EPSRC Studentship: Reducing Carbon Footprints
EPSRC DTP PhD Studentship (SPRU) - Reducing carbon footprints: The role of moral licensing and rebound effects (2023)
What you get
- Fully-paid tuition fees for three and a half years.
- A tax-free bursary for living costs for three and a half years. For 2022-23 this was £17,668 - the amount increases each year based on recommendations from UKRI (see here for latest details).
- A support grant for three and a half years of £1,650 per year for travel and conferences.
Type of award
Postgraduate Research
PhD project
Individuals can reduce their greenhouse gas emissions through adopting energy efficient technologies, switching to low-carbon energy sources and changing their behaviour - (e.g. turning down thermostats, cycling rather than driving). These ‘mitigation actions’ may reduce the direct emissions from energy services such as heating and lighting, and/or the embodied emissions associated with other goods and services.
However, such actions may also trigger various ‘behavioural responses’ that can offset or even eliminate the initial emission savings. For example, people may save money from such actions and may spend that money on other goods and services that alsorequire energy use and emissions to provide. Alternatively, people may feel that their environmentally beneficial actions in one area (e.g. cycling to work) give them a licence to engage in more environmentally damaging activities in other areas (e.g. taking an overseas holiday). The first is termed a rebound effect while the second is termed a negative spillover. Both are widespread and both may undermine regulatory and voluntary efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
This project seeks to understand the nature, operation and consequences of these behavioural responses, including their drivers and determinants, their mutual interactions and their environmental effects. Combining concepts from orthodox economics, behavioural economics and environmental psychology, the project will explore how internal motivations and external interventions influence the nature and importance of each behavioural response, how contextual and psychological factors moderate those responses, and how those responses influence the ultimate emission savings. The research will involve a mix of household surveys, interviews and laboratory experiments.
Rationale, aims and objectives, methodology and project plan for the studentship
Rationale
This project will explore how, why and to what extent ‘mitigation actions’ by individuals to reduce their carbon footprints trigger subsequent ‘behavioural responses’ that offset the initial emission reductions. Integrating concepts from neoclassical economics, behavioural economics and social psychology the project will investigate how internal motivations and external interventions influence the nature and importance of these behavioural responses, how contextual and psychological factors moderate those responses, and how those responses influence the ultimate emission savings from the mitigation actions.
Relevant mitigation actions may include improving energy efficiency, investing in renewables, purchasing carbon offsets or changing behaviour (e.g. cycling rather than driving). Such actions may trigger two types of behavioural response:
Rebound effects: people may save money that they can subsequently spend on other goods and services that also require energy and emissions to provide (e.g. spending the cost savings from cycling to work on an overseas holiday)
Negative spillovers: people may may feel they have ‘done their bit’ for the environment and therefore have a ‘licence’ to engage in more environmentally damaging activities (e.g. using cycling to work as justification for taking an overseas holiday)
Economists have studied rebound effects from improved energy efficiency and social psychologists have studied negative spillovers from behavioural change. But in practice, both types of response are associated with both types of actions. Economists typically seek to quantify the environmental impacts of rebound effects while neglecting their socio-psychological determinants, while psychologists typically seek to explain the socio-psychological determinants of negative spillovers while neglecting their environmental impacts. Hence, very few studies have encompassed both determinants and the impacts of both types of response. This project will address that gap.
Aims
The research questions for this project are:
- How, why and to what extent do different behavioural responses to mitigation actions reduce the energy and emission savings from those actions?
- What mechanisms contribute to these behavioural responses and how do these vary between different contexts and groups, and between different types and sources of mitigation action?
- How, why and to what extent do different contextual and psychological factors moderate these behavioural responses?
Methodology
The research questions may be explored through a number of methods, and the supervisors will work with the candidate to develop a suitable research design. We suggest, however, a combination of survey-based and experimental methods.
Survey
We propose a large-scale survey of a representative sample of UK households. The aim will be to identify the extent to which participants endorse and/or engage in different types of behaviour that may offset the emission savings from different types of mitigation action (e.g. do participants agree with the statement that: “reducing car use can compensate for the environmental impact of flying on holiday”?). Building upon well-established models in social psychology, the survey will explore the form these behavioural responses take; how they vary between different mitigation actions; and how variables such as socio-economic status, environmental identity, knowledge of climate change and preference for consistency influence those responses. Follow-up interviews with a sample of participants will explore their motivations, values and identities; the timeframes and contexts in which they engage in or endorse different responses; the extent to which they are aware of the environmental consequences of those responses; and the factors that make such responses more or less likely to occur.
