Conceptualising Demand

"This is an agenda-setting book. Combining big ideas with telling examples, it shows how we need to follow the practices of daily life if we want to understand the growth of demand. Vital reading for anyone hoping to come to grips with our dangerously growing appetite for energy and mobility." -- Frank Trentmann, History, Birkbeck College, UK. "This book is a response to the urgency of low carbon transitions. It argues for approaches that go beyond energy efficiency and that explicitly focus on how demand is shaped and can be reduced. The authors sum up insights from decades of research in a way that is accessible and inspiring for new readers and for those already familiar with social practice theory and governance." -- Inge Rpke, Ecological Economics, Aalborg University, Copenhagen, Denmark. "Conceptualising Demand provides a coherent account of the social, material and historical foundations of demand, a concept which has become central to many areas of research and policy. A must-read for anyone trying to change demand in the energy or mobility sectors." -- Yolande Strengers, Emerging Technologies Research Lab, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.

Jenny Rinkinen is a researcher in the Consumer Society Research Centre at the University of Helsinki, Finland. Elizabeth Shove is a Professor in the Department of Sociology at Lancaster University, UK, and was the PI of the DEMAND Research Center. Greg Marsden is a Professor of Transport Governance at the Institute for Transport Studies at the University of Leeds, UK.

1. Introduction 2. Constituting demand 3. Matters of demand 4. The temporalities of demand 5. Shaping and steering demand 6. Demand: a distinctive approach