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Abstract Decarbonizing industrial sectors is a critical global challenge, involving the creation of new industrial spaces—‘net zero industrial clusters’—co‐locating energy sectors and ‘hard‐to‐abate’ industries such as oil refining and steelmaking. This paper provides the first empirically grounded geographical investigation of these emerging spaces. It employs a place‐based research agenda to unpack how UK net zero industrial clusters (ICs) are imagined and emplaced in policy and industry discourses through place‐based naming, spatial configuring and mapping activities. By conducting document analysis, 33 in‐depth stakeholder interviews and five field trips to three UK case studies, we show how cluster imaginaries vary across cases and policy contexts in terms of constituents, focus and purpose. Ontological complexity is compounded by different rationales among stakeholders in configuring clusters and by contested cluster naming and boundary setting. This ambiguous, evolving spatiality raises important political and justice concerns over who and where is excluded in cluster building. These findings advance the geographies of low‐carbon transitions by showing: (1) ways that ICs' spatial embeddedness, which underlies cluster spatial configurations, helps increase industry actors' recognition of their economic, social and cultural ties with the places of their making, even if this risks path dependency; (2) how fluid cluster boundaries, reflected in cluster names and maps, emphasize the value of a network topology of scale to enable spatially inclusive, multi‐scalar climate mitigation. Finally, we argue that a place‐sensitive net zero policy mindset is vital for fulfilling ICs and the UK's decarbonization potential in a manner that is both fair and locally grounded.

Globally, smart city initiatives are becoming increasingly ubiquitous elements of complex, sociotechnical urban systems. While there is general agreement that cities cannot be smart without citizen involvement, the motivations, means, and mechanisms for engaging citizens remain contested. In response, this article asks what the role of citizens is in two recently established smart districts within the wider Smart Dublin programme: Smart Sandyford, a business district, and Smart Balbriggan, a town north of Dublin with Ireland’s most ethnically diverse and youthful population. Using multiple methods (online and in-person interviews, site visits, a focus group, and participant observation), this article specifically examines how the “quadruple helix,” a popular concept within innovation studies and one that is adopted in promotional materials by Dublin’s emerging smart districts, is used by key actors as an overarching framing device for activities. It finds that, to date, the quadruple helix concept is being applied simplistically and uncritically, without attention to pre-existing and persistent patterns of uneven power and influence between the different actors involved. As such it risks inhibiting rather than supporting meaningful citizen engagement for smart and sustainable places that both smart districts articulate as a key driver of their activities.

Abstract Shale gas is an expanding energy source worldwide, yet ‘fracking’ remains controversial. Amongst public concerns is induced seismicity (tremors). The UK had the most stringent induced seismicity regulations in the world, prior to instating a moratorium on shale gas development. The Government cited induced seismicity as the key rationale for its November 2019 English moratorium. Yet, little is known about how the public perceives induced seismicity, whether they support regulatory change, or how framing and information provision affect perceptions. Across three waves of a longitudinal experimental UK survey (N = 2777; 1858; 1439), we tested whether framing of induced seismicity influences support for changing regulations. The surveys compared (1) quantitative versus qualitative framings, (2) information provision about regulatory limits in other countries and (3) seismicity from other industries, and (4) framing a seismic event as an ‘earthquake’ or something else. We find low support for changing current policy, and that framing and information provision made little difference to this. The one strong influence on perceptions of seismic events came from the type of activity causing the event; shale gas extraction clearly led to the most negative reactions. We discuss implications for future UK policy on shale gas and geothermal energy in an evolving energy landscape.

