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The first SOMAT ‘sustainability’ webinar series kicked off on April 3, 2024. The webinar, which was organized in collaboration with the StrongSSH group, focused mainly on theoretical approaches to sustainability and its matters, such as energy consumption and everyday practices. 

In order to bring such a theoretical stance, the webinar was presented by a Professor of Sociology at Lancaster University, Elizabeth Shove. The theme: “Beyond the ABC: Practice Theory, Sufficiency and Sustainability”. Shove started by explaining what the ABC concept stands for - Attitude, Behaviour, and Choice – and how such approaches dominate today’s discourse among policy-makers. Accordingly, she argued that such an approach is limiting and that although relevant and resourceful ideas exist to go beyond the ever-going ABC debate, such ideas are scarcely adopted - or even overseen - in climate change policy.

Here, Shove presented social theories of practice as a possible starting point. The concept of ‘practice’ was emphasized as transformative and dependent on the active integration of different elements, such as space, time, and people. In turn, people play the important role of being the carriers and the crossing point of such practices and constantly come in and out of them. In short, she explained that by focusing on individual behavior rather than practices, there is an inherently limiting scale of impact toward sustainable solutions.

The distinction between the concepts of ‘efficiency’ vs. ‘sufficiency’ was also discussed. Shove acknowledged that ‘efficiency’ has become normalized, as it provides services that require less use of (human-) energy by meeting growth, consumption, and market demand. Yet, ‘efficiency’ is detrimental to the environment as it promotes “energy-demanding technologies and practices” rather than improving, saving, and reducing energy consumption. Therefore, ‘sufficiency’ and the reconfiguration of the idea of problems and solutions were considered viable.

Overall, the message sent was clear: we must go beyond the ABC, as well as the idea of efficiency. 

09:00-09:05      Welcome, by Marius Korsnes and Cheng Yu, NTNU

09:05-09:20     TokyoTech: Giorgio Salani-“Craft and ceramics, life-cycle analysis. Challenges and progress in craft pottery”  (10 min presentation + 5 min Q/A)

09:20-09:35     NTNU: Marius Korsnes, “MidWay-project research on sufficiency and meat consumption in China” (10 min presentation + 5 min Q/A)

09:35-09:50     Tsinghua University: Yusong Guo, “Domesticating Clean Technologies: User-Adaptive Trials in the Model of Interessement” (10 min presentation + 5 min Q/A)

09:50-10:05     KAIST: Dasom Lee- “Data Centers' Environmental Challenges: A Comparative Review Analysis and Potential for Policy Harmonization” (10 min presentation + 5 min Q/A)

10:05-10:20     University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS): Chen LV. “Spillover Effects of Heterogeneous Environmental Regulations on Pollution: Evidence from Cities in China.”  (10 min presentation + 5 min Q/A)

10:20-10:30     Final remarks & discussion. How can these topics lead to cross-pollination and collaboration?