Sustainable Transitions: The Case of Swedish Vacation Practices

Abstract

Climate change and its effects on humanity and nature are becoming increasingly prevalent. Technological development is showing great promise to reduce the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from various human activities, but some areas call for lifestyle changes. Long distance travel is one of the areas where technological development may not entirely solve the problem. Especially emissions from aviation have recently been brought to light, as these emissions continue to increase. If development is to change direction, there is a need for methods to describe our habits and the interplay between different levels of society. The focus of this thesis has been to integrate aspects from transition theory and sustainable consumption, i.e. the multi-level perspective and practice theory, and apply this integrated framework on Swedish vacation practices. This entailed working with the theoretical framework and the application thereof, through literature studies, statistical analysis of empirical mobility data to identify common vacation practices, and GHG emission calculations of identified practices. Applying the multi-level perspective and practice theory in an integrated manner showed fruitful in the case of Swedish vacation practices. This approach allows for analysis of cases where lifestyle changes might be more relevant than technological development, while still having the dynamics of the multi-level perspective in mind. For the case of Swedish vacation practices, airborne holidays showed to be common, partly due to the efficient time use of aviation and flexible infrastructure compared to e.g. trains. In terms of GHG emissions, the different practices displayed large variations and thus climate impact, where holidays by air were the most carbon-intensive. A carbon budget for vacation travel was suggested, which showed that vacation travel is possible, but the mode of transport and the distance travelled dictates how often.