By Nicole van den Berg
A challenging task – bridging the gap between the qualitative and quantitative disciplines. I’m Nicole van den Berg, and since the 1st of February, I have been doing my PhD at the UU researching how sustainable behaviour can be better represented in Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs). With the help of my co-promoter dr. Vanessa Timmer, a visiting research fellow at UU and CEO of a non-profit ‘think and do’ tank in Vancouver, I will investigate the sustainable lifestyles field and the social sciences perspective, and how this can be quantified and integrated into IAMs. With the help of prof. dr. Detlef van Vuuren, my promoter at UU and an expert in IAMs, I will analyse to what extent lifestyle change can influence transition pathways in line with the in Paris agreed upon long-term climate objective of limiting global mean temperature increase to 2°C. Furthermore, dr. Lewis Akenji from IGES, a think tank in Japan, is also part of the project, and will be sharing his expertise on sustainable consumption.
A challenging task – bridging the gap between the qualitative and quantitative disciplines. I’m Nicole van den Berg, and since the 1st of February, I have been doing my PhD at the UU researching how sustainable behaviour can be better represented in Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs). With the help of my co-promoter dr. Vanessa Timmer, a visiting research fellow at UU and CEO of a non-profit ‘think and do’ tank in Vancouver, I will investigate the sustainable lifestyles field and the social sciences perspective, and how this can be quantified and integrated into IAMs. With the help of prof. dr. Detlef van Vuuren, my promoter at UU and an expert in IAMs, I will analyse to what extent lifestyle change can influence transition pathways in line with the in Paris agreed upon long-term climate objective of limiting global mean temperature increase to 2°C. Furthermore, dr. Lewis Akenji from IGES, a think tank in Japan, is also part of the project, and will be sharing his expertise on sustainable consumption.
As I am jumping into the literature, I realize how far and detailed this topic stretches across different disciplines. The enormity of this topic can be overwhelming on the one hand, but also extremely exciting, knowing how much interest there is on encouraging sustainable behaviour. For example, SPREAD Sustainable Lifestyles 2050, is a European social platform project that ran in 2011 and 2012, where different stakeholders participated in the development of sustainable lifestyle vision for 2050, distinguishing four scenarios as shown in the figure below (Leppänen et al., 2012).
These four scenarios are based two key underlying uncertainties for lifestyles: technology is either endemic (i.e. locally born and grown solutions based on local conditions and resources) or pandemic (i.e. few dominant technologies), and the governing bodies of society are either meritocratic (i.e. circling around professional skills) or human-centric (i.e. pivoting around expanding human capital use in all forms, both civic and public) (Leppänen et al., 2012).
Providing the linkages between these fields could do wonders for all fields, by collaborating on each field’s strengths in methodology and concepts, which I hope (in part) to achieve. This will be done through strong communication with the public, but also through workshops and interviews.
Transdisciplinarity is key to this research, and I look forward to diving even further into the different perspectives (without getting too lost, of course)! Hopefully, as an outcome, we can advance the knowledge on lifestyle change and stimulate the inclusion into long-term policies and policy assessment.
Since this research is so tangible to the everyday (wo)man and dealing with everyday-life, it is a discussion that almost anyone can engage in (and has been doing so far!). Therefore, please do not hesitate to discuss your ideas and perspective with me – I really enjoy it!
References:
Leppänen, J., Neuvonen, A., Ritola, M., Ahola, I., Hirvonen, S., Hyotylainen, M., Kaskinen, T., Kauppinen, T. Kuittinen, O., Karki, K., Lettenmeier, M. & Mokka, R. (2012). D4.1 Future Scenarios for New European Social Models with Visualisations, UNEP/Wuppertal Institute Collaborating Centre on Sustainable Consumption and Production (CSCP).
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