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1 See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: Towards sustainable household consumption: Exploring a practice oriented, participatory backcasting approach for sustainable home heating practices in Ireland ARTICLE in JOURNAL OF CLEANER PRODUCTION JUNE 2013 Impact Factor: 3.84 DOI: /j.jclepro CITATIONS 16 READS 27 2 AUTHORS: Ruth Doyle Trinity College Dublin 5 PUBLICATIONS 30 CITATIONS Anna Davies Trinity College Dublin 71 PUBLICATIONS 623 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE All in-text references underlined in blue are linked to publications on ResearchGate, letting you access and read them immediately. Available from: Anna Davies Retrieved on: 29 February 2016

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3 Journal of Cleaner Production 48 (2013) 260e271 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Journal of Cleaner Production journal homepage: Towards sustainable household consumption: exploring a practice oriented, participatory backcasting approach for sustainable home heating practices in Ireland Ruth Doyle *, Anna R. Davies Department of Geography, Museum Building, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland article info abstract Article history: Received 20 April 2011 Received in revised form 16 November 2012 Accepted 2 December 2012 Available online 29 December 2012 Keywords: Ireland Household consumption Participatory backcasting Visioning workshops Sustainability assessment Social practice Current attempts to encourage sustainable consumption are failing to make significant advancements and consumption by households in daily practices continues to grow. Interventions in this area are often based on simplistic behavioural assumptions, which overlook the embeddedness of daily consumption practices and fail to challenge escalating consumption demands and expectations. Against this background there is a need to consider more radical socio-cultural, technological and organisational innovations that may fulfil the goals of daily practices more sustainably in the future. Taking the case of home heating, the most energy intensive practice in Irish households, this paper reports on a participatory backcasting study that developed future scenarios and action plans for sustainable heating. In contrast to conventional behavioural change models and forecasting techniques, this study adopted a social practice orientation. This paper focuses on the operationalisation of the social practice approach with special reference to the iterative processes around scenario development and the resultant backcasting outputs. Participant evaluations of the procedure are presented which indicate that despite significant operational complexity, the process was strongly valued and provided significant opportunity for learning amongst stakeholders involved. Whether such approaches can be integrated into governing systems, however will depend on a willingness amongst stakeholders to embrace a radical reconceptualisation of behaviour. Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction In light of current anxieties about global environmental change, economic instability and social inclusion, matters of sustainability remain high on political agendas. The issues underpinning these anxieties are manifold but household consumption, defined by the OECD (2002: 2) as the selection, purchase, use, maintenance and repair of any product or service by members of a household is increasingly being highlighted as a key area requiring attention. Through direct energy use in the completion of everyday activities of home heating, lighting and mobility, household s account for 25% of the European Union s final energy use (EC, 2009). These activities translate into 20% of the average EU citizen s carbon footprint calculated from a consumption perspective (Moll and Remond- Tiedrez, 2011). As issues of climate change, environmental degradation and resource scarcity grow in prominence there is an urgent need to improve the sustainability of daily household consumption practices. This paper analyses the processes and contents of * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ address: rdoyle4@tcd.ie (R. Doyle). a practice oriented, participatory backcasting experiment for more sustainable home heating practices in Irish households. The research is part of the Irish CONSENSUS: Consumption, Environment, Sustainability project, which is applying backcasting processes and social practice theory to examine how the transition to sustainable household consumption may be encouraged in practices relating to food, energy, water and transport. It is estimated that advanced economies will have to achieve between a factor 10 to a factor 20 level of reduction in material consumption by 2050 (Jansen and Vergragt, 1992). A decrease in greenhouse gas emissions by 80e95% relative to 1990 levels amongst developed nations is also called for by this date (EC, 2011). Faced with these significant challenges, Ireland and other industrialised nations have employed conventional policy responses involving the fragmented implementation of market instruments, regulatory measures, and mass-mediated information and communication campaigns (Davies et al., 2012b). These approaches have been criticised for their reliance on linear, rational and individualised conceptions of human attitudes and actions that overlook the limitations imposed by existing socio-cultural, institutional and technological contexts which are said to lock people in to particular /$ e see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

