Habits, Routines and Sustainable Lifestyles Summary Report

organised), but by a combination of supply side and lifestyle influences. Looking at
the structurationist model in Figure 2 again, we see practices as the result of a
looped relationship mediated by lifestyles on the one hand, and systems of provision
on the other. It is the interaction between the two – the looped relationship – which
causes the lock-in, based on interdependence. It follows that we need to address
the influences on both sides of that relationship, if we are to break the lock in and
„unlock‟ the habit.
In presenting the model, Gert Spaargaren stresses that we must aim for a balanced
view of practices: not over-emphasising individual factors (lifestyle) or infrastructure
(systems of provision) but the interaction between the two. In other words,
individuals are locked in to their current practices not just by the infrastructure but by
the practice itself, which at the same time they help to (re)produce. What emerges is
a different explanation for habits, in which infrastructure is not regarded as a factor or
barrier, constraining the individuals‟ choice to change, but in which the individual and
the infrastructure (both hard and soft) are interacting, and the combination keeps the
practice how it is. „Bad‟ habits can then be seen as the product of a vicious circle, in
which the rules and resources which bind the practice together keep getting remade
as the individual (re)enacts it – just like Giddens‟ example of language.
In the sustainability sphere, we might think of commuting, in which how we make our
daily journey to work goes on to constrain our chances of travelling by any other
mode. For instance, the more I (and people like me) drive to work, the less space
(and safe, clean space) for cyclists, and the less likely I am to cycle in future (I
become „locked in‟ to commuting by car). Indiviudals can also become „locked out‟
of a practice through how other people reproduce it. For instance, the more that
shopping at a farmers‟ market becomes associated with a particular lifestyle the less
easy it is for people with different lifestyles to start using farmers‟ markets
themselves. The practice of shopping at a farmers‟ market can become a barrier to
more people using farmers‟ markets 73 .
In order to break the lock in of routine practices, intervention is not a matter of
removing external factors, or simply working upstream of the consumer (eg. by
changing aspects of the supply chain). It becomes a matter of rearranging the parts,
the rules and resources which make up the habit as routine. This strategy could at
first glance seem similar to that arising from a psychological understanding of habit –
73 Paddock 2009
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