Digitalisation is becoming increasingly embedded in everyday life, but what determines whether people are willing to integrate digital technologies — especially when it comes to reducing carbon emissions? To explore this, we conducted a nationally representative survey of the UK population, examining how lifestyle practices shape intentions to adopt digitalisation in daily life (DDL) and digitalisation specifically aimed at carbon reduction (DDL+CC).
Using a technological–environmental lifestyle cluster framework, we grouped people according to their existing technological and environmental practices. Five distinct clusters emerged: i) Low Tech Greens: high engagement with environmental practices but no engagement with new technology; ii)Traditional: scoring low on engagement with environmental and technological practices; iii) Aspiring green techs: interested in pro-environmental and tech practices but not yet adopting them as part of lifestyle; iv)Techies; engaged in technology practices but with low pro-environmental engagement; v) Engaged: high involvement in both environmental and technology-oriented practices
Findings indicated overall intentions to use DDL is significantly greater than intention to use DDL+CC. Differences across clusters also emerged, while Techies readily embrace digitalisation in daily life, they may be less motivated to adopt DDL to reduce their carbon emissions, perhaps because these involve additional cognitive effort. By contrast, those already motivated by environmental concerns (Engaged and Low-Tech Greens) are more likely to adopt digitalisation when the explicit purpose is carbon reduction (DDL+CC).
These insights show the value of lifestyle-based segmentation for promoting climate-friendly digitalisation. They also provide a more behaviourally realistic picture of societal opportunities and constraints: environmental motivation appears to outweigh technological engagement when it comes to adopting digital tools for carbon reduction.