4 R. Doyle, A.R. Davies / Journal of Cleaner Production 48 (2013) 260e patterns of consumption (Sanne, 2002). Furthermore, the current resource centric approaches to sustainable consumption do little to challenge the institutionalisation of unsustainable patterns of demand and norms of practice based on the use of resources such as energy and water in daily household activities. One potential alternative means of conceptualising and promoting sustainable consumption is found within social practice theory (see amongst others Reckwitz, 2002; Shove, 2003; Spaargaren, 2003; Warde, 2005; Ropke, 2009). From this perspective, much of our daily consumption activities (such as heating, eating and washing) are seen to take the form of routinised social practices. These are said to be socio-technically mediated, influenced by a complex interplay of social and material elements including; things and their use, a background knowledge in the form of understanding, know how, states of emotion and motivational knowledge (Reckwitz, 2002: 249). Social practices such as heating are considered to be nested within broader socio-technical energy regimes that comprise a cluster of elements including regulations, technologies, user practices and markets, cultural meanings, infrastructures of provision, maintenance and supply networks. As such, social practice approaches resonate with literature and methodological process applied within the fields of system innovation and sustainability transitions (Rotmans et al., 2001; Elzen et al., 2004; Smith et al., 2005). While these studies differ in their emphasis, they are united in their concern for moving beyond product innovation, eco-efficiency or redesign strategies, to consider integrated socio-cultural, technological, institutional and organisational changes. In exploring and initiating such systems level changes, long-term, creative and deliberative techniques are widely applied, in particular processes of collective visioning. One such tool valued for its ability to promote radical solutions to wicked sustainability problems whilst developing stakeholder learning is backcasting (Dreborg, 1996). Backcasting is a multiphased iterative process based on the design of desirable future visions followed by working back to the present ( backcasting ) to devise practical action plans for their achievement (Quist, 2007). To date, social practice theory has been used to analyse the effectiveness of existing sustainable consumption initiatives (Shipworth, 2005; Hargreaves et al., 2008) and there are examples of practical applications within design research (Scott et al., 2012) However, as Kujer and DeJong (2012: 73) note, while quite some work has been done in the area of analysing practices, little research has yet been conducted into generating and evaluating alternative configurations. An interesting gap emerges here regarding how alternative, sustainable configurations in daily consumption practices may be designed and encouraged by fusing social practice insight with a practical backcasting process. CONSENSUS sought to explore this research gap and this paper reports on the operationalisation of a practice oriented, participatory backcasting process using the example of home heating. This is the most energy intensive practice in Irish households responsible for 15% of Ireland s carbon dioxide emissions (SEAI, 2008). The paper begins by outlining the backcasting procedure after which the practice orientated conceptual lens is evaluated with reference to output from key phases in the research including the visioning, scenario sustainability evaluation, citizen-consumer feedback, and transition phases. The paper closes with participant perspectives on the practice oriented approach and a reflection on how future procedures may be upscaled or formalised within environmental governance settings Practice oriented, participatory backcasting in consensus A variety of backcasting methodologies are identified in the literature, differing with regard to their levels of participation, the kinds of topics addressed, the number of visions produced and the arrangement and breakdown of methodological steps. Backcasting approaches are typically categorised as either path oriented, target oriented or participatory (Börjeson et al., 2006; Quist and Vergragt, 2006). Being cognizant of broader shifts away from expert-led processes within environmental governance and to the need to increase social learning, buy-in and spin-off, a practice oriented variant of participatory backcasting was designed, applied and analysed by CONSENSUS. A key aim was to promote the creative synthesis of interdisciplinary perspectives (van de Kerkhof and Wieczorek, 2005) in a situation where standardisation in design, norms of practice and a focus on eco-efficiency have been found to stifle the development of novel socio-technical innovations for sustainable home energy use. The practice oriented approach attempts to address criticism of the inadequate attention to sociocultural changes in previous sustainability transition and visioning studies (Shove and Walker, 2007; Wangel, 2011). It thus represents an alternative to sector oriented, technology focused, or area based backcasting studies and offers a unique addition to previous studies on sustainable lifestyles (Quist et al., 2001). Drawing upon work by Quist et al. (2001), the practice oriented, participatory backcasting methodology was a multi-phase process as depicted in Fig. 1. This began with problem orientation, followed by a stakeholder visioning workshop and the elaboration of future desirable scenarios depicting sustainable heating practices in the year These aimed to serve as counter images opening up a range of solutions that may not have been thought of otherwise. Next, a sustainability scan was performed on the scenarios through the use of a modified version of Seyfang s (2009) qualitative assessment framework for sustainable consumption initiatives from a new economics perspective. Citizen-consumer focus groups were then held paying heed to democratic arguments for their inclusion and given their role as the ultimate practitioners of the future heating practices (Shove, 2003). The final transition phase aimed to identify the most promising future heating practices and to engage stakeholders in the design of interventions to work towards their achievement. Collaboration amongst stakeholders representing different disciplinary backgrounds from public, private, and non-governmental spheres was a fundamental requisite for the visioning and transition workshops. A comprehensive process of stakeholder Fig. 1. Practice oriented participatory backcasting procedure.

