Sustainable energy technology acceptability by laypeople is an extremely relevant topic both in terms of social impact and scientific attention especially in the European ¿ecological transition¿ scenario. Even though more and more research and technology aim at the reduction of the enormous environmental and social problems caused by the still widespread use of fossil fuels, transition to decarbonization and sustainability is of the utmost importance for contemporary society and future generations. In the ongoing process of society decarbonisation towards a more sustainable economic social development, biofuels are one of the major options. However, the research on sustainable energy technology acceptability is still underdeveloped regarding biolfuels. In fact, even though in the literature on the renewable technology acceptability and/or acceptance there are several models that integrate some psychological theories with economic and sociological ones, all the technological, contextual (market and economics on the one side, administration and policy on the other side), and personal variables involved in the decision to specifically adopt biofuels have not been investigated yet in a systematic way and within a single integrated and comprehensive model. Therefore, this study aims to establish the relative contribution of the main four clusters of factors (i.e., technological, market and economics, administrative and policy, social-psycholgical features) ¿ derived from the interdisciplinary literature ¿ in explaining biofuel acceptability by the EU laypeople. A survey across eight EU countries (about 1,000 citizens targeted across BE, DE, FR, GB, IT, NL, NO, SE) is analysed with multivariate statistics to establish mediation and moderation effects governing biofuel acceptability social processes. Such an overarching model designs a blueprint for applied implications favouring biofuel adoption in the framework of the broader ongoing European ecological transition.
This proposal aims at improving the understanding on sustainable energy technology acceptability and acceptance, by EU laypeople, in the field of biofuels, to develop an integrated social-psychological model useful to move towards the ecological transition within the EU. Several features represent its innovative character, in term of its theoretical, applied, and social implications. From a theoretical perspective, the low number of studies conducted in this specific sub-area show that more work is necessary to clarify public acceptability and acceptance of biofuels, towards their future adoption. Therefore, the present project represents an advancement within a sub-area of the broader area of sustainable techonology acceptance, namely the one regarding biofuels technology which presently represents a socially important area still under-represented by social-psychological sustainable technology acceptance literature compared to other sustainable technologies. Furthermore, the interdisciplinary models of technology acceptance in the literature only consider variables derived from economics and sociology, while there is not a model that also incorporates social-psychological variables in addition to economic and sociological ones. To cover this gap, starting from the widest review of the literature known to authors, a holistic approach is here adopted. Variables and models from the interdisciplinary literature on sustainable technology acceptance derived from psychology, sociology and economy, are employed to build an online survey, to gather a wide range of information about the participants' knowledge, attitudes, experience, etc. regarding biofuels mainly in acceptability and acceptance terms, with relevance for adoption too (specifically focusing on facilitating and resistance factors). The theoretical aim is to derive an integrated model to embrace and advance all the main existing ones (such as TAM and SETA, quoted in the Introductory section of the present proposal). This new theoretical model is to be tested using multivariate statistical techniques in order to establish the relative contributions of the various social-psychological factors involved.
Finally, and more broadly, this project is socially innovative because its potential applications regards a globally relevant trend: over the past fifteen years in Europe especially, and in the world too, massive investments focused on the sustainable energy technology field in general (including that of biofuels), with the aim of creating an environmentally and socially sustainable economy no longer based on fossil-fuels, by moving towards biofuels and green energies. This decarbonisation of society needs contributions such as the one offered by the present proposal, which can help in building synergies between SSH (Social Sciences and Humanities) disciplines' contributions and STEM (Science, Techonology, Engineering, and Maths) disciplines. Such a synergy cannot be avoided if the goal is an ecological transition embracing at least the European society, if not the global one, within a relatively short time perspective.
As a further, strategically important, innovative aspect of the present project once coupled with a parallel ongoing EC H2020 project, please see the section "Eventuali altri partner esterni e ruolo nel progetto".