It has been argued that a ‘new climate politics’ has emerged in recent years, in the wake of global climate change protest movements. One part of the new climate politics entails experimentation with citizen-centric input into policy development, via mechanisms of deliberative democracy such as citizens’ assemblies. Yet relatively little is known about the motivations and aspirations of those commissioning climate assemblies or about general public perceptions of these institutions. Addressing these issues is important for increasing understanding of what these deliberative mechanisms represent in the context of climate change, how legitimate, credible and useful they are perceived to be by those involved, and whether they represent a radical way of doing politics differently or a more incremental change. This article addresses these gaps by presenting findings from mixed method research on prior expectations of the Devon Climate Assembly, proposed following the declaration of a climate emergency in 2019. The research compares and contrasts the views of those commissioning and administering the citizens’ assembly, with those of the wider public. Findings indicate widespread support, yet also considerable risk and uncertainty associated with holding the assembly. Enabling input into policy of a broad array of public voices was seen as necessary for effective climate response, yet there was scepticism about the practical challenges involved in ensuring citizen representation, and about whether politicians, and society more generally, would embrace the ‘hard choices’ required. The assembly was diversely represented as a means to unlock structural change, and as an instrumental tool to achieve behaviour change at scale. The Devon Climate Assembly appears to indicate ‘cautious experimentation’ where democratic innovation is widely embraced yet carefully constrained, offering only a modest example of a ‘new climate politics,’ with minimal challenges to the authority of existing institutions.

Pattern-IT is a participatory, card sorting activity that aims to illuminate the relationships between people, technologies and concepts in complex systems. Pattern-IT combines two methods: card sorting [11] and mapping sentences [2,6]. Depending on the aims and scope of the research or topic, Pattern-IT can be used in an exploratory, descriptive, or interpretative manner. It is a co-created, adaptable and enjoyable method that can be used with individuals or groups, in-person or online, with or without facilitation. In this paper, Pattern-IT was conducted face-to-face in a moderated group setting using physical cards to explore engagement by project partners with publics involved in implementing Smart Local Energy Systems (SLES). SLES are decentralised energy systems that use information communication technologies (e.g. smart meters, blockchain, real-time pricing) to connect low carbon energy generation (e.g. solar PV) with energy storage and energy services (e.g. electric vehicles). • A method that combines card sorting and mapping sentences. • Uses mapping sentences as an organising and data generating tool. • A novel co-created participatory method for use with individuals or groups.

This paper explores children's beliefs about global warming and energy sources from a psychological perspective, focusing upon situational influences upon subjective beliefs, including perceived self-efficacy. The context of the research is one of growing concern at the potential impacts of global warming, yet demonstrably low levels of self-efficacy amongst both adults and children to effectively respond to this large-scale environmental problem. Empirical research was conducted on a sample of 198 UK children and adults to explore the influence of a cooperative learning environment upon children's beliefs about global warming and energy. A comparative design was adopted, contrasting 9-12 year old members of the Woodcraft Folk educational organisation with non-members of similar age and with adult members of the same organisation. Results indicate that cooperative learning environments can have a significant and positive effect upon children's beliefs about large-scale environmental problems. In particular, Woodcraft folk children reported significantly higher levels of personal awareness and perceived self-efficacy in relation to global warming in comparison to their peers. Secondly, unexpected differences were identified between levels of perceived self-efficacy in children and adult Woodcraft folk. The implications of these differences for the design of educational programmes seeking to empower children to respond to global warming are discussed.