5 262 R. Doyle, A.R. Davies / Journal of Cleaner Production 48 (2013) 260e271 identification was conducted, involving the review of key policy documents to reveal who was engaged in their consultation and drafting, web searches, intensive networking and processes of snowballing. The result was a list of stakeholders including engineers, product designers, policy makers, energy suppliers, consumer representatives, researchers, planners and architects who had high levels of interest and experience in the field and were deemed influential in their respective organisations and the broader energy sector. A response rate of 57% was achieved with 21 attendees secured for the visioning workshop and 48% for the transition workshop, with 17 attendees (eight of whom were repeat participants). Table 1 details the number of workshop participants present (indicated by figure in brackets) according to their sector and profession. A fundamental benefit of a participatory approach within backcasting is said be the higher order learning that is provoked which implies a reflection of values, attitudes and underlying convictions that can lead to changes in problem definition and has been linked to higher levels of follow-up activities from backcasting and bounded socio-technical experiments (Brown et al., 2003). Despite recent advances by Quist et al. (2011) the methodological organisation of the learning process (van de Kerkhof and Wieczorek, 2005: 733) has been identified as an understudied area and was targeted as a key characteristic to promote and probe further through surveys distributed at the visioning and the transition workshops. 2. Scenarios of future heating practices 2.1. Problem orientation and the practice oriented scenario development process Problem orientation was conducted as a back-office exercise to identify the key sustainability challenges with regard to heating practices in Irish households. In Ireland energy consumption in the residential sector accounted for over 25% of total primary energy consumption and 25% of carbon dioxide emissions in Irish households are distinguished by their high levels of energy use and consume around 31% more than the EU-15 average largely attributed to bigger house sizes and inadequate home insulation (SEAI, 2008). Space heating represents the largest home energy end-use at 60% and with less than 2% fuelled by renewable power, it was selected as the key focus of CONSENSUS research on home energy consumption. Fuel poverty is pervasive affecting an estimated 19.4% of households in Ireland (McAvoy, 2007). Other sustainability challenges relevant for the practice of space heating include poor understanding of the environmental need to reduce energy consumption amongst the public 1 ; low visibility and intangibility of resource usage in daily practices (Darby, 2009); unconsciousness and routinisation in heating practices (Hand et al., 2005); and rising societal expectations for higher, standardised indoor temperatures (Guy and Shove, 2000). Faced with these challenges, the focus has been on the provision of grants for home energy efficiency retrofits, the improvement of the energy efficiency standards in new build along with a pending introduction of smart meters. Whilst these measures cannot be disregarded, they are heavily materialised and financially intensive and close off the consideration of alternative means for delivering the goals of home heating and curbing escalating warmth expectations. These sustainability problems were outlined in the introductory presentation at a 3-h visioning workshop along with a compilation of images of domestic heating strategies through time to stimulate an appreciation for the co-evolution between material and cultural elements of a practice. 1 Confirmed by a recent all-ireland sustainable living survey by Consensus. See: Table 1 Participants in heating visioning and transition workshops. Sector Visioning workshop representatives Transition workshop representatives Public & National energy regulator (1) Department of energy (1) semi-state National energy agency (2) National energy agency (1) Department of Environment, planning (1) Department of Environment, planning (1) City Council architect (1) City Council architect (1) Energy supplier (1) Housing authority (1) Environmental awareness (1) Private Architecture practice (2) IT & Software company (1) Product designer (1) Energy technologies (2) Sustainability communications (1) Sustainability communications (1) Engineering (2) Energy auditor (1) Plumber (1) NGO/Research Futures research (2) Futures research (2) Environmental policy research (2) Environmental policy research (1) Energy poverty agencies (2) Energy poverty agency (1) Environmental education (1) Energy & built environment (3) It is important to note that variances exist amongst dominant thinkers on social practices with alternative conceptualisations proposed. While Spaargaren (2003) adopts a macro-perspective, emphasising how social practices are governed by the interplay between structure and agency, especially modes of access and Table 2 Selection of visioning brainstorm concepts according to cluster, sub-cluster and number of votes. Clusters & sub-clusters People Concept Votes Number of concepts Education: Mandatory eco-service 4 37 (28%) Lifelong sustainability learning for 7 professionals Social pressure: Levels of home energy use made 10 public Community based energy awards 3 Adaptation: Wear more clothing - comfortable, 3 cosy and durable Provision Biological energy: Kitchen and human waste to energy 0 36 (27%) Bacteria/plants to give off heat 1 Decentralisation: Micro-generation - solar and wind 6 power for all Geothermal pumps for homes with heat transfer between residential areas Hardware Direct heating: Intelligent body vest - senses body 4 31 (23%) heat and regulates temperature Personal power pack - stores kinetic 3 energy to heat body vest Home fabric Passive homes for all - improve 14 improvements: housing stock Adapting/transforming home spaces 0 External, permeable membrane over 2 home to create regulate micro-climate Regulation Quotas: Carbon quotas - Individual 6 27 (20%) Street level energy quotas - collective 3 management Space reductions: No new build - maximise/adapt 3 existing stock Home floor space limits 4 Closer family units 3 Total 131

