How can municipalities make sustainable living easier for everyone? To answer this question, we examined daily routines such as cooking, eating, using energy, buying things or throwing away waste. These “social practices” often hide a large climate impact and also offer many opportunities for change. Together with the municipalities of Barendrecht, Albrandswaard and Ridderkerk—and with their residents and local initiatives—we are developing policies that connect with people’s everyday lives.
The study focuses on three themes: food, energy and governance. For example, we look at how food practices—like cooking or dealing with leftovers—are linked to waste, mobility and health. We investigate how energy practices relate to making homes more sustainable and to people’s sense of comfort. And we also examine the municipalities’ own ways of working: how they make policy, collaborate, and weigh different choices. Together, we have developed strategies, interventions and tools that give municipalities fertile ground for future-proof practices.
The study focuses on three themes: food, energy and governance. For example, we look at how food practices—like cooking or dealing with leftovers—are linked to waste, mobility and health. We investigate how energy practices relate to making homes more sustainable and to people’s sense of comfort. And we also examine the municipalities’ own ways of working: how they make policy, collaborate, and weigh different choices. Together, we have developed strategies, interventions and tools that give municipalities fertile ground for future-proof practices.
Research into future practices for municipalities
Background
With the current pace of global warming caused by human activity, we need to adapt the systems that provide our food, energy and housing. How can Dutch municipalities contribute? The carbon-footprint concept tends to frame climate change as an individual responsibility, while it is hard for lower-income households to “go green” (and they already have a smaller footprint). Moreover, recent research shows that focusing on behavior change can crowd out investments in system change. Climate change is a wicked problem: it’s so complex and intertwined with other social issues that it cannot be solved by raising awareness or by nudges alone. Thought alone is not action. That is why we need a holistic search for forward-looking solutions.
Assignment
In 2021, the municipalities of Barendrecht, Albrandswaard and Ridderkerk asked the Erasmus University for advice on how to align their sustainability policies more closely with the lived experiences of their residents. Many people associate “sustainable living” with making conscious choices. Yet most daily activities that drive climate impact are not deliberate decisions but routines embedded in social practices: how we cook, shop for groceries, wash clothes, maintain our homes or buy stuff. Which routines shape our daily lives is determined by broader social and material structures. Therefore, at the project’s start in 2021, we chose to apply the lens of Social Practice Theory rather than a behavior-change approach.
Research question
This study is guided by the question: Where are the opportunities for policy and guidance through which municipalities can provide a better breeding ground for sustainable social practices? We focus on the levers municipalities can offer so that everyone has the chance to live in a future-proof way. In other words, we seek instruments, strategies and interventions that can naturally shift daily social practices toward what we call “future practices.”
Social Practice Theory
A social practice consists of a constellation of three elements: meaning, competences (skills and knowledge), and materials (such as financial resources, time and infrastructure). These elements shape how people perform everyday actions in various situations. The social-practices approach does not focus on individual behavior but on historically formed social structures from which routines emerge. We chose this lens because many routine actions carry unintended sustainability implications. Emphasizing routines offers a powerful alternative to approaches that overestimate the value of awareness-raising. Research shows that sustainable intentions do not necessarily lead to sustainable behavior. Emitting CO₂ is not a conscious choice but a by-product of daily activities so ingrained we hardly notice them. With this study, we develop a method for municipalities to steer social practices.
Transdisciplinary research approach
The study draws on three academic disciplines: psychology, sociology and public administration. We call the execution by the Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural Sciences “transdisciplinary” because it transcends disciplinary boundaries through a co-creative approach and collaboration with local parties, municipalities and residents. We employ numerous co-creative methods and insights from Design Thinking.
The project unfolds in phases: (1) defining the focus; (2) understanding social practices in context; (3) co-creating interventions; (4) elaborating a municipal approach to guidance and policy.
We used many methods in this study. In phases 1, 2 and 3 we held various workshops to exchange knowledge with sustainability officers and policymakers. In phase 2, we gathered insights through questionnaires, interviews, visual-ethnographic fieldwork and literature review. In phase 3, we designed several interventions for local policy that could naturally shift social practices toward future practices. This co-creation involved local actors such as neighborhood coordinators and municipal staff, as well as engaged residents from an energy collective, the Salvation Army, a repair café, a thrift shop, food-garden volunteers, and employees of welfare organizations and housing corporations.
Research tracks
In the first phase we decided to focus on three research tracks: food, energy and governance. The theme of circularity and (re)use of goods and materials recurs across all three tracks. We chose this focus with our commissioners based on (1) societal and climate impact, (2) alignment with municipal policy themes and spheres of influence, and (3) knowledge gaps.
Every Dutch municipality is now working on the energy and heat transition. This often concerns retrofitting homes, but also the behaviors through which we use energy (energy practices). There is a need for a programmatic approach to energy policy that pays attention to interactions among retrofitting, energy practices and an eye for climate justice.
Compared with energy, food is often neglected. Yet food-related practices—grocery shopping, cooking, eating and handling food packaging and leftovers—have a large climate impact. They also intersect multiple policy realms, such as mobility, circularity and waste. Little is known about how these practices relate to one another or how municipalities can influence them.
In addition to food and energy practices, we examine governance practices—the historically grown, routinized ways of working among municipal staff involved in sustainability. Understanding these is crucial for a solid elaboration of a municipal approach to guidance and policy in the project’s final phase.