A framework for measuring and modelling low-carbon lifestyles

Lifestyle is an integral and inevitable feature of transformation pathways consistent with the Paris Climate Agreement and United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Studies differentiating lifestyle types, clusters, or segments vary in their focus, purpose, reach, generalizability and availability. Universal frameworks are largely proprietary in nature, developed and used by market research companies for targeted communication and behaviour change strategies. There is a need for a more accessible lifestyle typology to promote understanding of lifestyle and its main drivers. In this paper we present a lifestyle typology for application to low-carbon research based on publicly available data from national statistical agencies. Drawing on substantive, inter-disciplinary literature, we define lifestyles as the interplay between cognitions and behaviours in specific material and social contexts. Using this definition, we develop a generalisable analytical framework for measuring and classifying lifestyles empirically, based on perspectives from public health, marketing, and pro-environmental research. We apply our framework using hierarchical cluster analysis of nationally representative household social survey data. We select four countries with contrasting contexts and lifestyles: UK (n = 5000 respondents), USA (n = 900 respondents), Australia (n = 5000 respondents) and China (n = 5000 respondents). We identify four low-carbon lifestyle types – 'Resourceful', 'Active', 'Constrained' and 'Cautious' – that are consistent across countries and robust to variation in analytical approach. Each lifestyle type is characterised by its low-carbon cognitions, by its propensity for low-carbon behaviours, and by its contextual markers. We use this differentiated lifestyle typology to identify major sources of heterogeneity in the opportunities, capacities, and constraints to leading a low-carbon lifestyle. Our approach is transparent and replicable, and our lifestyle framework is empirical-based and generalisable to different country contexts. Our findings can guide policy interventions for enabling low-carbon lifestyles, and enhance research efforts to model lifestyle. An improved understanding of lifestyle and its contribution in achieving the Paris Agreement climate targets, could also enhance efforts to visualise and plan for the low-carbon transition.