6 R. Doyle, A.R. Davies / Journal of Cleaner Production 48 (2013) 260e provision, other conceptualisations pay greater attention to the practice as an entity in itself, deconstructing it into more simplified elements. This is exemplified in work by Warde (2005), Shove (2003) and Reckwitz (2002), who identify roughly similar elements relating to: the material artefacts involved; practical knowledge and bodily actions to fulfil the practice; and the sociocultural meanings of that particular practice. For CONSENSUS it was important that participants were able to comprehend the elements of practice easily. Few, if any of the participants had experienced the theoretical concept and some of the academic categorisations were felt to be abstract in delineation. Drawing upon social practice theory, three simplified practice elements emerged as comprehensible, relevant and useful in the context of the heating research. These elements are presented below and were considered as routes for innovation and intervention in the visioning process: 1. People: Bodily and mental skills and procedures involved in heating practices along with social meanings and expectations associated with the practice (e.g. expectations for standardised indoor warmth and comfort). These considerations draw upon Shove et al. s (2008) skills and images/meanings concepts and Warde s (2005) procedures and understandings elements respectively. 2. Organisation: Relates to institutional and regulatory structures said to have a large hand in influencing societal and cultural norms of practice (Hand et al., 2005) along with systems of resource provision, including forms of access and ownership (Spaargaren, 2005). These overarching features are often excluded from focused social practice concepualisations which tend to emphasise direct people and hardware elements however these too are shaped by organisational factors and it was important to include this dimension to examine embedded features of heating practices. 3. Hardware: Denotes the stuff of practices, in this case, the devices and products used in heating and personal washing including the architectural form of the home. Hardware is a commonly included feature of social practice conceptualisations. The guiding question of the visioning brainstorms was what people, organisation and hardware innovations may deliver the needs of home heating more sustainably in the year Drawing upon needs based design (Brezet et al., 2001) results oriented services (Halme et al., 2004) and softpath planning approaches (Brooks et al., 2009), it was emphasised that taking the desired needs of heating practices (ranging from those to warmth, comfort, security and social standing) can lead to the imagination of innovative ways for achieving their delivery. At the same time, participants were also asked to bear in mind that these needs are malleable social constructs and may evolve through time in conjunction with innovations in hardware, people, and organisation dimensions. The year 2050 was selected because of the freedom from the constraints of current technologies, norms and interests that this timeframe affords, and owing to the 95% carbon emission reduction target associated with that date (EC, 2011) Concepts and scenarios for future heating The visioning brainstorm led to the articulation of 131 individual concepts and its structure was considered successful given the high volume and variety of ideas produced and due to its flexibility that allowed innovative thought while maintaining a practice focus. The organisation category accounted for 47% of all concepts proposed. Over half of these related to alternative systems of provision with an emphasis on novel energy sources for heating such as biological power, kinetic energy and innovative heat transfer proposals. The remaining organisation concepts were regulatory including mechanisms to reduce or cap consumption levels and to incentivise and enable more sustainable energy use. A high proportion of concepts (28%) related to people based ideas with many proposals for community consumption solutions, lifelong learning initiatives and strategies to activate social norms of sustainability. In the hardware category concepts were generated for smart clothing, intelligent appliances and adaptable home structures. Following the idea generation phase, participants took part in a clustering, discussion and rating exercise drawing on the metaplan technique (Schnelle, 1979). At this stage, a natural separation occurred in the organisation category between regulatory and energy provision concepts, which were subsequently assigned to separate clusters. Beneath these broad clusters, sub-clusters of concepts adopting similar strategies began to emerge (as depicted in Table 2). A general preference was revealed in the rating exercise for concepts based on the upscaling or extrapolation of existing technological and educational strategies rather than more novel or unproven concepts. For example passive homes for all, a relatively established concept, received the most votes and in ensuing discussion it was agreed that the inevitability of this concept accounted for its