Supporting 'LiFE': Enabling behavioural change through appropriate infrastructure
Introduction
Last year, during the 26th Conference of Parties in Glasgow, the Hon’ble Prime Minister Narendra Modi introduced the concept of “Lifestyle for Change” (LiFE). In his speech, he explained that it was important for everyone to adopt an environmentally conscious lifestyle as a way of contributing to climate change mitigation. This year, on 5th June, 2022, World Environment Day, the Prime Minister launched LiFE, explaining that “The need of the hour is human-centric, collective efforts and robust actions that further sustainable development”. India’s commitment to the cause was further underscored when India’s updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) were submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) where the Prime Minister proposed the ‘One-Word Movement’ of LiFE to the global community.
The LiFE movement provides every single individual the platform to do their bit towards mitigating climate change by motivating people to become conscious of the impact of their behavioural and consumption patterns on the planet. At the same time, people have to be empowered and enabled to shift behaviours by appropriate attention to infrastructure and development choices. This key idea – that behaviour and infrastructure go together – underpins this note.
The idea of living a lifestyle in sync with the environment is a concept that is not new to India. From the deep reverence of our tribal communities for nature to the elaborate water harvesting systems in the ancient town of Dholavira part of the Harappan civilization, several of our traditional practices are embedded in nature. Moreover, with India poised to become the most populous country by 2023, it seems only fitting that we take the lead in driving the movement of changing behaviours for climate action.
As India takes over the G20 presidency this year, it can work with other G20 countries to propel the LiFE movement forward. Several G20 countries have attempted to encourage climate-friendly behaviour in different ways. In Germany, experiments have been done using green default nudges to increase the share of individuals choosing green energy. In India, research has been done to nudge consumers to reduce electricity consumption by comparing their usage to that of their peers and by providing information on how energy can be conserved. More recently, California – the most populous state in the United States – has banned the sale of new gasoline powered vehicles starting 2035 as a way of encouraging take up of electric vehicles. The power of tapping into the “demand-side” of climate change mitigation has even been recognized by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) with its Sixth Assessment report claiming that “The indicative potential of demand-side strategies across all sectors to reduce emissions is 40-70% by 2050”.
Conceptual framework
When thinking about demand-side interventions to mitigate climate change, it is important to ensure that behavioural change can be sustained over time. To do so require that behavioural change is complemented with other social and infrastructural interventions. Changes at the individual, community or sectoral level have to overcome rigid social norms and accessibility barriers, sometimes even involving acceptance of new technologies. In order to achieve system-level change, it is crucial that behaviour changes with an intended outcome are supported by appropriate policies, business models, infrastructure, technology and social acceptance. The figure below outlines the five main drivers that influence demand-side climate change mitigation and the channels that feed into behaviour change. The drivers can be broadly categorised into: Individuals (e.g. consumption choices), culture (e.g. social norms, values), corporate (e.g. investments), institutions (e.g. political agency), and infrastructure change. Changes made through any one channel will influence climate friendly behaviour and will only be further strengthened by a coordinated change by all of the drivers. It is important to note that the order in which each of the drivers influences behaviours is not fixed, since change through any one channel only increases the impetus for behaviour change by other drivers.
Examples of lifestyle changes
All individuals partake in activities that have the potential to produce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This is the premise behind LiFE, as this mass movement seeks to decouple emissions from our lifestyles. It is also the premise behind individual carbon footprints – a concept that is complementary to LiFE, and a useful tool for estimating emissions produced at the individual level. Yet, individual carbon footprints are dependent on the context within which she lives. For example, an individual may choose to drive a car to work due to the absence of a public transport system; changing behaviour may require complementary changes in infrastructure like public transport, footpaths and shifts in urban design. Behavioural change and infrastructural change can be made to work together in a complementary way.
