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- Author or Editor: Anders Rhiger Hansen x
In January 2023, Anders Rhiger Hansen visited Lund University to talk to Max Koch about sustainable welfare, human needs, social inequality and a little bit about Bourdieu. The message from Max was clear: politicians need to drop the idea of green growth and instead define a safe and just operating space to determine what can be done within this space. His sociological approach combines Marxian and Bourdieusean traditions, and he recommends that the Consumption and Society community investigates consumption in combination with processes of production, for example by engaging with critical political economy approaches such as the French regulation school or the Frankfurt School. According to Koch, the survival of the planet requires holistic approaches that would transform society and its exchanges with nature, based on principles of degrowth and on a scale that we have not yet seen.
Fundamental changes in everyday consumption patterns are required to mitigate negative environmental impacts, and these include adapting the timing of consumption. For example, flexible energy demand becomes increasingly important in response to larger shares of fluctuating energy production while dynamic electricity pricing suggests there is a need to encourage staggered electricity use. In this paper, we explore the stability, adjustability and flexibility of everyday practices to critically address the potential for flexible household energy demand. Based on a survey questionnaire (N=1,470), the paper takes its empirical focus in the Nordic welfare state Denmark, which has a high share of wind power and little focus on energy justice. Across household groups, it seems that morning routines are strongly routinised, especially on weekdays, and that variations in these primarily involve adjustment to other household members. The analysis indicates that there are differences across household types, for example, households with children and households whose inhabitants are aged 41-60 tend to be associated with stable evening routines, women tend to agree more to adjusting routines to lifestyle and household, while being in employment seems to be associated with stronger dependence on time schedules determined by factors outside the household. The study suggests that socio-temporal rhythms of everyday practices strongly depend on societal rhythms and practices outside the home. It follows therefore that expectations of energy flexibility in household energy demand should initially focus on common temporal patterns and dependence on these rather than on individual households’ (apparent) capacity to consume energy flexibly.
