What are climate services for? Social practices, adaptation, and the dynamics of demand

Climate services are often positioned as tools to enhance resilience, guide policy, and enable decision-making in the face of climate variability. However, these framings rarely interrogate the social underpinnings of what climate services are for, how their demand arises, and in what ways they become embedded in the routines of life, governance, and planning. Taking inspiration from social practice theory, this article reconceptualizes climate services as evolving components within bundles of social practices and charts out a number of suggestions to rethink climate service useability and implementation. In doing so, it raises foundational questions about the meaning, purpose, and evolution of climate service demand, aiming to reframe their role within adaptation governance.

Authors

Publication Details

Journal
Climate Services
Published
2026-02-11
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cliser.2026.100640
Primary Topic
Sustainability and Climate Change Governance
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00
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article

What are climate services for? Social practices, adaptation, and the dynamics of demand

Mathias Venning, Jesse Schrage
Climate Services
Sustainability and Climate Change Governance
article

What are climate services for? Social practices, adaptation, and the dynamics of demand

Mathias Venning, Jesse Schrage
article en

Abstract

Climate services are often positioned as tools to enhance resilience, guide policy, and enable decision-making in the face of climate variability. However, these framings rarely interrogate the social underpinnings of what climate services are for, how their demand arises, and in what ways they become embedded in the routines of life, governance, and planning. Taking inspiration from social practice theory, this article reconceptualizes climate services as evolving components within bundles of social practices and charts out a number of suggestions to rethink climate service useability and implementation. In doing so, it raises foundational questions about the meaning, purpose, and evolution of climate service demand, aiming to reframe their role within adaptation governance.

Climate ServicesVol. 42
Climate action
Openalex Percentile: Top 70%
Sustainability and Climate Change Governance
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