Citizen Panels on Climate Targets: Analyzing Dropout in Long-Term (e-)Collaboration Processes

The e2democracy project studied citizen panels collaborating with local governments to achieve local climate targets in seven regions in three countries over a period of up to 2 years. Compared to many other participation projects, this is a very long time period and the project examined not only “words„ but also intended changes of behavior. It was therefore a big challenge to maintain the citizens’ participation and to minimize panel dropout. The aim of this chapter is to investigate the extent of dropout during the processes and to understand the reasons behind it. In fact, there were two kinds of dropout. Of 1159 registered panelists at all seven sites, 36 % withdrew before entering any data for the CO2e-monitoring process, a central component of the panels’ activities (dropout 1). A further 27 % dropped out during the subsequent period of up to 2 years (dropout 2), many of them as early as in the first 2–4 months. A survey was undertaken to determine the factors that led to the decision to drop out. The most common reasons were that participation cost too much time and that data collection and entry were not trivial but quite complex tasks. To some extent, the usability of the monitoring instruments employed also caused difficulties. Another critical constant was that many dropouts did not see any possibility of further improving their carbon footprint. Less common reasons were that panelists who dropped out expected no or only relatively low effects on climate protection, did not experience energy savings or were not ready to change their lifestyles.