Seminar by Christine Hedde – von Westernhagen

Accelerating net-zero transitions via household technology co-adoption. In our next seminar, Christine Hedde – von Westernhagen, PhD candidate on modelling social tipping dynamics in sustainability transitions at Eindhoven University of Technology, will talk about this topic on the 7th of April 2026.

Accelerating the energy transition requires not only technological progress, but also changes in household adoption behaviour. While modular low-carbon technologies are increasingly available and affordable, their full decarbonisation potential often depends on the co-adoption of multiple, complementary technologies. This paper investigates patterns and drivers of household technology co-adoption and their implications for accelerating net-zero transitions. We collect large-scale survey data from households in three European countries, and apply latent class analysis to identify distinct clusters of low-carbon technology behaviours. The survey data allows us to quantitatively analyse the socio-demographic, behavioural, and attitudinal factors associated with cluster membership. We then examine how households shift across these clusters under socio-technical scenarios reflecting potential policy interventions. The results reveal substantial heterogeneity in co-adoption pathways and show that coordinated interventions, such as higher incomes, increased home ownership, stronger pro-environmental behaviour, and participation in energy communities, can move households toward higher levels of co-adoption. These findings highlight the importance of targeting household-specific intervention points to activate reinforcing dynamics and accelerate the diffusion of complementary low-carbon technologies.

We hope to see you all in VMA or online on the 7th of April! (online link)