Framing the sustainable energy challenge and implications for solutions

Abstract

Sustainable consumption policies often rely on ecological modernisation rationality, where the focus is usually on making current consumption patterns more sustainable in such a way that status quo (ideas about the quality of life and growth) is not challenged. As a result, sustainable energy policies tend to black box the demand-side, often resulting in abstracting efficiency strategies from the social organisation within which the strategies and resulting solutions unfold. Rebound effects and other unintended consequences often happen as a result of this type of efficiency strategies. This chapter introduces alternative problem framings that may offer a way to mitigate rebound effects by addressing and challenging a wider set of socio-material, cultural and institutional aspects of energy demand.