ECRP IV Highlights - 08-ECRP-003

08-ECRP-003 Comparative Assessment of E-Participation in the Context of Sustainable Development and Climate Change

The main objective of the project was the development of a multidisciplinary concept and tool-set for evaluating the output, outcome and impact of citizen participation via the internet in a comparative setting. For the first time the same research instruments were applied to the same kind of citizen participation in seven local communities in three countries (Austria, Germany and Spain). The kind of participation chosen was a citizen panel to support local climate policy. This subject was chosen not only because it is a salient issue, but also because some impacts can be measured using figures on energy consumption. More than 650 local governments have signed the Aalborg Commitments and committed themselves to an annual CO2 reduction, regular monitoring and citizens’ participation (http://www.aalborgplus10.dk/).

Within the local panels – of a size between 35 and 398 active members at the start (1.159 in total) –participants reported every two months on individual consumption of energy, mobility, nutrition and consumer goods according to a standard form over a period of between one and two years. These data were translated into CO2 emissions by a nationally accredited CO2 calculator. In return participants received feedback information, e.g. the individual timeline of their CO2 emissions, the average data for comparable households, newsletters with recommendations for CO2 reduction, invitations to meetings, etc. 

The evaluation concept includes stakeholders before and after interviews, three waves of participant surveys addressing motivation, usability, lessons learned, changes of behaviour, etc., and an analysis of consumption figures over time.

The first relevant finding was that several signatories of the Aalborg commitments were not ready to initiate such a participation process, most of all because they could not or would not provide the personnel resources to support such a process. The reluctance of local governments with regard to citizens´ participation became visible through the analysis of the websites of the Aalborg+10 signatories. The results show that the degree of transparency is much higher than the interactivity, which is influenced by the local public management culture.

With some variation between the three countries as well as between urban and rural communities the overall result is that there is a big gap between citizens’ verbal commitment to CO2 reduction and their actual behavior. The rational approach of providing feedback information on energy consumption and mobility behaviour is not sufficient to produce lasting changes towards environmentally friendly consumption behaviour. Nor could we prove the assumption from behavioural economics that the comparison of personal data with average values for comparable households is a strong incentive to change behaviour. There are many barriers to such changes. For example, the efforts of energy saving of a whole year may be spoiled by one long-distance flight for a summer holiday. In general lasting changes to sustainable consumption in addition to feedback information (e.g. via smart meters) need some kind of affective incentives and support.

For each panel there was a control group which provided information via the telephone and received feedback by mail. While there is no systematic difference with regard to the reduction of CO2 emissions, the drop-out rate is a little higher among the on-liners. These results show that the use of the internet is an enabler but is not the solution for the engagement of citizens in participation processes. It seems that the integration of e-participation with traditional “offline” tools for public participation in policy-making is more appropriate.

Besides citizens’ collaboration via longer lasting panels, the evaluation concept and tools have also been applied to five different short-term consultation processes. These tools (interview guidelines and survey questionnaires in English, German and Spanish) can be applied to the evaluation of other consultation and collaboration processes as well.

Project Leader

HerbertKubicekE-Mail
University of BremenInstitut für Informationsmanagement Bremen (ifib)BremenGermany

Principal Investigators

GeorgAichholzerE-Mail
Austrian Academy of SciencesInstitute for Technology AssessmentViennaAustria
LourdesTorresE-Mail
University of ZaragozaFaculty of Economics and Business AdministrationDepartment of Accounting and FinanceResearch Group "Gespública"ZaragozaSpain