Public perceptions

From the existing research on public attitudes to innovation, we can identify a set of commonly shared beliefs and values about climate innovations, or ‘social readiness’.¹ These are known to be typically less susceptible to change across different situations. They can be used to flag technology characteristics or modes of implementation which are associated with more positive or negative perceptions.

Overall ‘social readiness’ can be viewed through four broad buckets of risk, each of which encompasses a specific body of knowledge about societal considerations:

Psychometric risk factors

These indicators derive from the psychometric approaches to the psychology of risk perception, notably the work of Baruch Fischhoff, Paul Slovic, and Vince Covello and their colleagues. Key factors influencing risk perceptions are ‘dread’ perceptions, uncertainty and stigma.

Inflexibility indicators

These are derived from approaches to the sociology of technology, notably Paul Collingridge, whose ‘control dilemma’ states that it is usually difficult or impossible to know what the impacts of a new technology will be, and by the time they are known, lock-in has often occurred. Therefore, a key factor in social readiness is the degree of flexibility of a technology or organisation. 

Responsibility indicators

These include issues that could affect the degree of responsibility of the research, development, demonstration, and deployment, derived from relational approaches to science and technology studies, notably work by Jack Stilgoe, Phil Macnaghten, Rob Bellamy, and their colleagues.

People are heterogeneous, and CDR interest and acceptance can vary depending on their worldview. This dimension stems from the work on ‘cultural theory’ developed by Mary Douglas, Steve Rayner, Robin Cantor, Michiel Schwarz and Michael Thompson, which posits that three ideal-type cultures exist in society: hierarchical, individualist and egalitarian. Unlike the social readiness indicators, which propose generic indicators to be applied across a population, these indicators consider the different ways in which CDRs appeal (or not) to different social groups.