Understanding sustainability transitions through agent-based modelling

Aims
To understand the factors influencing human decision-making in relation to sustainability transitions.
Rationale
The development of a green economy, or an economy that is economically, environmentally and socially sustainable, is an imperative. To achieve a transition to sustainability, changes in human behaviour are required. Specifically, lifestyle decisions relating to consumption and use of goods and services will need to change at the societal level, in favour of options that are relatively ‘green’. While such transitions are an explicit objective of current policies, it is unclear how they may be achieved in practice. This requires an understanding of the factors influencing human decision-making relating to consumer preferences and lifestyle choices. Such an understanding can potentially be provided by existing theory, derived from psychological, social and biological sciences.
Methods
This research will consider human society as a complex adaptive system composed of agents (either individual people or organisations), which interact locally in time and space. Such systems display macroscopic behaviours, which emerge from local interactions between agents. While the dynamics of such systems are often unpredictable and uncertain, they may display emergent properties, such as a collective shift in behaviour (Levin 2010). We propose that a sustainability transition at the societal level represents such a shift or “tipping point”. Understanding how a sustainability transition might be achieved therefore depends on understanding the interactions between agents, which influence their decision-making.
On the basis of current theory (Gladwell 2010, Levin 2010), we propose that human decision-making is primarily influenced by the values and actions of an immediate peer group, such as the social contacts of an individual, or the competitors of a business. We aim to test this hypothesis using a novel iterative approach, employing experimentation and agent-based modelling. We propose to construct a dummy social network internet site, to provide a virtual laboratory, within which we will explore the factors influencing individual decision-making. This will enable us to manipulate the values and actions of a virtual peer group, and observe the impacts on decision-making by experimental subjects. We will use the results to simulate the emergent behaviour of a community of people, using agent-based modelling approaches, which will guide the design of further experimentation. Specifically, using this iterative approach, we will test the hypothesis that there is a key threshold or ‘tipping point’ relating to consumer preference for ‘green’ goods and services, and associated lifestyle choices. Such tipping points have been documented in a range of complex adaptive systems. We posit that achievement of a sustainability transition at the societal level can only be achieved by such a tipping point, such that sustainable livelihoods become the dominant pattern of behaviour in society.
Outcomes
The research will provide novel insights into the processes of human decision-making, and will increase understanding of the dynamics of social-ecological systems. It will also contribute to policy development relating to sustainability transitions. The research will deliver at least three publications in high impact, refereed journals.