Recogida de datos

As already outlined, the initial positions of both sides were much further apart than they realised; without a shared understanding of the importance of action on climate change, there was a tendency for the two sides to Ôtalk pastÕ each other. In this analysis, the declaration of support for the environment by the service head was a politically correct gesture unsupported by signiÞcant action. While a senior manager might indeed be expected to demonstrate support for council priorities, deeper explanation of the service headÕs behaviour can be found through a reading of social representation theory (Whitmarsh et al., 2011, pp.57-58).

This suggests another possibility: that the service head does indeed accept the broad case for increased environmental action but that this will not necessarily result in any new policy implementation. Breakwell (1993, p.213) argues that awareness and understanding of an issue does not necessarily lead to a change in behaviour. An individual will assimilate the social representation of an issue and accommodate it within their existing identity and perspective (Breakwell, 1993, pp.204-207). This echoes the decentred network concepts of traditions and dilemmas. An individual

has Ôsituated agencyÕ, possessing the freedom to act when confronted with a policy dilemma, but is greatly inßuenced by their own particular web of beliefs, expressed as a tradition of action (Bevir and Richards, 2009a, pp.9-10). The importance of identity and tradition for Service 1 was discussed by the manager-turned-mediator:

ÒThese people have been doing it the way theyÕve been doing it for years and years and years. They donÕt want to change and their managers arenÕt going to changeÉI think thatÕs a huge cultural issue for us in that

service.Ó (County 1 Department Head 1, interview 1)

The Ôbusiness-as-usualÕ availability of cheap, plentiful energy is part of this tradition of practice within Service 1. Climate change challenges this, provoking a dilemma for those within Service 1 who are faced with a threat both to their tradition of service delivery and their identities as individuals within that service (Bevir and Richards, 2009a, p.5).

As well as discovering the wider problems of environmental law compliance discussed earlier in the chapter, the climate change manager found that the local authority already had a policy in place obliging Service 1 to use Ôwhole life costingsÕ to take account of long-term energy costs when on large capital projects. This means of expressing environmental impact, often referred to in the literature as life-cycle assessments, seeks to calculate the total environmental impact of a particular good or service (Wiedmann and Minx, 2008). For energy usage, this requires expanding the deÞnition of a buildingÕs costs beyond those incurred through construction to also include the ongoing energy supply costs throughout the buildingÕs life cycle (Whole Life Cycle Costing Forum, n.d.). The climate change

manager elaborated on the technologies involved, and how the approach was not implemented despite the local authorityÕs policy:

ÒWhole life costings are actually required in the strategy. But the idea of us suggesting that they do them [laughs]É. TheyÕd often come up with quite energy efÞcient things - solar water heating, grey water recycling, things like that - but when they costed them up, they wouldnÕt meet the budget, so theyÕd start value engineering them and cut out all those things, and theyÕd cut down to the bone of building regulations É.

[Where] whole life costings would come in, if you use renewables itÕs going to cost x thousand pounds more to build, but much less a year to run. The whole life cycle cost comes out as much less, bit more capital upfrontÉ. At the moment, the client gets presented with É [Service 1Õs]

É recommendation, whereas they should get presented with: you could do this, this or this, and this is how they work out over the

lifetimeÓ (County 1 Climate Change Manager 2, interview 1)

This highlights the way in which Service 1 understood climate change. Acceptance of the issue relied on an anchoring within their own prior knowledge (Whitmarsh et al., 2011, p.63), in this case the association of climate change with technologies of energy efÞciency and renewable energy. By including these features in initial project designs, Service 1 saw itself as understanding climate change. However, this

understanding remained situated within a prevailing tradition of cheap energy which treated the ongoing costs of running a building as negligible, so not judged over the long term. The criteria for judging new renewable energy technologies were

assimilated within existing modes of short term cost-beneÞt analysis, under which they became more likely to be removed from a project than if the alternative system of whole life costings were to be adopted.

This assimilation of renewable energy technologies within the social representation of climate change also acts as a defence of continuity within Service 1, and of

individual self-esteem in the face of signiÞcant policy changes proposed by an external source (Breakwell, 1993, p.205). While Service 1 held considerable power within the local authority as instrumental in providing a service to local residents, the political priority placed on climate change meant they could not reject the issue outright. They instead accommodated the technological aspects of the social

representation of climate change with which they were familiar, but not those underlying principles likely to upend their tradition.