Renewable energy plays an important role in the transition to a low emission society, yet in many regions energy projects have resulted in increasing societal polarization. Based on a comprehensive literature review and a survey among stakeholders from specific regions in Germany, Italy, Latvia, Norway, Poland and Spain with little prior experience with wind energy, we highlight six categories of factors that shape community acceptance of onshore wind energy development: technical characteristics of wind energy projects, environmental impacts, economic impacts, societal impacts, contextual factors and individual characteristics. We identify key similarities in acceptance-related patterns of wind energy development across the selected regions, but also important differences, highlighting the very context-specific nature of community acceptance. The findings contribute to improving the understanding of the forces, factors and relationships at play between policy frameworks and perceptions of wind energy under different conditions. We conclude by proposing policy recommendations regarding measures to increase the positive impacts and reduce the negative impacts of wind energy projects, and to strengthen existing drivers and reduce barriers to community acceptance of wind energy development.

This article investigates the role of practices in sustainability transitions. Employing a social practices approach, we analyze the reproduction of car-sharing practices and discuss its role in transitions to sustainable mobility. We assemble data from interviews with 39 households using car sharing in Oslo, Norway, and show three specific ways of reproducing car-sharing practices: (a) FUSS: Frequent, Unplanned, Short-term, and Small-car use, (b) POLL: Planned, Occasional, Longer-term, and Larger-car use; and (c) PERC: Purpose Elected from Range of Cars. After examining contributing factors, especially the role of provider and user contexts, we turn to how car sharing relates to other household practices. We highlight how car-dependent activities and substitutes for daily car use contribute to the reproduction of car-sharing. We then discuss how the reproduction of a new practice can help to explain the process through which a niche-based practice becomes a regime-based practice in the transition from one mobility regime to a new one. The article shows that by understanding the reproduction of practices as several different performances, a social practices approach can contribute to understanding the normalization of new mobility practices in sustainability transitions.

There are many forms of sharing occurring in local communities that can help reduce overconsumption and mitigate the continuous growth of climate emissions. Lately, traditional forms of local sharing have been supplemented with internet-based peer-to-peer sharing applications. This paper applies a social capital perspective to explore the relational basis for different forms of sharing in local communities, and to inform a discussion on how local sharing can be scaled up. Based on a survey of citizens in four municipalities in Norway, four key forms of sharing are explored including p2p-sharing, sharing schemes organised in the community, sharing of time through voluntary work, and informal sharing among friends, family and neighbours. Results indicate that bridging social capital is particularly important for all sharing activities, and that time-sharing is most strongly sustained by social capital. In addition to social capital dimensions, environmental motives also contribute to people’s engagement in face-to-face local sharing. p2p-sharing, however, is to a much lesser degree related to social capital and environmental motives.

Though multiple studies have explored the phenomenon of car sharing, very few have indulged into exploring how different forms of trust varies between users of different business models. We address this research gap through employing quantitative data analyses of car sharers in Norway. Results show that the levels of ingroup and outgroup-trust (i.e., trust towards friends/family or unfamiliar persons) are markedly low for the members of the peer-to-peer scheme (M = 3.4/2.9) as compared to the cooperative (M = 6.0/4.8) and business-to-consumer scheme (M = 5.7/4.4). In contrast, technology-based trust is more important for the P2P sharers (M = 5.8) than cooperative (M = 5.6) and the B2C users (M = 5.6). Our findings echo previous studies, indicating that a different set of institutional logics is driving the transactions at the emerging P2P platforms compared to former non-profit sharing communities.

Car sharing could support a transition away from private vehicle ownership and use. Attempts to understand participation in car sharing have primarily focused on minor and major disruptions which catalyse change in practices. This paper examines how processes of entering, continuing or exiting car sharing systems unfold in Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK. Car sharing is conceptualised as an arrangement of elements assembled, adjusted and supported by events, practices and habits. Drawing on biographically-oriented household interviews, we build on and extend existing understandings of change and stability in car sharing in four ways. First, by focusing on households rather than individual users, the paper complements recent attempts to understand the decoupling of family and private-car-based mobility. Second, under-examined processes of exiting, alongside entry and continuation are considered. Third, it highlights the importance of recognising more imperceptible, gradual and continuous changes which might not necessarily coincide with a disruptive event. Fourth, habits of shared car arrangements are demonstrated to be fragile and not as deeply ingrained as those associated with ownership. Existing household practices and habits thus raise further questions about the potential for shared mobility services to disrupt the primacy of the car.