Sustainable technologies and social acceptance

Aims

This course aims to:

• teach learners a good understanding of the broad and expanding portfolio of sustainability technologies that are emerging to address climate change 
• develop learners understanding of diverse and evolving stakeholder attitudes towards sustainable technologies and the inherent trade-offs that are associated with different technological options
• progress learners understanding of the critical role that stakeholders play in the development of legitimate climate technology policy

Course content

You will explore the expanding portfolio of sustainable technologies that policy makers are considering to address climate change and examine why their success depends not only on technical and economic performance, but also on social acceptance. You will focus on how stakeholder attitudes shape the acceptability and social feasibility of these technologies in practice.

Across the five sessions, you will be introduced to key concepts such as sustainable and climate technologies, social acceptance, and negative emissions technologies and practices (NETPs), as well as the roles played by different stakeholders, including national governments, intergovernmental organisations, companies, non-governmental organisations, and national and local publics.

You will take part in a series of interactive exercises and case studies that help you analyse how and why stakeholders formulate views about different climate technologies. You will work with peers to develop position statements representing the interests of key stakeholder groups towards NETPs, and you will participate in an experiment to explore as a class how different images and communication frames influence stakeholder perceptions.

By the end of the course, you will have a clear understanding of the core social engagement issues that need to be addressed for climate technology policy to be considered socially acceptable.

What to expect on this course

You will learn in a highly interactive, in-person environment that combines short lectures, guided discussions, and practical activities. There will be many opportunities to work with peers to unpack real-world cases and explore different perspectives towards complex problems. You will take part in case-based exercises that help you analyse the views and underlying attitudinal drivers of national governments, companies, non-governmental organisations, and national and local publics towards climate technologies. 

The in-person format will allow you to test arguments in real time, negotiate differing viewpoints, and receive immediate feedback from your peers and the instructor. You will have opportunities to ask questions, challenge assumptions, and reflect collectively on what makes climate technologies socially acceptable in practice.

Course sessions

1.    What do we mean by sustainable technologies? Which options are on the policy agenda and which factors determine their ultimate success? This session will provide an introduction to sustainable technologies that are currently being debated by policymakers. It will call for an interdisciplinary approach and encourage you explore the role of social factors alongside techno-economic influences of sustainable technologies’ success.

2.    Stakeholders and social acceptance: Who are the stakeholders of sustainable technologies? Why do their views matter for climate technology policy and what do we mean by social acceptance? This session will give you an overview of key stakeholders national governments, intergovernmental organisations such as the UN and EU, private sector (including hard to abate sectors and diverse sectors involved in scope three emission and supply chains), nongovernmental organisations and national publics and their diverse perspectives towards climate technologies.

3.    How do policymakers decide between different sustainability technologies? In this session, you will take on the role of policymakers who are asked to decide between different negative emissions technologies and practices. As a class, we will evaluate the importance of key features of new climate technologies. You will work in small groups to prepare positions statements to represent different stakeholders in deliberating the role that different climate technologies should play in addressing climate change. 
4.    A visualisation experiment to understand the impact of communication frames and imagery. This session will use a visualisation experiment to assess as a class whether and how different styles of images and communication techniques influence stakeholders’ attitudes towards new and unfamiliar climate technologies.
5.    Conclusion: Stakeholder negotiation simulation. The class will simulate a multi-stakeholder negotiation over a hypothetical climate technology project (such as a direct air capture facility, bioenergy and carbon capture and storage plant or smart heat-pump infrastructure for old housing). You will work in small groups to represent a stakeholder position to present in a town hall style negotiation and try to come to an agreement as a class on the core characteristics of the project and engagement principles that should be followed. 

Learning outcomes

As a result of the course, you will gain a greater understanding of the subject and you should be able to:

•    demonstrate a basic understanding of the portfolio of climate technologies that are emerging to address climate change
•    demonstrate a basic understanding of key stakeholder perspectives and underlying attitudinal drivers that influence perspectives towards climate technologies
•    demonstrate an understanding of the role of stakeholder engagement in helping the development of legitimate climate technology policy

Required reading

There are no compulsory readings for this course. However, you may find the recommended reading list of interest to supplement your course.