Shove, E (2018) What is wrong with energy efficiency? Building Research & Information, 46(7), pp. 779-789. ISSN 0961-3218
Abstract
At first sight the purpose of energy efficiency is plain: it is to reduce the amount of energy used and the carbon emissions associated with the design and operation of things like buildings, domestic appliances, and heating and cooling technologies, or with the organization of bureaucratic, business or industrial processes. National and international responses to climate change are dominated by policies that promote energy efficiency and by people who take this to be a self-evidently important thing to do. Established criticisms, including those which focus on problems of rebound, draw attention to the unintended consequences of such strategies, but rarely challenge the conceptual foundations of 'efficiency' as a topic in its own right. This paper uses Bruno Latour’s We Have Never Been Modern (1993) notion of purification and Ian Hodder’s Entangled: An Archaeology of the Relationships Between Humans and Things (2012) ideas about entanglement to develop a more fundamental critique and to argue that, far from being a solution, efficiency, as currently constituted, undermines that which it is expected to achieve. It is concluded that if carbon emissions are to be reduced on any significant scale, then it is essential to consider the meanings and levels of service and the types of consumption and demand that efficiency policies support and perpetuate.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | buildings; energy demand; energy efficiency; low-carbon society; policy measures; rebound effect; social practices; social theory |
| Index terms: | foundations, policy measure, critique, energy efficiency, efficiency, social theory, carbon emission, archaeology, energy demand, consumption, climate change, social practice, rebound effect, strategy, meaning, low-carbon society, unintended consequence |
| Subjects: | sociology, social theory, sustainability assessment, management, structural engineering, research methods, performance management, energy systems, economic analysis, sustainability and energy, consumer economics, climate science, evaluation and assessment methods, risk assessment, policy studies |
| Topics: | Business Strategy, Research Practice, Engineering Principles, Risk Management, Stakeholder Management, Sustainability, Governance, Quality Management |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 CTA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here