• We are concerned about JEVP's decision not to accept pure qualitative research. • Qualitative research provides important insights for environmental psychology. • Excluding this method limits opportunities for research with minority populations. • The decision may negatively impact scholars from minoritised backgrounds. • It may also limit interdisciplinary approaches to environmental psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Proposes empathy as a key phenomenon that shapes human-environment relations. • Empathy-sustainability involves empathy with others and empathy with nature, mediated through place and identity. • Diverse methods, from experiments and games through to creative engagement, can measure and stimulate empathy. • Evidence on empathy-sustainability relationship, and the mediating roles of place and identity, informs policy on sustainability. Sustainability science recognises the need to fully incorporate cultural and emotional dimensions of environmental change to understand how societies deal with and shape anticipated transformations, unforeseen risks and increasing uncertainties. The relationship between empathy and sustainability represents a key advance in understanding underpinning human-environment relations. We assert that lack of empathy for nature and for others limits motivations to conserve the environment and enhance sustainability. Critically, the relationship between empathy and sustainability is mediated by place and identity that constrain and shape empathy's role in pro-environmental sustainability behaviour. We review emerging evidence across disciplines and suggest a new model exploring interactions between place, identity and empathy for sustainability. There are emerging innovative methodological approaches to observe, measure and potentially stimulate empathy for sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper develops a theoretical argument for how place attachments are forged and become dynamically linked to increasingly common mobility practices. First, we argue that mobilities, rather than negating the importance of place, shift our understanding of place and the habitual ways we relate to and bond with places as distinct from a conception of place attachment premised on fixity and stability. Second, we document how the body of research on place attachment has both reinforced and contested 'sedentaristic' assumptions criticized within the so-called 'mobilities turn' in the social sciences. Third, we present a conceptual framework, built around different modes of interrelation between fixity and flow, as a way to re-theorize, link and balance the various studies of place attachment that have grappled with mobility. Finally, we sketch out the main research implications of this framework for advancing our understanding of place attachment in a mobile world. Highlights • Mobility complicates sedentaristic assumptions in place attachment research. • Aspects of fixity and flow shape place attachments related to mobility. • The fixity-flow framework emphasizes place attachments as dynamic and fluid. • The fixity-flow framework reconceptualizes mobility-related place attachment research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on people-place relations, incorporating place attachment and place identity, has often adopted a structural approach, overlooking the dynamic nature of these relations over time. More process-oriented research has tended to investigate the impacts of single moments or events, neglecting a broader focus upon people's life course. To address this gap, this study investigated patterns of residential place attachments ('life-place trajectories') and used these to better understand current place relations and responses to change, including disruption to pre-existing place bonds. Narrative interviews (n = 25) were conducted in 2013 with residents living in Nailsea, a UK town affected by proposals to construct a high voltage power line. Three notable findings emerged. First, the study indicated five novel lifeplace trajectories characterised by diverse configurations of residential mobility and continuity of settlement type. Second, the study extends our understanding of varieties of relationship with the current residence place, including identifying a novel variety of 'traditional-active attachment'. Third, the study indicates the relevance of the trajectories for understanding responses to place change proposals, including acceptance and opposition. The findings show the value of the narrative interview method for revealing place relations across the life course, informing understanding of people-place relations and infrastructure siting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In going beyond the NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) concept, Devine-Wright (2009) posited a place-based approach highlighting the role of social representations of place for understanding responses to energy infrastructure projects. Existing studies (Devine- Wright & Howes, 2010; Anderson, 2013) have investigated the ways in which representations of diverse forms of place change are anchored and objectified symbolically based on existing social representations of place. These studies have shown that the degree of fit between representations of place and proposed place change can be seen to inform community responses to different developments. There is however, a dearth of research investigating the symbolic fit of power line projects amongst existing representations of the English countryside, despite the fact that such projects are both highly controversial and key to ensuring delivery of low-carbon energy policy targets. This paper thus sought to explore social representations of a proposed power line development in Southwest England and their symbolic fit with representations of nearby countryside areas, given the increased deployment of low-carbon energy infrastructure in this locale. Five focus groups were conducted with residents of a town in North Somerset, to highlight residents' co-constructed place and project-based social representations. Findings from thematic data analysis suggest that those representing the nearby countryside as replete with existing grid infrastructure objectified the power line proposal as an acceptable and 'familiar' form of place change. Conversely, those representing the countryside as 'natural' tended to objectify the proposal as industrialising this locale, objecting to it on this basis. This study reveals the utility of adopting Social Representations Theory to understand responses to proposed energy infrastructure developments given the UK low carbon transition, and suggests that grid companies could enhance acceptance by seeking to minimise the 'industrial' nature