How to achieve climate-friendly behaviour changes ? A case study of the university of Grenoble

Climate change is definitely a huge challenge for the 21st century. Mitigation actions that stem from individual behaviour change towards a lower individual carbon footprint are part of the response. However, barriers are numerous for individuals to change their behaviour and actually reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Even individuals with positive attitudes may show much reluctance to behave in a climate-friendly way. Against this background, our paper aims to investigate how these barriers can be overcome so that individuals take action. The first section reviews the individual, sociological, and institutional barriers that have been identified in the social sciences literature, and options that may spur action. The second section presents the climate mitigation initiative that has been implemented at the university of Grenoble, France, to engage its members into reducing their greenhouse gas emissions, and draws lessons from the results obtained. Digging alternatively into economics, sociology, psychology, and marketing brings some tools to lift barriers to action. However, these social sciences fields are interwoven. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach drawing simultaneously on those social sciences may bring better results. The university of Grenoble could be an interesting place to define an action-research program accordingly.