Core Working Groups workshop: “Behavioural Change”

The Behavioural Change workshop explored the decisions of economic agents in integrated assessment models, aiming to facilitate collaboration between the IAM COMPACT modelling team and policymakers, industry associations and civil society representatives. 

During this workshop, we sought valuable insights on our research agenda, realistic scenario design, and potential applications of our analysis. By engaging with senior energy and climate policymakers, the workshop directly contributed to IAM COMPACT’s study “What are the economic impacts (rather than the cost or effectiveness of policy implementation) of a given behavioural change?” -  led by UVa and BC3.

Topics for discussion:

• Most anticipated behavioural changes
• Potential barriers to adoption of cleantech and/or sustainable lifestyles
• Beyond raising awareness: potential structural change requirements to enable behavioural change

At the start of the workshop, a brief introduction of IAM COMPACT as well as the aims of the workshop were discussed by Bruegel. Then, study lead (UVa) briefly briefly presented the motivation and the broad scenario design. The session was facilitated via Miro, which helped us gather the necessary feedback.

Summarising the key findings from stakeholder inputs:

Which behavioural changes are the most anticipated and necessary to decarbonise?

The majority of responses by the stakeholders were related to lifestyle changes in the transport sector. We can highlight the stakeholders’ interest in modal shifts. For instance, from air transport (especially short-haul flights) to rail and from private car to public modes (e.g. bus, rail, etc) and biking. In addition to that, reduction of transport overall should be pursued, through urban planning (’15-minute cities’), car sharing or urban density. 

Another field of interest was dietary changes: reducing meat consumption and dairy production, reduce ruminants intensity and boosting local production of  food. 

The third main topic of interest was buildings, suggesting the necessity of renovation of homes, heat pumps, and district heating. 

Finally, a general reduction of consumption of goods and services was identified as an important lifestyle change. Overall, the stakeholders were very clear about the necessity to interconnect systemic transformations and behaviour change. That was framed as shifting from i-framed behavioural change (individual) to s-framed behavioural change (systemic). 

Which potential barriers affect the adoption of clean tech and/or sustainable lifestyles?

Cultural barriers and conditioning to existing infrastructures dominated this section of the workshop. The adherence to comfortable/luxury lifestyles is a barrier difficult to deal with, especially when looking at countries in the Global North. The role of advertising in maintaining an unsustainable level of consumption was also mentioned, giving several examples such as cheap flights, food promotions in supermarkets or encouraging purchase of SUVs. 

Lack of necessary and timely information to consumers was also mentioned as a potential barrier; installation of smart meters in buildings could transcend such barriers, and enable efficient energy consumption. Time constraints to make informed decisions was also identified as a potential barrier hindering changes of social behaviour. 

Finally, unsafe and, in general, inappropriate infrastructure prevents shift to cycling.  

Beyond raising awareness: which potential structural changes are needed to enable behavioural change?

Once the most predominant behavioural changes were identified, as well as the main potential barriers impeding those changes, other structural changes that could facilitate the former or overcome the latter were discussed. Changes to the supply side were dominant, focusing on  grey/brown energy taxes, information about carbon intensity of the grid, "time of use" tariffs for electricity, choice of electricity suppliers for different appliances, and transforming cities into smart cities.

 More broadly, the stakeholders identified as potential drivers of structural change, well-informed policy making, urban and system planning, sharing of success cases (e.g. cities transformations that successfully led to behavioural changes) and a clarification of the definition of competencies among different public administration levels (local, national, European) so that no policies are left behind. The public sector should also play an important role discouraging the demolition of buildings and incentivise their renovation instead. Finally, pushing the financial sectors towards behavioural change targets could also be an option, for instance through financing to scale up technological solutions, restructure finance system to allow investors to support truly green companies, monetary policies to lower discount rates and align them to transition needs (e.g. EVs and heat pumps).  

The workshop was a useful interchange of opinions between modelers and stakeholders. Integrated Assessment Models have been criticized for having a very stylised (or even lacking of a) representation of society overall and behavioural change options in particular. The models participating in IAM COMPACT are contributing to cover that gap. The input of the stakeholders will also contribute to identify what are the main policy concerns to focus on, as well as to pinpoint what improvements or developments in the models should be prioritised to address those concerns.  

The qualitative and modelling analysis on behavioral change will be featured in Deliverable D5.6: Behaviour, social and disruptive innovation, which is due on February 2024 and will be available on our website.