of such projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large-scale renewable energy and associated technologies (RET), such as high voltage power lines (HVPL), often meet opposition from the local communities living nearby. Research has suggested that one of the main aspects that might contribute to this is the fact that RET are represented as industrial and urban, and thus, as having a different essence from rural landscapes, where they are usually deployed and which are represented as natural and unspoilt. However, this ‘hypothesis’ of landscape essentialisation shaping people's responses to RET has not been explicitly examined. By drawing upon research from Social Psychology and Human Geography on essentialisation, we will examine if and how landscape (de-)essentialisation plays a role in people's responses to RET. Namely, by examining it as a rhetorical construction that can be strategically used to negotiate and legitimize given relations with place and associated responses to RET. Focus groups were conducted in the UK and Norway with members of local communities to be affected by the construction of HVPLs that will connect to new low carbon energy technologies. Analyses show that participants present British and Norwegian rural landscapes in general and HVPL as having two different essences, which justifies opposition to those infrastructures. However, analyses also show that essentialisation of the countryside is strategically used. Namely, participants also present the countryside in the place where they live as having more of the essence of the British or Norwegian countryside than other areas of the UK and Norway. In turn, this allows them to legitimize claims that whereas HVPL are ‘out of place’ in the countryside in general, they are more so in the place where they live. The implications of these results for the definition of acceptable locations for RET and for research on people–place relations and responses to place change, are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transmission lines are critical infrastructures, but frequently contested especially at the local level, by local communities. The role of public engagement in processes pertaining to specific transmission line projects is an under-researched, yet important topic that this paper seeks to discuss by investigating how inhabitants perceive these processes and to what extent they find the processes just and fair. This paper addresses the participatory aspects of the planning process, as perceived by the local inhabitants in four Norway and UK cases, by using a qualitative comparative case study design. We further analyse this issue through frameworks of public engagement and procedural justice. In both countries public engagement is largely characterized by perceptions of insufficient information, and insufficient influence on the process. In sum, the findings indicate that the informants generally perceive the opportunities for involvement as insufficient and unjust. The findings are quite similar across all cases and both countries. Local inhabitants represent diverse groups who often have different levels of knowledge, time and engagement to bring to the planning process. Their requests for improved processes thus underline the serious public engagement challenges that applicants and decision-makers face. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is currently an expansion of local energy initiatives, underpinned by the desire to reduce energy-related carbon emissions and in recognition of the importance of the local arena to achieving such change. Much of the research on these initiatives has been framed by a conventional economic approach, identifying barriers, drivers and incentives to explain their emergence (or not). Here a new economic sociological approach is taken which sees markets as socio-materially constructed and points to the importance of tracing exchange flows and determining modalities of valuation for such exchanges. Artefacts or market devices are seen to play a particular role in connecting actors and technologies within coordinating institutional arrangements and offer the potential for making innovative projects conventional. These aspects are explored in four international case-studies from Wales, Sweden, Germany and USA, mapping relations, identifying exchange flows, pinpointing how artefacts coordinate and showing the multiple modalities of valuation involved in each case. Conclusions concerning the importance of negotiation against a market backdrop and rendering exchange flows more certain are drawn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on people-place relations, specifically place attachment and place identity, is beginning to make an important contribution to understanding human responses to climate change. However, to date there has been a dearth of research on how place attachments at multiple scales, particularly the global, and individual level ideological beliefs combine to influence climate change attitudes and opinions. To address these gaps, survey data was collected from a representative sample of Australian citizens ( N = 1147), capturing attachments at neighbourhood, city/town, state/territory, country and global scales, as well as a range of climate change belief and individual difference measures. Results show the importance of the interplay between national and global place attachments. Individuals expressing stronger global than national attachments were more likely to attribute climate change to anthropogenic causes, to oppose hierarchy-enhancing myths that legitimize climate inaction, and to perceive positive economic impacts arising from climate change responses, in comparison to individuals indicating stronger national over global place attachments. Individuals with stronger global than national attachments were more likely to be female, younger, and self-identify as having no religion, to be more likely to vote Green and to be characterized by significantly lower levels of right wing authoritarian and social dominance beliefs. Right wing authoritarian and social dominance beliefs mediated the effects of place attachments upon climate change skepticism. Explanations for the findings and implications for future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] This paper examines 13 innovative international decentralised energy case studies. [•] Literature portrays financial incentives and the impact of policies as the main driver. [•] Stakeholders emphasised the role of environmental awareness and concern as a prominent driver. [•] Compliance and awareness and concern seem not mutually exclusive. [•] Environmental concern reinforces the willingness to comply with the regulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]