta, Yacob, 2019. "Governing green industrialisation in Africa: Assessing key parameters for a sustainable socio-technical transition in the context of Ethiopia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 279-290.
    20. Pradeep Racherla & Munir Mandviwalla, 2013. "Moving from Access to Use of the Information Infrastructure: A Multilevel Sociotechnical Framework," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 24(3), pages 709-730, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:engenv:v:15:y:2004:i:6:p:1053-1065. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.