Exploring different community attitudes to sustainable technologies

Abstract

The adoption of sustainable technologies to mitigate high energy use by home owners has not been extensive. As a result of legislation there are a number of initiatives to help resolve this situation, some which recognise that communities could be a good site of influence to effect this change. Communities have different socio-economic backgrounds, which may constrain their choices. This affects their attitudes to sustainable technologies, and how they might go about adopting them. This paper refers to pilot research studying attitudes in two socioeconomically different communities in Birmingham, aiming to inform a larger study about successful interventions. These communities underwent the adoption of sustainable technologies via different interventions, here defined as an identifiable activity bringing sustainable energy technologies into an area. The interviewees presented a positive attitude to the intervention in their area, but displayed a difference in their perception of a sense of community. Socio-economic data raises important questions about a community’s capability to intervene which was supported by the interviewees. The pilot suggests that interventions can enable interactions which allow positive information transfer necessary for increasing acceptability of sustainable technologies, which will be explored in the larger study.