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Copenhagen, June 2018

Call for Papers for a JCP Special Issue on
“BEHAVIOUR CHANGE FOR SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION”

The Paris Agreement goal to limit global warming to 1.5°C by 2100 translates into a carbondioxide (CO2 ) emission reduction from around 40 gigatons in 2020 to around 5 gigatons CO2 emissions by 2100 (e.g., Rockström et al., 2017). As part of a long-term strategy to achieve this goal, technological innovations are necessary, but not sufficient. Another necessary element is short-term changes in consumer and household behaviours. In the EU-28, for example, households account for 20% of total CO2 emissions (Eurostat, 2017). In addition, the large variability in consumption patterns of private households show that they are indeed promising for targeted interventions. Private households’ main contributors to CO2 emissions are personal transport, thermal energy use, electricity consumption, accommodation as well as consumption of food and consumer goods and services (Kalbar et al., 2016). Private households can substantially reduce their CO2 emissions by adopting new or altering the use of in-home and transportation-related technologies or changing consumption patterns related to food and other consumer goods (Gardner & Stern, 2008).

This special issue focuses on strategies to induce pro-environmental behaviour changes in private households. The aim is to provide insights on the nature and implementation of behaviour change approaches and its implications for e.g., lifestyles, well-being or social norms. For this special issue, we invite papers based on a variety of theoretical and methodological angles and approaches on how to induce and maintain impactful proenvironmental behaviour change, in particular within the following four, broad themes:

• The role of motivation, personal abilities, and/or the (physical, political, or cultural) context for pro-environmental behaviour change.
• The importance of cognitive biases and heuristics in decision-making processes and how they can be utilized in changing behaviour.
• The plasticity and impact of behaviour changes, i.e., their potential to reduce carbon emissions or other important environmental problems.
• The feasibility of initiatives to induce behaviour change, i.e., of initiatives actually being implemented in a public policy or a private governance context (Vandenbergh & Gilligan, 2017).

The addressed consumption contexts should make an important difference in terms of one or more important environmental problems, such as climate change.

We especially expect empirical contributions, but we also welcome well-positioned and wellcrafted conceptual papers as well as relevant systematic literature reviews. Crucial are clear links to pro-environmental behaviour change and (consumer) policy implications.

For all technical and format matters, please refer to the Journal’s website. ().

Journal ranking:

This issue will be guest edited by Wencke Gwozdz (Justus-Liebig-University of Giessen, Germany) together with the JCP Editors John Thøgersen (Aarhus University, Denmark) and Lucia A. Reisch (Copenhagen Business School, Denmark). You are welcome to contact us any time.

References

Eurostat (2017). Greenhouse gas emissions statistics – air emissions accounts

Gardner, G. T. & Stern, P. C. (2008). The short list: The most effective actions U.S. households can take to curb climate change. Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, 50(5), 12–25.

Kalbar, P. P., Birkved, M., Kabins, S., & Nygaard, S. E. (2016). Personal Metabolism (PM) coupled with Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) model: Danish case study. Environment International, 91, 168–179.

Rockström, J., Gaffney, O., Rogelj, J., Meinshausen, M., Nakicenovic, N., & Schellnhuber, H. J. (2017). A roadmap for rapid decarbonization. Science, 355(6331), 1269–1271.

Vandenbergh, M. P. & Gilligan, J. M. (2017). Beyond politics: The private governance response to climate change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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