TY - JOUR

T1 - Zero carbon homes and zero carbon living

T2 - sociomaterial interdependencies in carbon governance

AU - Walker, Gordon

AU - Karvonen, Andrew

AU - Guy, Simon

N1 - Date of Acceptance: 06/03/2015

PY - 2015/10

Y1 - 2015/10

N2 - We consider in this paper the relations between built form and everyday practices of home-living. These we see as co-constituting a combined domestic carbon space in which sociomaterial interdependencies are constantly at work. Carbon emissions are necessarily caught up in these interdependencies and not separable from them. We use the case of the mainstreaming of zero carbon (zero-C) housing in the UK to explore whether conceiving of domestic carbon in properly sociomaterial terms reveals possibilities for, or resistances to, carbon governance objectives. We find strong resistances to the notion that zero-C might mean simultaneously creating ‘new normals’ of built form and ways of living, with market values and governance delineations resisting any sharing of responsibility for achieving zero-C between those building and those living in future homes. The slippery, contested and diminished calculation of zero-C has also been closely coupled to these ends. This case shows that resistances to carbon control can emerge in interdependent sociomaterial forms and are strengthened through that interdependency, such that carbon lock-in works through entwined forms of inertia. However, we argue that in other instances and spaces of carbon governance we might find alternative sociomaterial articulations that serve to configure the politics of change in more positive ways.

AB - We consider in this paper the relations between built form and everyday practices of home-living. These we see as co-constituting a combined domestic carbon space in which sociomaterial interdependencies are constantly at work. Carbon emissions are necessarily caught up in these interdependencies and not separable from them. We use the case of the mainstreaming of zero carbon (zero-C) housing in the UK to explore whether conceiving of domestic carbon in properly sociomaterial terms reveals possibilities for, or resistances to, carbon governance objectives. We find strong resistances to the notion that zero-C might mean simultaneously creating ‘new normals’ of built form and ways of living, with market values and governance delineations resisting any sharing of responsibility for achieving zero-C between those building and those living in future homes. The slippery, contested and diminished calculation of zero-C has also been closely coupled to these ends. This case shows that resistances to carbon control can emerge in interdependent sociomaterial forms and are strengthened through that interdependency, such that carbon lock-in works through entwined forms of inertia. However, we argue that in other instances and spaces of carbon governance we might find alternative sociomaterial articulations that serve to configure the politics of change in more positive ways.

KW - carbon governance

KW - housing

KW - zero carbon

KW - social practices

U2 - 10.1111/tran.12090

DO - 10.1111/tran.12090

M3 - Journal article

VL - 40

SP - 494

EP - 506

JO - Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers

JF - Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers

SN - 0020-2754

IS - 4

ER -