Publications

Scott Hawken, Christian Isendahl, Keir Strickland, Stephan Barthel. 2025. Towards intergenerational neutrality in urban planning and governance: Reflections on temporality in sustainability transitions research. Urban Studies. https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980241307907

In urban studies, ‘presentism’ – the prioritisation of present-day concerns at the expense of historical and future considerations – has emerged as a critical bias that is rarely challenged, either through governance structures, institutional frameworks and urban planning and design, or as the ethical basis for our communities and social relations. From the vantage of the historical social sciences, we problematise application...

Patrik Thollander, Mariana Andrei, Noor Jalo, Patrik Rohdin, Jenny Palm, Anna Sannö, Johan Colding, Stephan Barthel, Gazi Salah Uddin, Bruna Maria Xavier. 2025. Advances in the social construction of energy management and energy efficiency in industry. Nature Communications. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-59284-2

Energy efficiency is essential for climate change mitigation. Energy management, shaped by both technical artefacts and social constructions, can overcome barriers and achieve greater emission reductions than technology-focused approaches alone. Nine social constructions of energy management emphasize the need for a broader view that includes operations, processes, and knowledge creation and diffusion. By adopting these strate...

Daniel Lindvall, Patrik Sörqvist, Sofie Lindeberg, Stephan Barthel. 2025. The polarization of energy preferences – A study on social acceptance of wind and nuclear power in Sweden. Energy Policy. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2024.114492

Using Sweden as a study case, this article explores the polarized opinions to wind and nuclear energy, two low carbon energy options that have been shown to be politically controversial. In a wide-scale survey (N = 5200), general attitudes to wind and nuclear energy are captured, as well as to projects in the proximity of people's homes. The study demonstrates a deep polarization of energy preferences in Sweden, finding strong...

Noah Linder, Patrik Sörqvist, Daniel Lindvall, Sverker Jagers, Stephan Barthel. 2024. It would feel weird to not drive my car! Exploring the role of habits in public policy acceptance of carbon taxations. Ambio. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-024-02115-3

This study aims to expand the understanding of public acceptance of carbon taxes by exploring the role of habits. Habits play a pivotal role in guiding our behaviors and reasoning and can even influence our self perception and identity but remain an underexplored variable in relation to public policy acceptance. We employed a large scale ( N > 5200) national survey to measure public acceptance of higher carbon taxation in Sw...

Daniel Lindvall, Patrik Sörqvist, Sverker Carlsson Jagers, Mikael Karlsson, Stefan Sjöberg, Stephan Barthel. 2024. The Role of Fairness for Accepting Stricter Carbon Taxes in Sweden. Climate. https://doi.org/10.3390/cli12110170

Carbon taxes are considered to be an efficient method to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; however, such taxes are generally unpopular, partly because they are seen as unfair. To explore if public acceptance of a stricter carbon tax in Sweden can be enhanced, this study investigates the effectiveness of three different policy designs, addressing collective and personal distributional consequences and promoting procedural aspect...

Haozhi Pan, Jessica Page, Rui Shi, Cong Cong, Zipan Cai, Stephan Barthel, Patrik Thollander, Johan Colding, Zahra Kalantari. 2023. Contribution of prioritized urban nature-based solutions allocation to carbon neutrality. Nature Climate Change. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01737-x

Nature-based solutions (NBS) are essential for carbon-neutral cities, yet how to effectively allocate them remains a question. Carbon neutrality requires city-led climate action plans that incorporate both indirect and direct contributions of NBS. Here we assessed the carbon emissions mitigation potential of NBS in European cities, focusing particularly on commonly overlooked indirect pathways, for example, human behavioural i...

Haozhi Pan, Jessica Page, Rui Shi, Cong Cong, Zipan Cai, Stephan Barthel, Patrik Thollander, Johan Colding, Zahra Kalantari. 2023. Contribution of prioritized urban nature-based solutions allocation to carbon neutrality. Nature Climate Change. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01737-x

Nature-based solutions (NBS) are essential for carbon-neutral cities, yet how to effectively allocate them remains a question. Carbon neutrality requires city-led climate action plans that incorporate both indirect and direct contributions of NBS. Here we assessed the carbon emissions mitigation potential of NBS in European cities, focusing particularly on commonly overlooked indirect pathways, for example, human behavioural i...

Tzu-Hsin Karen Chen, Henriette Thisted Horsdal, Karl Samuelsson, Ane Marie Closter, Megan Davies, Stephan Barthel, Carsten Bøcker Pedersen, Alexander V. Prishchepov, Clive E. Sabel. 2023. Higher depression risks in medium- than in high-density urban form across Denmark. Science Advances. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adf3760

Urban areas are associated with higher depression risks than rural areas. However, less is known about how different types of urban environments relate to depression risk. Here, we use satellite imagery and machine learning to quantify three-dimensional (3D) urban form (i.e., building density and height) over time. Combining satellite-derived urban form data and individual-level residential addresses, health, and socioeconomic...

Andersson, E., Grimm, N., Lewis, J., Redman, C., Barthel, S., Colding, J., Elmqvist, T. 2022. Urban climate resilience through hybrid infrastructure. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2022.101158

Urban infrastructure will require transformative changes to adapt to changing disturbance patterns. We ask what new opportunities hybrid infrastructure—built environments coupled with landscape-scale biophysical structures and processes—offer for building different layers of resilience critical for dealing with increased variation in the frequency, magnitude and different phases of climate-related disturbances. With its more ...

Colding, J., Samuelsson, K., Marcus, L., Gren, Å., Legeby, A., Berghauser Pont, M., Barthel, S.. 2022. Frontiers in Social–Ecological Urbanism. Land. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/land11060929

This paper describes a new approach in urban ecological design, referred to as social–ecological urbanism (SEU). It draws from research in resilience thinking and space syntax in the analysis of relationships between urban processes and urban form at the microlevel of cities, where social and ecological services are directly experienced by urban dwellers. The paper elaborates on three types of media for urban designers to int...