This message is particularly salient to emerging economies such as India, but also to much of the developing world. As India grows, it has an opportunity to avoid getting locked-into a development pathway that is carbon intensive. Building climate friendly infrastructure, institutions, cultures and markets are, therefore, complementary to the LiFE movement. In this section, we take a closer look at some examples of sectoral changes, that if achieved, can bring about a sustained adoption of pro-planet lifestyle choices.
i) Change in urban design:
The 21st century is a period of rapid development and urbanisation. Cities account for approximately 70% of global energy use as well as approximately 70% of global CO2 emissions. Moreover, confounding factors such as the urban heat island effect arising from high population densities and unplanned urbanisation make lower income groups in cities more vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. However, the increasing rate of urbanisation implies that a majority of the world’s built-up land area is going to be built over the next few decades. This indicates that there is massive potential in mitigating greenhouse gas emissions through effective urban planning. The largest opportunities to tap into the potential of green infrastructures and circumvent the carbon lock in that arises from investments in fossil fuel intensive infrastructures lie in developing countries, where most of the urban development is expected to take place.
Urban emissions are an outcome of well-defined infrastructural, technological and behavioural systems that act as barriers to climate action. In order to achieve lower emissions, a coordinated push to reduce emissions across sectors is required. As a result, the bulk of urban emissions reductions will stem from robust policies and infrastructure that invest in low carbon urban design. Primarily, reducing energy consumption, electrification of transport and creating pockets of carbon sinks have been the focus of most low carbon city strategies. Most mitigation strategies seek to reduce urban sprawl and encourage co-location of work, residential and market places to minimise vehicle travel and energy consumption. Some of India’s oldest cities, like Shahjahanabad that was built in the 17th century, offer lessons in construction of mixed-use areas, i.e., areas that serve multiple purposes, one of the key tenets of urban emission reduction strategies. India’s Smart Cities Mission provides the ideal avenue for creating such spaces that provide economic opportunity while being sustainable and liveable.
The city of Barcelona in Spain provides a good example of changing urban design to encourage an environmentally friendly lifestyle through its use of “superblocks”. Superblocks are a way of organising streets and buildings into clusters, where the streets on the inside of a cluster are closed off to traffic and can only be used by pedestrians and residential vehicles. As a result, traffic is redirected to only certain main streets hence opening up neighbourhood spaces to become greener and more pedestrian friendly. Barcelona’s urban landscape transformed after the implementation of this policy. Areas that were earlier earmarked for vehicles and parking were taken over by parks and bicycle lanes, hence encouraging more people to walk and use bicycles. Since private traffic was reduced, the public transportation system was strengthened and an orthogonal system of buses was introduced. This low investment urban mobility strategy led to lower vehicular emissions, noise and air pollution.
ii) Change in transportation:
From the vast road networks of Delhi, to the quaint toy trains of Darjeeling, India boasts a wide variety of transport modes and services. Transportation forms the backbone to all human activity in the country, and thus the evolution of transport is intertwined with the evolution of the lifestyle of its many peoples.
The transport sector has grown rapidly over the years, and now accounts for 17 percent of energy consumption and 26 percent of the CO2 emissions of the country. Within the transport sector, 90 percent of energy is consumed by road transport. The IPCC identifies transport linked behavioural changes as some of the most effective demand-side actions in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. These measures include living car-free, shifting to battery-operated electric vehicles (EVs), shifting to public transport, less car transport, fuel efficient driving and a shift to active transport. In the same vein, we identify three measures that enable citizens in India to make greener transport-linked lifestyle decisions:
1. Bolstering public transport systems and encouraging non-motorized transport (NMT)
The use of buses and metro rail networks offer significant emissions benefits over the use of private vehicles such as cars and two-wheelers. In comparison to an urban fabric that is designed with automobiles in mind, urban design that promotes walking can halve annual GHG emissions, while a transit-based urban fabric can bring emissions down by a third.
Both public transport and NMT infrastructure are growing in India. Metro rail projects are currently in operation in 19 cities, with the list likely to grow to 27 cities soon. There are also at least 22 Bus Rapid Transit Systems in place in India. The state of Karnataka has drafted an active mobility bill that seeks to protect the rights of pedestrians and cyclists. All of these measures are important stepping stones on the way to building robust, nation-wide public transport and NMT systems that can eliminate the need for private vehicles in cities.
2. Encouraging and supporting the adoption of EVs
Since EVs produce no tailpipe emissions, they have significant emissions mitigation potential in comparison to fossil fuel-based vehicles. Emissions from EVs are shifted to the electricity generation stage, thus directly linking emissions from electricity generation to EV use. Eventually, if electricity is generated entirely from non-fossil sources, then EVs could operate without producing any emissions. This may be an achievable goal in the future, as India’s latest update to its NDCs intends to convert half the country’s electricity generation capacity to non-fossil sources by 2030.
