Flying for less or less flying? Exploiting the social practice theory to address the climate impacts of professional air travel

Cellina, Francesca and Morici, Luca (2021) Flying for less or less flying? Exploiting the social practice theory to address the climate impacts of professional air travel. In: 5th Energy and Society Conference, February 10 - 12, 2021, Online; organized by the University of Trento, Department of Sociology and Social Research.

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Abstract

In the light of the global climate crisis, the need for decarbonisation of the economy is widely acknowledged. In the Western “high-speed” and increasingly accelerating neo-liberal, globalized society, however, air travel has only recently entered the political agenda, despite a steady growth in the demand for (cheap) flying and the lack of purely technology fixes. Against this backdrop, we use the Social Practice Theory to inform a set of policy interventions supporting systemic change for long distance travelling. Building on the phenomenon of climate scientists committing to flying less, we aim at mainstreaming and normalizing less flying practices among the academic body of the University of Applied Sciences of Southern Switzerland (SUPSI), targeting their long-distance travels for professional reasons. In early 2021 we will enact policy interventions aimed at substituting flying with train travel and/or video conferencing, by acting on the elements that configure the flying practice-as-entity (meanings, materials, competences, and their inter-relations), in order to steer a transformation in the practice-as-performance. At the conference we will present the current flying patterns of SUPSI employees and the outcome of interviews aimed at exploring the meanings they associate to flying and their alternatives, to directly inform contents of the interventions.

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