Periodic Reporting for period 2 - ACCTING (AdvanCing behavioural Change Through an INclusive Green deal)
Reporting period: 2023-02-01 to 2024-01-31
The global climate crisis has devastating impacts on individuals, families, collectives of people, economies, and societies. The impacts are not only ecological; they are also economic, social, and political, and unfortunately, often overlooked. Just as climate change doesn’t affect everyone in the same way, the impacts of policies responding to the climate crisis are uneven. People are disproportionately affected, with poorer, marginalised, and vulnerable groups generally most acutely, which in turn exacerbates existing socio-economic inequalities. Yet, Green Deal policies not only often fail to respond to these inequalities; they can even increase them. Averting, or even mitigating this crisis requires transformative change; changes in the behaviour of individuals, communities, and organisations. If the Green Deal is to “leave no-one behind”, the necessary behavioural change must be accessible to all. The ACCTING project aims to analyse the impact of Green Deal policies on vulnerable groups and produce knowledge and innovations to advance behavioural change at individual and collective levels for an inclusive and equal European Green Deal.
The overall objectives of ACCTING are thus to:
- Understand the impact of Green Deal policy initiatives on individual and collective behaviours with specific attention to vulnerable groups.
- Provide evidence and empower policymakers and other stakeholders to anticipate policy responses, the potential negative impacts on inequalities, and to mitigate such impacts in Green Deal decision-making;
- Co-creatively design and implement pilot actions to be deployed by policymakers and stakeholders in the policy domains of the Green Deal with the ambition to reduce or prevent inequalities and promote participation and social justice.
The overall objectives of ACCTING are thus to:
- Understand the impact of Green Deal policy initiatives on individual and collective behaviours with specific attention to vulnerable groups.
- Provide evidence and empower policymakers and other stakeholders to anticipate policy responses, the potential negative impacts on inequalities, and to mitigate such impacts in Green Deal decision-making;
- Co-creatively design and implement pilot actions to be deployed by policymakers and stakeholders in the policy domains of the Green Deal with the ambition to reduce or prevent inequalities and promote participation and social justice.
ACCTING mobilises research experimentation and innovation based on an interdisciplinary methodological framework to advance a gender-equal, inclusive and socially just European Green Deal. Specifically focusing on inequalities produced and reproduced in the context of Green Deal policies, ACCTING will collect new data on Green Deal policy interventions at individual, organisational, community, and societal levels. Research activities are defined along eight thematic and interdisciplinary research lines:
Climate Action:
1.Valorising local knowledge on natural hazards Biodiversity:
2.Land use restrictions
Clean energy:
3.Energy poverty
4.EEMs/SMEs
Farm to fork:
5. Food security
6. Food values
Sustainable mobility:
7.Transport poverty
8.Post-lockdown transport choices
On this basis and in the first 24 months of the project, ACCTING research developed the theoretical and methodological framework to ensure the integration of the perspectives of complexity and intersectionality. It has involved an extensive mapping and comparative analysis of almost 700 bottom-up environmental initiatives, identifying local authorities, NGOs, CSOs and other actors in 34 countries. In parallel, the eight thematic and interdisciplinary research lines were developed. The successful implementation of the first of the two research cycles of qualitative data collection resulted in 400 narrative interviews gathered through fieldwork in 14 countries along the eight research lines, published in Open Access. This set the stage for the on-going second research cycle of case studies. At the same time, the multi-sectoral workshops - Open Studios - were developed and conducted, leveraging the research results and co-creating ideas and concepts for innovative solutions. The knowledge and insights produced have been used to produce operational recommendations, published as Factsheets, and research agendas, and to launch ten pilot actions to make the project results even more visible and concrete, and to test innovative solutions to advance behavioural change for an inclusive and equal European Green Deal.
Climate Action:
1.Valorising local knowledge on natural hazards Biodiversity:
2.Land use restrictions
Clean energy:
3.Energy poverty
4.EEMs/SMEs
Farm to fork:
5. Food security
6. Food values
Sustainable mobility:
7.Transport poverty
8.Post-lockdown transport choices
On this basis and in the first 24 months of the project, ACCTING research developed the theoretical and methodological framework to ensure the integration of the perspectives of complexity and intersectionality. It has involved an extensive mapping and comparative analysis of almost 700 bottom-up environmental initiatives, identifying local authorities, NGOs, CSOs and other actors in 34 countries. In parallel, the eight thematic and interdisciplinary research lines were developed. The successful implementation of the first of the two research cycles of qualitative data collection resulted in 400 narrative interviews gathered through fieldwork in 14 countries along the eight research lines, published in Open Access. This set the stage for the on-going second research cycle of case studies. At the same time, the multi-sectoral workshops - Open Studios - were developed and conducted, leveraging the research results and co-creating ideas and concepts for innovative solutions. The knowledge and insights produced have been used to produce operational recommendations, published as Factsheets, and research agendas, and to launch ten pilot actions to make the project results even more visible and concrete, and to test innovative solutions to advance behavioural change for an inclusive and equal European Green Deal.
ACCTING stands out by delivering an interdisciplinary combination of different issues across multiple areas of Green Deal interventions and with its strong focus on reducing gendered and intersectional inequalities produced and reproduced by Green Deal interventions. The project researchers conduct exploratory and explanatory research, co-create solutions, pilot actions and produce operational recommendations across biodiversity, clean energy, climate action, farm to fork, and sustainable mobility. Many previous projects studied drivers, social practices and factors that stabilise them, enabling and inhibiting factors, best practice platforms, collective learning tools, etc., many of them by the ACCTING consortia partners, but the great innovative strength of ACCTING is that it looks at the greater picture where people make trade-offs between the different issues and across areas of interventions.
Continuing from the main results achieved so far, ACCTING has advanced to the second cycle and the 41 experimental studies. These results will feed the second round of multi-sectoral Open Studios, along with the results from the ten pilot actions with mass implementation potential, the second round of operational recommendations, and an agenda for future research.
By providing in-depth knowledge of inequalities caused or worsened by Green Deal policies and involving stakeholders in the co-creation of solutions, ACCTING will have four main impacts:
- Make visible the effects of the Green Deal on vulnerable people and the emergence of new forms of discrimination and inequality
- Empower policymakers to take measures that alleviate or mitigate the adverse effects of decisions associated with the Green Deal on inequalities and vulnerable groups
- Stimulate initiatives taken by citizens and NGOs to involve society and more specifically vulnerable groups to adapt their behaviour to climate change and use these to inspire and facilitate their uptake
- Develop new concepts of bottom-up initiatives that have positive impacts on inequalities and discrimination to inspire policymakers and other stakeholders to roll these out and develop them further.
Continuing from the main results achieved so far, ACCTING has advanced to the second cycle and the 41 experimental studies. These results will feed the second round of multi-sectoral Open Studios, along with the results from the ten pilot actions with mass implementation potential, the second round of operational recommendations, and an agenda for future research.
By providing in-depth knowledge of inequalities caused or worsened by Green Deal policies and involving stakeholders in the co-creation of solutions, ACCTING will have four main impacts:
- Make visible the effects of the Green Deal on vulnerable people and the emergence of new forms of discrimination and inequality
- Empower policymakers to take measures that alleviate or mitigate the adverse effects of decisions associated with the Green Deal on inequalities and vulnerable groups
- Stimulate initiatives taken by citizens and NGOs to involve society and more specifically vulnerable groups to adapt their behaviour to climate change and use these to inspire and facilitate their uptake
- Develop new concepts of bottom-up initiatives that have positive impacts on inequalities and discrimination to inspire policymakers and other stakeholders to roll these out and develop them further.