Knoeri, C, Steinberger, JK and Roelich, K orcid.org/0000-0001-6979-5401 (2016) End-user centred infrastructure operation: Towards integrated end-use service delivery. Journal of Cleaner Production, 132. pp. 229-239. ISSN 0959-6526
Abstract
Reliable provision of water, energy and transportation, all supplied through infrastructure, is necessary for the most basic human and economic development to occur. Such development however, is not enabled by specific end-use products (e.g. litres of water, kWh of electricity, litres of diesel and petrol), or by infrastructure itself (i.e. the systems of energy, transport, digital information, water, waste and flood protection assets), but rather through the infrastructure end-use services (e.g. hygiene, thermal comfort, communication, or accessibility). The present form of infrastructure operation consists of supply systems provisioning unconstrained demand of end-use products, with larger consumption volumes corresponding to higher economic revenue. Providing infrastructure capacity to meet unmanaged growing demand is ultimately unsustainable, both in environmental and economic terms. Past research has focused on physical infrastructure assets on the one hand, and sustainable consumption and production on the other, often neglecting infrastructure end-use services. An important priority for sustainable infrastructure operation is therefore to analyse the infrastructure end-use service demands, and the variety of end-users’ wants and behaviours. This paper outlines the key aspects of an end-user and service-centred approach to infrastructure operation. It starts with an overview of relevant research areas and literature. It then describes the infrastructure end-use services provided by different infrastructure streams quantitatively, with the UK domestic sector as an illustration. Subsequently, insights into infrastructure integration at the end-user level are presented. Finally, the infrastructure end-use service perspective is described as a holistic framework for intervention: understanding technological changes in context, acting directly on end-use demand, and including social implications of service-based solutions.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | (c) 2015, The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
Keywords: | Infrastructure operation; energy services; performance-based contracting; end-use services; end-user behaviour; infrastructure integration |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Civil Engineering (Leeds) > Institute for Resilient Infrastructure (Leeds) The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Earth and Environment (Leeds) > Sustainability Research Institute (SRI) (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number EPSRC EP/J00555X/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 08 Sep 2016 14:55 |
Last Modified: | 17 Oct 2016 13:58 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.08.079 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Elsevier |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.08.079 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:88641 |
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