popularity. This reveals the tensions and challenges of maintaining a forward-looking perspective in backcasting to allow for disruptive innovations (Diaz-lopez et al., 2009) whilst not disregarding the value of present day innovations. After passive houses for all, intensive professional education in green build, communication campaigns and concepts for making consumption levels publicly visible received the highest number of votes. Interestingly, the most stringent regulatory proposals; carbon quotas and energy crash courses (for over-users of carbon) scored the highest of all regulatory concepts in contrast to typically reported aversion amongst the general public and policy makers towards such mechanisms (Kallbekken and Sælen, 2011). Each visioning concept implied varying levels of socio-cultural, regulatory or technological advancement. After the workshops each concept was rated on a scale of one (low) to three (high) according to its implications for these axes of change. Those that scored similarly with respect to these axes were grouped and there was an attempt to keep sub-clusters together to ensure a distinguishing and complementary fit between scenario strategies. In this way, three scenarios were developed each embodying a distinct underlying cultural, technological and regulatory dynamic. This represented a more organic form of scenario generation over scenario crosses methodologies that may lead to a forcing of ideas into polarised categories when ideas put forward are not necessarily mutually exclusive, nor might they be an exact fit for that category (Tite and Gatersleben, 2003). The Community Core scenario is characterised by concepts consistent with higher levels of sociocultural and organisational change and hinges upon the use of extra layers and novel biofuel space heating solutions. Its inhabitants are environmentally motivated and accept lower ambient temperatures. Another scenario, Second Skin embodies high levels of technological and architectural advancement and was distinguished by the removal of conventional centralised energy systems and the use of direct body heating solutions. Personal warmth, freshness, and wellbeing are key motivators in this scenario and there is a seamless integration of technology. The final scenario, Carbon Control is characterised by moral and citizenry duties to reduce carbon encouraged by tighter regulations leading to the creation of a population skilled in carbon and energy management. There is less adjustment in expectations of warmth compared with other scenarios whilst renewable energies and efficient technologies improve the environmental performance of existing heating solutions. Initial scenario descriptions and sketches were made available

7 264 R. Doyle, A.R. Davies / Journal of Cleaner Production 48 (2013) 260e271 to visioning workshop participants for comment via an online survey. Through this a small number of new concepts were provided and suggestions were made for elaborating and merging scenario concepts with some critical analysis on their broader social or political implications. A 38% response rate was achieved. This phase was useful because it provided an opportunity for enhanced engagement, ownership and transparency. Feedback was built into the final scenario sketches and the day in the life narratives presented in Figs. 2e4. Each of these depicts new cultural norms, motivations and procedures around heating practices together with the technologies, usereproduct interactions, educational programmes and modes of governance that perpetuate them. 3. Scenarios sustainability evaluation 3.1. Evaluation framework In previous backcasting research, scenarios are typically subjected to some level of sustainability assessment to provide an indication of comparable sustainability ratings for subsequent phases of the backcasting process (Larsen and Ostling, 2009). This is especially the case in target oriented backcasting (Borjeson et al., 2006) whereby the aim is to meet a specific quantifiable goal, normally relating to environmental efficiency improvements based on measures of material use, water consumption, energy use, waste Fig. 2. Community core.

8 R. Doyle, A.R. Davies / Journal of Cleaner Production 48 (2013) 260e and emissions, space use, and transport patterns (Lorek and Spangenberg, 2001). To date, more attention in these assessments has been focused on environmental indicators rather than social and economic dimensions of sustainability (Halme et al., 2004). Given the lack of available data, the conceptual nature of many of the future heating scenario innovations, and uncertainties in future impacts of technological, cultural and socio-economic developments, quantified environmental calculations would have been based on wide-ranging assumptions with potential implications for research validity. A qualitative approach was also recommended by Green and Vergragt (2002) on the Sushouse backcasting project where the quantitative environmental assessment of scenarios was considered complex, time-consuming and of minimal relevance to the remaining backcasting steps. An integrated, qualitative framework was therefore developed for the evaluation of the CONSENSUS scenarios based largely on the new economics criteria for sustainable consumption developed by Seyfang (2009). This provided space to reflect on the scenarios and to help identify scenario concepts to be taken forward to the final phases of research. As identified in the ultimate transition frameworks, quantitative analyses would be useful in further scoping and implementation phases to consider the merits of the Promising Practice proposals and prioritise the interventions identified to work towards their achievement. Fig. 3. Carbon control.