Experiments
We propose two or more small-scale laboratory experiments to identify the causal mechanisms contributing to rebound effects and negative spillovers; the interactions between these mechanisms; and their relative importance in selected contexts. The experiments will explore how different types of intervention to encourage mitigation actions (e.g. information; nudge; financial incentives; social comparisons) influence the sign and magnitude of the subsequent behavioural response. For example, financial incentives for mitigation actions may both ‘crowd-out’ the intrinsic motivations for these and related actions and increase the cost savings from those actions. They may therefore make negative spillover more likely while at the same time making rebound effects larger.
The experiments will use student volunteers in the experimental economics laboratory at the University of Sussex and/or volunteers recruited through on-line platforms. Each will include a control group and one or more treatment groups and will explore hypothetical mitigation actions such as purchasing carbon offsets. These will differ between the control and treatment group(s) and will include situations where the control group takes no action. The ‘treatment’ could include the option to undertake an action (e.g. purchase a carbon offset); regulatory, financial or other incentives for that action (e.g. providing information about carbon footprints) or changes in the environmental impacts of the action. The subsequent behavioural response may relate to the domain targeted by the action/intervention, or to a separate domain that is also relevant to carbon emissions. The experiments will test different types and costs of action and different types of intervention; and will explore the effect of moderating variables such as environmental identity.
Strategic importance of the project
This project builds upon ten years of EPSRC funding to SPRU in the area of energy demand and energy efficiency. From 2013 to 2018, Steve Sorrell and Benjamin Sovacool led the £2.95 million Centre on Innovation and Energy Demand (CIED), which involved 18 researchers from four universities. Steve Sorrell and Tim Foxon are currently leading the £1.75 million Digital Society theme of the Centre for Research on Energy Demand Solutions (CREDS), which runs from 2018 to 2023. This stream of research is highly interdisciplinary and encompasses a wide range of empirical topics relevant to energy efficiency and energy demand. The rebound effects from improved energy efficiency are a central theme of the work of both of these Centres - and Steve Sorrell is a leading authority in this area. Energy demand is also a core theme of the Sussex Energy Group, which has been undertaking research on this topic since the mid-1970s.
The proposed PhD project aims to link SPRU’s work on the economics of rebound effects with a broader stream of work in social psychology on the topic of negative spillovers. The project seeks to facilitate communication between these two disciplines, and to expand SPRU’s work in this area both theoretically (exploring and testing models from social psychology) and methodologically (applying methods from experimental economics).
About the department
The student will be located in the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU), within the University of Sussex Business School. Founded in 1966, SPRU is one of the world’s leading centres for research on science, technology and innovation policy and currently has ~70 members of staff.
SPRU has a well-established doctoral program, with ~30 doctoral students. Two members of staff supervise each student, and students must pass a rigorous process of yearly reviews. SPRU provides students with a comprehensive training in research methods, together with anannual budget for training and conference participation.
Doctoral students frequently attend taught postgraduate modules under the SPRU MSc programme. This involves five on-campus and two online courses, including the Energy and Climate Policy MSc (on-campus), and Energy PolicyMSc (online). Doctoral students also have the opportunity to work as doctoral tutors on these modules, which provides both a supplementto their funding and experience in teaching. With the rapid increase in MSc student numbers in SPRU, there is a strong demand for PhD tutors.
Students working in the area of energy and climate change become active participants of the Sussex Energy Group. This is one of the largest social science energy research groups in the world, with more than 80 academics and PhD students. SEG currently has 28 funded projects worth £9.8 million. Over the period 2018-21, SEG staff published more than 230 academic journal articles.
Eligibility
- Applicants must hold, or expect to hold, at least a UK upper second class degree (or non-UK equivalent qualification) and Master's degree in Science and Technology Policy Studies, or a closely-related area.
- Please note that this year, the award is open to UK students only.
Deadline
24 March 2023 23:59How to apply
Apply online for a full time PhD in Science and Technology Policy Studies using our step-by-step guide (http://www.sussex.ac.uk/study/phd/apply).
You need to write a proposal, of about 8 pages in length, for PhD applications. See the following link for details: https://www.sussex.ac.uk/study/phd/apply/tips-research-degrees/research-proposal
Here you will also find details of our entry requirements: https://www.sussex.ac.uk/study/phd/apply/entry-requirements
https://www.sussex.ac.uk/study/phd/apply/international-qualifications
Please clearly state in the funding section of your application form that you are applying for the EPSRC DTP 2023 under the supervision of Prof Steven Sorrell.
Contact us
Please direct enquiries about the studentship to Prof Steven Sorrell: S.R.Sorrell@sussex.ac.uk
General queries can be sent to: business-researchstudents@sussex.ac.uk.
Timetable
Deadline: Friday 24 March 2023
Interview date: Late March/early April
Decision: Friday 14 April 2023
Start date: Monday 18 September 2023
Availability
At level(s):
PG (research)
Application deadline:
24 March 2023 23:59 (GMT)
the deadline has now expired
Countries
The award is available to people from the following country: