Soziale, ökologische und ökonomische Dimensionen eines nachhaltigen Energiekonsums in Wohngebäuden

Type
fundamental research project
Start Date
March 1, 2008
End Date
July 31, 2010
URI
Status
completed
Keywords
Nachhaltige Entwicklung
nachhaltiger Konsum
Stated Preference Survey
Discrete Choice Experimente
erneuerbare Energie
Gender & Technology
Science and Technology Studies
STS
Description
Der hohe Verbrauch nicht-erneuerbarer Energien ist aufgrund der damit verbundenen Umweltschäden - vor allem in Form von klimarelevanten Emissionen - ein wesentliches Risiko für das Ziel einer nachhaltigen Entwicklung. Der Anteil der privaten Haushalte am Endenergieverbrauch in Deutschland betrug 2005 knapp 30%, mit steigender Tendenz. Überlegungen zur Minderung des Energieverbrauchs sollten deshalb zunehmend den Bereich der privaten Haushalte in den Mittelpunkt rücken.

Das Projekt verfolgt die primäre Zielsetzung, die Wissenslücke zwischen der beobachtbaren Kaufentscheidung und den ihr zu Grunde liegenden Präferenzen bzw. den damit verbundenen sozialen Prozessen zu schliessen. Hierfür werden in zwei Teilprojekten folgende zwei Aspekte untersucht:

- Erstens werden die bekundete Präferenzen ("stated preferences") zur Kaufentscheidung innovativer nachhaltiger Produkte von privaten Haushalten erhoben und das Entscheidungsverhalten mittels ökonometrisch geschätzter multinomialer diskreter Entschei-dungsmodelle erklärt. Zusätzlich werden auf Basis bereits existierender Datenbestände Bestimmungsfaktoren für bereits stärker diffundierte Technologien analysiert (Team Prof. Rolf Wüstenhagen, IWÖ-HSG).

- Zweitens wird untersucht, welche Rolle die geschlechtsspezifische Konstruktion der in Privathaushalten zur Anwendung kommenden Technologien im Zusammenhang mit der Kaufentscheidung spielen. Anhand teilnehmender Beobachtungen, Interviews, Dokumen-tenanalysen und Gruppendiskussionen wird der Vergeschlechtlichungsprozess einzelner Technologien analysiert und die Konsequenzen für eine nachhaltige Nutzung herausge-arbeitet (Team Dr. Julia Nentwich, OPSY-HSG).
Leader contributor(s)
Member contributor(s)
Heinzle, Stefanie
Partner(s)
Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung GmbH (ZEW), Mannheim; Fraunhofer Institut für System- und Innovationsforschung (ISI) Karlsruhe; Öko-Institut e.V. Freiburg; Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (DIW Berlin); Universität St. Gallen, Lehr
Funder

External Financing

Topic(s)
Nachhaltige Entwicklung
nachhaltiger Konsum
erneuerbare Energie
Energieeffizienz
Gender und Technologie
Vergeschlechtlichung
Method(s)
Stated Preference Survey
Discrete Choice Experimente
teilnehmende Beobachtung
Dokumentenanalyse
qualitative Interviews
Range
HSG Internal
Range (De)
HSG Intern
Principal
Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (Deutschland)
Division(s)

OPSY - Research Insti...

IWOE - Institute for ...

SHSS - School of Huma...

University of St.Gall...

Eprints ID
41646

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    Disimproving the European Energy Label's value for consumers? Results from a consumer survey
    (IWOe-HSG University of St. Gallen, 2010-02-10)
    Heinzle, Stefanie  
    ;
    Wüstenhagen, Rolf  orcid-logo
    The European labelling scheme was introduced to counteract the rise in energy consumption by increasing consumer awareness on real energy use. Since its introduction in the mid-nineties it has not kept up with the state of the art. After years of technological advancements and better know-how, an update of the scale became necessary because many products now have the highest energy-efficiency class. After months of negotiations, members of the European Parliament and representatives from the European Commission finally reached a consensus with a compromise proposal from the Swedish Presidency. As a basis for classification, the system would continue using letters A to G, but would expand the A categories into a maximum of three tiers (A+, A++, A+++). Environmental and consumer groups criticise this proposal and support the retention of a simple, closed A-G energy label, provided that a dynamic system would be implemented. The purpose of this paper is to provide evidence of the effect of two discussed labelling schemes on consumer decisions regarding televisions. The findings are based on 2,244 observations, where half of the consumers surveyed were exposed to the existing label and the other half received an otherwise identical survey, but using the new categories. The survey shows that the well-known A-G closed scheme has a greater impact on consumer decisions than an A+++ style label. The results clearly show that introducing the new label with its additional categories weakens the effect of the label, resulting in lower awareness of consumers about energy efficiency as an important attribute.
    Type:discussion paper
    URI:https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/96810
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    Gender and sustainable consumption : Results and Conceptual Insights from Six Projects in the Research Programme "Sustainable Consumption - From Knowledge to Action"
    (Universität Bern. Interfakultäre Koordinationsstelle für Allgemeine Ökologie, 2011-11-06)
    Jäger-Erben, Melanie
    ;
    Offenberger, Ursula  
    ;
    Nentwich, Julia C.  
    ;
    Schäfer, Martina
    ;
    Balmer, Ivo
    Although the relevance of gender issues in research on sustainability and sustainable consumption has been emphasized by different authors over the last decade (e.g. Weller 2004; Martine/Villarael 1997), there are still ‘gender gaps' as well as a lack of differentiated research (Vinz 2009) in this area. The integration of a gender perspective has been a prominent demand in the call for proposals of the research programme ‘Sustainable consumption - from knowledge to action' funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research in 2006. The presentation will discuss results related to gender and sustainable consumption from six projects conducted within this programme. These projects dealt with different aspects of the field of sustainable consumption, and results were gained on three different dimensions of ‘doing gender': - individual dimension: differences between the sexes concerning attitudes, behaviours and orientations, -structural dimension: role of gendered social structures and the distribution of work in families and/or couples, and -symbolic dimension: gendered patterns of interpretation, knowledge structures and artefacts. Approaches at the individual level revealed for example that - even if there are some areas where tasks are distributed ‘traditionally' among men and women (e.g. women being more often responsible for cooking and washing) - responsibilities are shared and decisions are made jointly in most areas. Considering structural and symbolic dimensions allows for contextualising and explaining differences and similarities between the sexes. It shows for instance how life course transition changes consumption patterns and demands in households as well as the related distribution of tasks. Furthermore, it illustrates how single consumption decisions and activities are embedded in the broader context of social practices in the areas of homemaking and everyday life. Overall, the results indicate a rather complex relationship between gender and consumption that goes beyond merely analysing individual differences. For a more developed understanding of the intertwined practices of 'doing gender' and 'doing consumption', we conclude that future research should therefore provide further analysis of the relevance of structural and symbolic dimensions and their mutual interrelatedness with the individual dimension. These findings have consequences for research programmes on sustainable consumption. The analysis of gender and consumption as intertwined practices cannot be facilitated by simply adding gender as another variable. It rather requires a major shift of perspective: individual behaviour is not only embedded in a social context, but structural and material aspects of action become more prominent when gender is analyzed as a situated practice. With regard to methodology and research design, recommendations will be provided on how to integrate gender analyses into sustainability research programmes.
    Type:conference paper
    Volume:1. Aufl.
    URL:http://sustainableconsumption2011.org/pdf/SuCo11_abstractvolume_corrigendum.pdf
    URI:https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/93264
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    Consumer survey on the new format of the European Energy Label for televisions - Comparison of a "A-G closed" versus a "beyond A" scale format
    (ZEW, 2009-08-25)
    Heinzle, Stefanie  
    ;
    Wüstenhagen, Rolf  orcid-logo
    Since the mid 90s, the European Union has had a compulsory label which shows the energy efficiency class for different kinds of household appliances so that consumers could determine the energy efficiency of a labelled household appliance more easily. However, the embrace of innovation has led to the development of so many energy-efficient products that for many product categories, the highest class of the scale has already been achieved or even surpassed. The EU Energy label has become a victim of its own success with too many appliances crowded in the top of the scale, and is now about to be revised by the Commission. The purpose of this paper is to provide evidence on the effect of two discussed labelling schemes on consumer decisions regarding investigated choices for televisions. We aim to demonstrate the difference in magnitude of the effect of both schemes in realistic choice experiments in order to define how to best move forward from a policy and a marketing perspective.
    Type:discussion paper
    URI:https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/75658
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    Intertwined practices of gender and technology : The case of home heating
    (EASST European Association for the Study of Science and Technology, 2010-09-03)
    Offenberger, Ursula  
    ;
    Nentwich, Julia C.  
    This paper focuses on the everyday practices of technology acquisition. Acquisition decisions not only have a large and long-term impact on the structural possibilities for sustainability as an everyday practice and have so far been mainly ignored by research on everyday consumption, also interpretative flexibility (Bijker, Hughes & Pinch, 1987) is especially visible here.Our research focuses on the question how heat energy technologies based on renewable resources become part of people´s everyday life. We argue that the use of technologies can be analyzed as a sociotechnical system in which the social construction of technology is intertwined with practices of doing gender. We apply a double perspective on gender as a social and discursive practice (Bruni, Gherardi, & Poggio, 2005; Gherardi, 1994) as well as a symbolic resource inscribed and re-inscribed into the materiality of the technology (Akrich, 1992). Analyzing gender as shifting, fluid, and multiple in practice (Martin, 2003) and at the same time re-inscribing a symbolic binary into the materiality (Faulkner, 2000), our analysis shows how gender, sustainability and technology are "done". The empirical data consist of marketing material and ethnographic observations collected at trade fairs for building and living exhibiting home heating technologies as well as interviews with couples conducted within a reasonable time after their buying decision for a new home heating technology. So far, our analysis focused on the design of the oven and its placement in a family home and how gender is done here as a binary symbolic resource (Offenberger & Nentwich, 2009). Within the next months, we will broaden our analytical scope and further investigate the discursive construction of subject-technology interactions in the context of the buying process. Our analysis will show how gendered symbolic repertoires are used by different users when accounting for a specific acquisition decision. The research contributes to an understanding of how the symbolic and interactive gender order is made relevant in the context of sustainable energy technology.
    Type:conference paper
    URI:https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/95979
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