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Are there domino effects between consumers' ordinary and ‘green’ practices? An analysis of quantitative data from a sensitisation campaign on personal carbon footprint

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Bartiaux, Françoise [UCL] Reátegui Salmón, Luis [UCL]

This paper studies how consumers’ reported practices related to food, energy use in housing, daily mobility, and tourism are combined and structured. Social practice theories are the main theoretical framework of this research. Data are drawn from a sensitisation campaign run by the WWF-Belgium and the methods developed to attempt to translate the theoretical focus to practices. Results show that both the low number of ‘green’ practices reported and the multiplicity of combinations of practices indicate a rather important compartmentalisation of ‘green’ practices and seem to refute the hypothesis of vast domino effects in these four different areas. In addition, a wider openness to information on environmentally friendlier practices is associated with a larger number of such practices, which raises questions about the design of such campaigns. Finally, there is no conventionalised way of linking practices and commitments taken by the respondents to reduce their environmental impact. A few policy recommendations are derived for sensitisation campaigns that often assume domino effects between ‘green’ practices, and for tools dealing with personal carbon awareness.

Document type Article de périodique (Journal article) – Article de recherche
Access type Accès restreint
Publication date 2012
Language Anglais
Journal information "International Review of Sociology" - Vol. 22, no.3, p. 471-491 (2012)
Peer reviewed yes
Publisher Routledge ((United Kingdom) Abingdon)
issn 0390-6701
e-issn 1469-9273
Publication status Publié
Affiliation UCL - SSH/IACS - Institute of Analysis of Change in Contemporary and Historical Societies
Keywords consumption ; ‘green’ practices ; carbon footprint ; sensitisation ; daily energy consumption
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Bibliographic reference Bartiaux, Françoise ; Reátegui Salmón, Luis. Are there domino effects between consumers' ordinary and ‘green’ practices? An analysis of quantitative data from a sensitisation campaign on personal carbon footprint. In: International Review of Sociology, Vol. 22, no.3, p. 471-491 (2012)
Permanent URL http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/141743