Sustainable technologies journey: Antecedents, outcomes, and communities’ participation

Abstract

Nowadays, it is almost unavoidable to discuss the current environmental problems. Directives from the European Union (EU) are increasingly searching for ways to mitigate the climate crisis (European Parliament, 2019), also following the United Nations sustainable development goals (SDG). On this, many strategies have seemed to rely on technology to help in the mitigation or at least adaptation to these climate problems. Therefore, these so-called sustainable technologies (Wunderlich et al., 2019) are increasingly being introduced into consumers life as a step towards more sustainable behaviours and efforts against environmental problems. Given this, the current research aims to explore the factors leading to the adoption of sustainable technologies and the resulting outcomes. It investigates the individual perspective, examining the adoption and use, as well as its perceived impacts. Additionally, it extends its focus to the community level, analyzing the role of technology in local energy communities. The investigation starts by focusing on the determinants of adoption and use, developing a contextualized technology acceptance model. Additionally, while existing research tends to neglect the impact of technology on well-being, this study addresses this gap by highlighting the positive influence of sustainable technology use on various well-being domains. Furthermore, the study highlights the significance of sustainable technologies beyond the household level, recognizing their potential at the community level, particularly in the context of local energy communities. The findings reveal a strong impact of sustainable technology use and gamification, on the citizens participation intention to these communities. Ultimately, the study provides insights that can help the development of strategies to enhance the adoption and success of sustainable technologies.