Overview
Energy and climate targets are at risk from rebound effects, as savings in consumption resulting from more the efficient provision of mobility services may be (over-)compensated by subsequent changes in user behaviour. Thus, REBOUND reviews essential insights and develops instruments how to design technological, social as well as organisational innovations in the mobility sector in such a way that rebound effects are anticipated and eventually avoided. REBOUND synthesizes respective findings and makes them accessible to stakeholders in transport policy, technology policy and innovation management.
REBOUND investigates drivers of rebound along three cross-cutting dimensions:
- innovations,
- policy measures on the national and the EU level, and
- user behaviour and consumption trends of various target groups and market actors.
Interlinking these dimensions in an elegant way may prevent rebound effects. Building on a transaction analysis of individual mobility choices, relevant instruments for proactive rebound management are categorised and evaluated. Therein, REBOUND especially differentiates whether rebound effects emerge directly (increased demand for the respective mobility innovation), indirectly (increased demand for other energy services and goods) or via intersectoral processes (increased demand for goods and services within the entire economy).
Within the three cross-cutting dimensions, separately for passenger and freight transport, indicator systems outline critical conditions that make high/low rebound effects more likely. Rebound chains convey a compact understanding how rebound effects unfold from which actions undertaken by which private and public actors within which timeframe by means of which indirect/inter-sectoral processes. Both rebound chains and indicator systems are demonstrated in several representative case studies.
Transdisciplinary stakeholder trainings validate the project output for practical usability and convey strategic recommendations for preventive rebound management. Check lists for the sustainability criteria of mobility innovations serve to enable stakeholders to conduct impact assessments on their own, in order to monitor ongoing activities. REBOUND concludes by deriving leverage points for preventive rebound management in impact-oriented administrative processes. Avenues for key interventions that open up wide-reaching transformative changes are shown. Therein, REBOUND elaborates angles how to set up and deploy future funding programmes for mobility innovations.