9 266 R. Doyle, A.R. Davies / Journal of Cleaner Production 48 (2013) 260e271 Fig. 4. Second skin. At present, new economics approaches are not widely reflected in mainstream policy or practices of consumption. However, they are increasingly found within successful grassroots initiatives, and new economics principles of economic restructuring coupled with large-scale social changes to encourage societal wellbeing within ecological limits are gaining traction within academic circles (Latouche, 2010). Furthermore, they are well aligned with the practice oriented approach of this study, given their goals to trigger, enable and support a series of socio-technical transitions in mainstream regimes, each of which is comprised of interrelated technologies, institutions, norms, cultures and expectations (Seyfang, 2009: 61). It was therefore considered pertinent to elaborate and trial Seyfang s (2009) set of new economics indicator categories for sustainable consumption in this backcasting research context. These are; reduced ecological footprint; community building and collective action; and, new infrastructures of provision. Following recommendations from Halme et al. (2004) on the inclusion of personal indicators relating to equity, health, safety and comfort, an indicator category individual wellbeing is added. Economic sustainability was also included in the framework to consider implications for employment structure, job creation, economic stability, competitiveness, and sectoral impacts. A benefit of this sustainable consumption framework is that it covers social, environmental and economic dimensions of sustainability as elaborated in Table Scenarios sustainability evaluation results Within each scenario, concepts were grouped into four clusters relating to hardware, people, regulation and provision ideas. 2 Each of these scenario clusters was then qualitatively evaluated for its 2 Regulatory and provision based concepts were separated out from the organisation practice category as they were too diverse to assess as one unified component.

10 R. Doyle, A.R. Davies / Journal of Cleaner Production 48 (2013) 260e Table 3 Indicator framework for sustainable consumption. Indicator category Localisation Reduced ecological Footprint Community building and collective action Individual wellbeing Economic sustainability New infrastructures of provision Description and examples Supporting local businesses and labour; localisation of utility provision (e.g. DIY and buy local campaigns). Shifting consumption to reduce environmental impacts; equitable distribution of resources and consumption levels (e.g. voluntary simplicity; information on sustainability impacts; environmentally friendly materials; renewable energy). Nurturing inclusive and active communities and developing social networks around low consumption activities (e.g. community exchange projects; locally owned renewable energy). Enhanced psychological and physical wellbeing; successful and equitable delivery of needs such as warmth and comfort (e.g. innovations for the reduction of pollution and emissions associated with consumption; measures to combat fuel poverty). Tackling long-term unemployment and improving economic competitiveness and new market opportunities (e.g. research and development for green innovations; equitable access to employment). New social and economic institutions and alternative systems of provision allowing independence from the mainstream (e.g. off-grid housing ; new systems of exchange rewarding sustainable consumption). potential against the six sustainability indicator categories outlined in Table 3. Based on this, each cluster was assigned a rating along a scale of 2toþ2. Scenario clusters that were considered likely to have a strong positive sustainability impact were rewarded þ2, a moderately positive impact was denoted with a þ1 score, and a rating of 0 denoted negligible impact. The mirror opposite was the case for negative scorings (i.e. 1 indicated a likelihood of a moderately negative impact, while 2 indicated a strong negative impact). The maximum score each sustainability indicator category could receive was eight - received if it scored a þ2 against each of the four scenario clusters, while the highest aggregated sustainability score a scenario could receive was 48 (if each indicator category scored eight out of eight). This permitted the development of an aggregated sustainability index to aid comparison between the three heating scenarios. This is presented in Fig. 5 to provide an overview of the scenarios relative potential in terms of the new economics evaluation framework. As Fig. 5 shows, Community Core achieved the highest sustainability rating against the evaluation framework at 28. Following this, came Carbon Control at 24 and Second Skin received a rating of 23. Community Core s performance arises mainly from its high rankings against the localisation, new infrastructures of provision and ecological footprint indicator categories. These high rankings were received because the scenario s biological core, adaptable building features and clothes wearing strategies were all local strategies designed to lead to self-sufficiency and fossil fuelfree heating. Carbon Control scored equally high against the reduced ecological footprint indicator owing mainly to its carbon quotas and associated hardware and incentives, which were supposed to promote and enable significant cuts in carbon emissions. Second Skin received the lowest rating, with a notably low score against the ecological footprint indicator category. This was because its hardware proposals received a minus rating against this indicator due to potential rebound effects arising from material inputs required in the development of the home second skin, personal heat vest and spot heating. Likewise, it was considered that this scenario would initially bring economic disruption given its implied removal of centralised fossil fuel provision. This shows a variance of impacts on different temporal scales, whereby initial disturbance and material inputs involved in the implementation of the scenarios was often reasoned to lead to sustainability benefits in the long-run. Across scenarios the community building and collective action indicator was the lowest scoring, followed by individual wellbeing. These low scores were in part a function of the evaluation procedure as hardware and regulation clusters rarely contributed towards community or individual wellbeing. This touches upon the common issue of the relationship between the design of a sustainability assessment and its related results. Certainly the new economics approach emphasises particular principles and criticism has been directed around its prioritisation of devolved governance and provision (Southerton et al., 2004). This meant that scenarios predicated on high cultural change and localised provision were on a better footing compared with those that had a higher technological orientation. Nevertheless, the sustainability evaluation provided a useful tool for scanning the essential characteristics and relative merits of the future scenarios and for considering these in the ultimate backcasting stages. 4. Citizen-consumer insight & designing transition frameworks Following the sustainability evaluation, three citizen-consumer focus groups were held, engaging a total of 22 participants. These were recruited from natural groupings and represented a spectrum of environmental orientations ranging from green (those actively living environmentally oriented lifestyles) to dynamic (early adopters who may have environmental inclinations) and mainstream (those who are not environmentally motivated). At a basic level, the focus groups aimed to establish citizen-consumer opinions of and recommended modifications to the future heating scenarios. In addition, in-depth qualitative analysis led to the identification of themes relating to perceptions on practice innovation and evolution and notions of distributed competency between people, institutions and technologies in heating practices Community Core Localisation New systems of provision Ecological footprint Community building Individual wellbeing Economic sustainability Sustainability Index 28 Carbon Control Localisation New systems of provision Ecological Footprint Community building Individual wellbeing Economic sustainability Sustainability Index 24 Second Skin Localisation New systems of provision Ecological Footprint Community building Individual wellbeing Economic sustainability Sustainability Index 23 Indicator category rating Fig. 5. Scenarios sustainability evaluation results.

