Time frame: CFP evaluates the immediate past status of value chains and consumption patterns. Conducting a CFP analysis of specific behaviours or products provides appropriate data to recommend immediate behaviour changes, such as reducing the use of private vehicles
[12][16]. However, some research tries to expect future changes in CFP
[29][37].
-
3. Impact Messaging and Its Limitations
To further consider the potential drawbacks of applying CFP in promoting changes in individuals’ high-impact behaviours, the section reflects on the ways of utilising numerical data in engaging with citizens on climate change action. We can learn from existing research on providing electricity consumption data to encourage households to save energy behaviour about the potential ineffectiveness of presenting such data or to divert attention from needed changes. Feedback services for energy conservation are probably the most popular method. Household energy conservation encouragement using smart meters and in-home displays has been deployed in many countries
[46][47][48][49][50][51][57,58,59,60,61,62]. In the UK, plans are being made to roll out to all households and small businesses
[47][58]. These impact messages
[52][63] began with simply showing information, but in recent years have also incorporated techniques, such as gamification
[53][54][64,65]. While much research has accumulated on the methods and effectiveness of impact messages, it has been reported that the behavioural change effects are often small or short-lived
[14][15][16][17][53][18,19,20,21,64]. Some have suggested linking the information to pricing to cause more practical effects
[55][66]. However, the assumption behind the approach, namely, the deficit model
[56][57][22,23], which assumes that giving individuals knowledge will change their behaviour, is the reason for the ineffectiveness. Research revealed that giving normative information or environmental education has little effect on behaviour change
[58][67]. Over the past two decades, research has shown that behaviours are not the direct consequences of people’s values and intentions, as are often believed
[59][68]. People’s practices are entangled with various elements, such as social norms and values, institutional arrangements, personal and shared competencies, and material conditions, such as the natural environment, built infrastructures and available products
[60][61][62][63][64][69,70,71,72,73]. Several cases illustrating such entanglements can be considered.
Similarly, encouraging behaviours, such as energy conservation and car replacement, that can be immediately effective for individuals can easily divert attention from the issues of power and unequal distribution of resources involved in the transformation
[65][83]. For example, the transition from ICE vehicles to EVs entails potential inequalities regarding freedom of movement among rural and urban citizens. Subsidies applied for purchasing EVs are sources from the tax that poorer citizens who cannot afford private vehicles also pay
[66][67][54,84]. The energy transition also entails injustice, notably in the unemployment of those involved in the oil industry and power generation, land access and landscape in areas where new renewable energy generation is developed, and changes in electricity prices
[68][69][70][71][85,86,87,88]. Practitioners and researchers involved in community transformation have noted that many people are interested in these potential impacts. Although they should be able to play a role in creating a more general view of future societies
[72][89], simple behaviour change recommendations do not always facilitate discussions of injustice, risk, and the potential for more inclusive change
[73][74].
Most impact messages on energy conservation and other issues provide information to individuals and households
[74][90], with limited application to community projects
[75][76][77][79,91,92]. However, some report the positive impacts of using messages at community-level actions. For example, according to Vita, participants in grassroots activities tend to have smaller CFPs
[45][53]. Burchell observed that feedback services linked to community actions resulted in more proactive engagement from participants among women
[76][91]. Information provision targeted to communities, such as neighbourhoods, workplaces, or other specific groups, combined with collective learning and actions, may have room for further pursuit.
4. Toward More Creative Use of Data for a Deeper Engagement with Citizens
To further consider the effectiveness of promoting collaboration and mutual learning through the provision of information to groups,
thwe
researchers would like to focus on the discussion of what communication is for, in what areas, and what roles scientists, citizens, and other actors play in the provision and use of information.
The purposes and approaches of utilising data differ according to the various forms of citizens’ engagement. Fischer et al., 2021, reviewed 67 peer-reviewed academic papers and identified the four typical patterns of communication; namely, communication as an approach to (1) behaviour change, (2) self-empowerment, (3) systems change, and (4) reflection on current discourses and practices around sustainable consumption
[78][93]. This categorisation helps us understand the broad directions of communication, but
itwe can further consider the specific purposes of communication with data. Concerning (1) behaviour change, it is helpful to show data on the current consumption behaviours with associated climate impacts to identify whose consumption behaviours should be addressed and what are the most impactful behaviours
[28][36]. Concerning this approach and (2) self-empowerment, it is helpful to show the future benefits of the new practices or policies when governments ask for citizens’ cooperation to take up new behaviours, participate in grassroots collaborations, or accept new policies that influence their ways of living
[79][94]. On (4) reflection on current discourses and practices, practitioners, policymakers, and citizens can use data to understand the status of society or nature, such as the total carbon emissions, atmospheric carbon concentrations, or the increase in extreme weather events associated with climate change, to share their understanding of climate change, and share the visions and stories of the desired societal transformation
[42][45][50,53].
For such varying approaches to communication, actors adopt different roles in creating and sharing data. Scientific data are presented for descriptive communication of facts or the current status and for normative communication to describe the benefits and costs associated with specific behavioural patterns and alternative patterns of desired behaviours
[58][67]. Data are not always created by scientists and communicated to “lay people” in an easy-to-digest manner
[80][24]. Participants in collective actions in cities and communities, such as food waste reduction activities, often play a central role in measuring progress and achievements
[81][82][95,96]. Citizen science has gained momentum globally where experts and local people jointly create shared understandings of their environment, benefits and costs of their socioeconomic practices, such as conventional production methods and alternative practices
[83][84][85][86][97,98,99,100]. Finally, data can be created and edited into different scales and scopes. To communicate about climate change, the general status of the global climate change or the country is often used
[87][88][101,102]. However, such general data are often insufficient in shortening people’s “psychological distance” from climate change
[88][89][102,103]. Thus, more localised or personalised information is developed and provided
[80][90][24,104].
Such differences in purposes (approaches), actors’ roles in creating and sharing, and scopes and data scales reflect a wide array of citizens’ engagement in climate change actions. Research has identified various areas where citizens’ roles are vital in addressing climate change. In public spaces, citizens can drive political movements, take position on key political matters by voting in elections, and participate in citizens’ assemblies or public consultation meetings
[56][91][92][93][22,105,106,107]. Citizens can lead collaborative actions for sustainable production and consumption, formulate collective visions, goals and activities, and co-create knowledge on climate change and desired actions
[56][94][95][96][97][22,108,109,110,111]. Citizens can also adopt climate mitigation actions in their private life by changing their consumption behaviours and learning and sharing knowledge with others
[56][98][22,112]. As mentioned above, the usages of numerical data cover all these domains of citizens’ engagement, namely private, collective, and public
[56][22].
Table 1 below summarises illustrative cases of applying numerical data in citizens’ engagement in the private, collective and public domains.
Table 1.
Illustrative types of data provision for engaging citizens with climate mitigation in the private, collective, and public domains.
In summary, numerical data can help various types of citizens’ engagement in climate actions by promoting individual behaviour changes, encouraging collective actions, and inviting people into decision-making. However, the interventions based on the “deficit model”, which assumes information will lead to changes in cognition and behaviours, are ineffective in facilitating change, as they deflect our attention from the opportunities for systemic transformation requiring deeper engagement and from the inequalities and injustice associated with sociotechnical transitions. Thus, such approaches are not likely to cause the transformation of systems of provision
[99][113]. Three points should be considered to utilize scientific data, such as CFPs, for deeper transformational engagement.