Infrastructures of Consumption: Environmental Innovation in the Utility Industries - Softcover

Vliet, Bas Van; Chappells, Heather; Shove, Elizabeth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1853839965 ISBN 13: 9781853839962

Publisher: Routledge, 2005

Synopsis

For many years, a uniform and uncontested picture of utility system organization has endured across Europe. Provider and consumer roles have been largely taken for granted, and consumers have had little choice but to use the infrastructure of the only network provider available. Recent transformations have challenged this model. This book examines the ongoing environmental restructuring of consumption and provision in energy, water and waste systems. In accounting for the distinctive environmental qualities, technical features, and institutional dynamics of utility systems this book challenges contemporary conceptualizations of consumers as the autonomous drivers of environmental change. Instead, utilities and users are positioned as the 'co-managers' of utility systems, and processes of environmental innovation are seen to depend on the systemic restructuring of demand.

About this title

About the Author

Bas van Vliet is Senior Lecturer at the Environmental Policy Group, Social Sciences Group, Wageningen University, The Netherlands. Heather Chappells is Research Associate, Department of Sociology, Lancaster University, UK. Elizabeth Shove is Reader in Sociology, Lancaster University

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1853839965
• ISBN 13: 9781853839962
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 144