11 268 R. Doyle, A.R. Davies / Journal of Cleaner Production 48 (2013) 260e271 Table 4 Promising practices. Promising practice Thermal awareness Managing carbon Adaptable homes Narrative In the year 2050.we actively manage our personal warmth and are less fussy about having one standard temperature all the time. I keep cosy through a combination of additional layers or by activating my body heat vest. I maintain tight control over energy use through checking room temperature indicators and actively adjust space heating and all our appliances through our home energy management system. In the year 2050.I keep a tight rein on my carbon quota. It s easy to do this as every time I use energy to heat my home or I purchase any product/service I can see the exact environmental costs associated. I make great savings from being careful about my consumption and can see how my consumption compares to my neighbours. I look forward to receiving my eco-points for keeping within my carbon budget. In the year 2050.my new home is fully equipped with the latest space adjusting interior and has bioclimatic architecture that maintains a comfortable, healthy indoor temperature so I m lucky enough not to have to use heating at all. My space is a bit tighter because of recent regulations to tackle the trend for mansion houses, but communal spaces for socialising and eating compensate for this. of the future. For the purposes of this paper, which focuses on the practice orientation of the backcasting research, an overview is provided of those findings which had the most influence on the final iteration of the scenarios that led to the refinement of future Promising Practices for sustainable heating. Across focus groups, Carbon Control and Second Skin emerged as the most popular scenarios in the final voting exercises, 3 while Community Core came last. Second Skin was considered intriguing and attractive, and its fundamental feature, the home second skin was received positively by the majority of participants. In addition, the personal heat vest was rated highly, receiving more votes than cosy clothing within Community Core. There was a stated preference for natural concepts, interpreted as those that promote healthier living and personal wellbeing often facilitated through the establishment of greater links with natural cycles. These did not have to be antiquated practices or technologies as the Second Skin bioclimatic architecture was seen to embody natural qualities. With all scenarios, citizen-consumers showed an instinctive negative reaction towards technologies that were seen as being based on automation and control. For example, the automated feature of the spot heating and personal heat vest of Second Skin provoked divided opinion owing to potential risks of technology malfunction and the loss of practical skills to perform practices (Shove and Walker, 2007). Within Carbon Control, the carbon quota scanner was conceived of as a technology of control while those technologies across scenarios that promoted frugality, transparency and efficiency in personal energy consumption were universally appealing such as the energy management system. A primary observation was the acceptance of restrictions on energy consumption as long as principles of equity and fairness were adhered to and the outcome did not impinge majorly on other normal everyday practices such as entertainment. The supposed communal elements of Community Core were the subject of divided opinion and some negative reactions were observed towards concepts that were seen to undermine trends for privacy and individualisation. This contrasts the outcomes of the sustainability evaluation where such concepts were found to score highly against the new economics criteria, raising the important question of how to prioritise conflicting results in a multi-phased process. The focus groups certainly provided space in which to discuss these issues and to address the fears underpinning such reactions to potentially sustainable practices. Variance in citizen-consumer responses showed that there is no such thing as one practice fits all as different personal life-stages, emotions, physical abilities, inter-group negotiations and past experiences of alternative heating practices across time and space were found to have a strong bearing on responses. In order to take into account citizen-consumer feedback and the sustainability evaluation results, another iteration of the scenarios was required prior to the transition phase. A systemic process was applied to crystallise insight from these previous phases and to strengthen the practice focus. To begin this, a shortlist of the most promising concepts from across the scenarios was created and each concept was considered for its embodied qualities and cultural values. This process drew upon work by Akrich and Latour (1992) on design scripts whereby objects are considered to reflect and reinforce, or script certain values (such as sustainability), rules of practice (e.g. optimum temperature levels), and societal meanings (such as convenience and immediacy prevalent in present heating practices). Concepts with similar scripts were grouped, leading to the creation of three Promising Practices for heating in the year These have a degree of continuity with the original scenarios, however they contain a refined mix of concepts from across the scenarios and a