For nearly a decade now, the Government of India has sought to promote the adoption of EVs in the country, and in recent years, the transition to EVs has been gathering pace. The FAME India subsidy scheme has supported the purchase of over half a million EVs in the country, and for the first time ever, EV sales exceeded 10 percent of total vehicle sales in Delhi in early 2022. Electrification of vehicles can thus support better transport choices by making motorised road transport greener across the board.
3. Decarbonising freight transport
The consumption of all manner of goods is inextricably linked to freight. As India cements its position as one of the largest economies in the world, the logistics sector has grown rapidly to handle 4.6 billion tonnes of goods each year. An efficient and clean logistics sector would make virtually every form of consumption marginally greener – a huge economy-wide benefit.
Due to India’s large geographical size with limited coastal or waterway access, most freight is transported via trucks running on diesel. Shifting large amounts of freight to rail, optimising vehicle loading, and encouraging fuel efficiency and electrification are some of the ways in which emissions from freight can be mitigated. Rail freight is more efficient than freight on trucks, and can also benefit from the widespread electrification of the Indian railways. The shift to rail could also be accompanied by the eventual electrification of road freight in combination with greater energy generation from non-fossil fuel sources to make freight transport even less carbon intensive.
iii) Shifting Away from Plastics and Improving Waste Management Practices:
While GHG emissions are an invisible by-product of rapid industrial development, waste – especially plastic waste – is a highly visible reminder of global environmental degradation. Aside from the visible component of plastics, microplastics and nanoplastics are found everywhere, and due to being non-biodegradable, are adversely impacting the health of many living organisms including human beings by penetrating deep into their bodies. Plastic production is also responsible for 4.5 percent of global GHG emissions, and 6 percent of global coal-based energy is utilised to produce plastics. The severity of the problem in India was highlighted in a report by the Central Pollution Control Board, which found that over a period of five years, the per capita plastic waste generation in the country had nearly doubled. The ubiquity of plastic-based products in modern lifestyles makes a shift away from it very difficult, but the evidence strongly suggests that we must wean ourselves off of it as soon as possible. A shift of this magnitude would require reducing (and eventually stopping) the use of plastics while simultaneously substituting it with other, more environmentally friendly materials.
A big step towards the reduction of plastic use has been taken by the Indian government already. In August 2021, the Plastic Waste Management Amendment Rules, 2021 were notified, in which certain single-use plastic products were prohibited in the country. As for substituting plastic with other products, Indian traditions provide us with some excellent alternatives. Leaf-based plates and food packaging have been in use for centuries. These products are made using traditional techniques, with leaves from trees such as sal, banyan, and areca. The use of natural and bio-degradable products is not just limited to plates, and traditional practices have also evolved with time. Today, sugarcane by-products are used to produce tableware, carry bags are produced from corn starch and jute, and burlap is used to produce high quality purses and handbags. These products are bio-degradable, and so do not linger in the ecosystem after disposal. Encouraging the development of the industries manufacturing these products will only aid in creating a reliable pathway away from plastic-dependent lifestyles.
In addition to reducing plastic waste, a shift towards better municipal solid waste management is also desirable. Waste reduction, reuse and recycling are all desirable lifestyle changes with GHG emissions mitigation potentials. Encouraging waste segregation, creating a demand for segregated waste, building institutional and municipal capacity to manage and enforce waste segregation are some of the steps that can be taken to nudge individuals towards efficient waste management. Traditional practices involving the reutilisation of plant and animal waste in Indian villages to provide fuel, manure and construction materials can also be studied and integrated with more modern practices, much like the GobarDHAN programme under the Swachh Bharat Mission which seeks to produce biogas from the decomposition of animal and vegetable waste.
(This note was drafted by Arunesh Karkun and Annanya Mahajan under the supervision of Navroz K. Dubash and Yamini Aiyar. It represents a set of ideas for discussion rather than an institutional position of the Centre for Policy Research.)
(Environmentality is a collection of ideas, perspectives, and commentary by researchers at the Initiative on Climate, Energy and Environment, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi. Views and opinions expressed in this blog are solely those of the authors. They do not represent institutional views.)