narrower focus on the practice of heating. Short narratives of each Promising Practice are presented in Table 4. The Promising Practice Thermal Awareness, reflects the observed preference within focus groups for direct heating options, flexibility and personal adaptability in practices of heating. It requires an acute awareness of bodily needs and a shift towards direct body warmth strategies using the personal heat vest of the Second Skin scenario and clothing layer strategies of Community Core. Managing Carbon, depicts future practices of heating governed by carbon quotas, facilitated by advanced ICT and assisted by high levels of environmental awareness. Lastly, Adaptable Homes embodies the preference for bioclimatic architecture (as per the Second Skin scenario), and more variable, environmentally connected concepts of warmth. The Promising Practices are not intended to be mutually exclusive but could be pursued collaboratively, or in different combinations depending on future situations and further studies. At the transition workshop, participants were tasked with the activity of designing interventions to lead towards the Promising Practices. Brainstorms were held where facilitators stimulated participants to think in terms of three key intervention categories: 1) policy (e.g. economic tools, design and building regulations), 2) education and engagement (e.g. educational programmes, community initiatives and awareness campaigns), and 3) research, technology and business (e.g. research & development agendas and economic investment strategies).4. A suite of complementary interventions were developed for each Promising Practice and participants prioritised and planned these up to the year 2050, considering broader barriers, enablers and identifying relevant 3 Having discussed each scenario in turn during a 1 h 30 min focus group, citizenconsumers were asked to vote on their favourite scenarios to provide a quantitative indicator of opinion. 4 For shorthand, in the workshop, these categories were referred to as policy, people and technology/business.

12 R. Doyle, A.R. Davies / Journal of Cleaner Production 48 (2013) 260e Fig. 6. Transition timeline. actors. A back-office phase elaborated intervention proposals into comprehensive transition framework documents. These were disseminated to participants in the backcasting research as well as through various environmental media outlets and to key governmental, non-governmental, civil society and private sector actors. The resultant timeline of bundled interventions are presented in Fig. 6, while a detailed elaboration of each intervention can be found in the Transition Framework documents available on the CONSENSUS project website. 5 On their own, the ultimate interventions echo current economic, communicative and market based strategies, however new understanding was provided on how these interventions may be refined and upscaled and more importantly on how they could be bundled in synergistic combinations. 5. Learning and participant perspectives Feedback from many stakeholders suggested that higher order learning was stimulated by their participation in the visioning and transition workshops. Responses showed evidence of self-reflexive processes indicated in statements that the workshops had stimulated them to reconsider previous views on certain topics, and that the process challenges pre-conceived ideas and generates new ways of looking at old problems. An in-depth reading of 5 Transition Framework reports for CONSENSUS heating and washing research can be found at: responses led to the identification of four interrelated themes evident in the practice oriented, participatory backcasting process that were strongly valued by participants. These are elaborated in detail in Davies et al. (2012a) and were; liberation; collaboration; holism; and long-termism. The characteristic of holism was strongly linked by participants to the practice orientation and when asked to rate their opinion of the usefulness of the practice based approach in thinking about solutions for sustainable consumption, participants from the transition workshop assigned it an average of 4.2 out of five. People ideas were often stated as being the most thought-provoking and innovative aspect of the research, especially for those working within traditional technology or engineering domains, involved in shaping the stuff of daily heating practices (Shove et al., 2008). Many participants said it reinforced the requirement for interdisciplinary collaboration and to combine policy/legislation with changing social norms and values around consumption. In this way, participants were stimulated to think of a broader range of options to leverage change outside the traditional boundaries of energy policy in areas such as urban planning, family welfare, fashion and health. Despite the widespread support for the practice approach, some participants found it conceptually challenging and questioned its refined focus, preferring to discuss broader energy issues. This reflects the tension between providing a focused practice definition whilst not disregarding broader situational factors, which were included in the organisation dimension of the practice framework. This may have contributed to the moderately lower rankings assigned by participants to the visions and discrete interventions produced, compared with the higher