Social Sustainability: A design research approach to sustainable development

While issues such as clean production and energy efficiency are still central in sustainable development discourse, attention is increasingly on patterns of consumption at multiple levels in society. This opens new opportunities and responsibilities for design research, as we shift from a focus on product lifecycles to people’s lifestyles. It also requires further understanding the ‘social sustainability’ aspects of the environment and development, including the complexity of problematics characterized by uncertainties, contradictions and controversies. In response, we propose a programmatic approach, in which a tentative assemblage of theoretical and experimental strategies frame a common ground for a collaborative and practice-led inquiry. We present a design research program based on two propositions: socio-cultural practices are the basic unit for design, and; transitions, and transition management, are the basic points of design intervention. Rather than affirming the status quo or the prevailing discourse, we argue for design research as a ‘critical practice’, in which cultural diversity, non-humans and multiple futures are considered

Sustainable Fashion in a Circular Economy

The promotion of sustainable fashion within a circular economy is a vital contemporary topic. This publication presents up-to-date research about the various levels of circularity at work in the fashion industry. Experts of design, consumption, business and industry explain how circularity in the production and consumption of fashion can be approached in manifold ways. This collection of texts highlights the fresh, critical thinking that is currently influencing the fashion industry to adopt the practice of sustainable transformation within a circular economy. The publication addresses the following themes: How to include consumers within the changing process of fashion consumption?New design and business strategies for the circular transformation of fashion.Developing a systems approach to circularity, which includes the recycling and recovering of materials at an industrial level

Sosiaalisen median avulla yli kierrätyksen haasteiden vuoden 2021 Euroopan ympäristöpääkaupungissa

Continuous development of urban areas poses challenges for sustainable use of resources and the management of complex waste streams. Recycling is seen as a solution for promoting sustainability, especially at the individual-level where waste sorting creates preconditions for successful material recovery operations. Behavior change strategies aim to encourage individuals to implement recycling practices in their daily lives. The effectiveness of behavior change strategies is achieved by broadly influencing capability, opportunity, and motivation to recycle, however, studies claim that many existing strategies are unable to do so. This study aims to gain an understanding in how extensively a municipal recycling service provider’s online communication on social media platforms (Instagram, Facebook, YouTube) enhances capability, opportunity, and motivation to recycle by communicating about means to overcome recycling barriers. Specifically, the study is interested in examining what types of recycling barriers are addressed in online communication and through which means it aims to deliver assistance for overcoming these barriers. Lastly, this study aims to explore the role of social media platform-based online communication as a channel to promote individual recycling behavior. This study focuses on social media materials published by a municipal service provider in the European Green Capital of 2021. The empirical material builds on a set of data collected from public and locatable online sources. The analysis includes 96 different types (pictural, textual, video) of recycling-themed online content. The data was analyzed by conducting qualitative content analysis. The results indicated that online communication addresses a broad range of recycling barriers. The most common means to overcome these was information provision through which the company aimed to increase knowledge and understanding of recycling practices. Although information provision alone is claimed to be insufficient to profoundly change behavior, results showed that it could serve as a means to generate a broad influence on areas behind behavior formation. The result of this study suggests that social media platforms as channels for online communication have the potential to create preconditions for overcoming recycling barriers especially through the means of information provision. The development of more profound recycling behavior, however, needs to include a broader range of collaborative information, motivation, and engagement elements that could engage and encourage people to implement more profound recycling behavior. This calls for future research that discovers means to stimulate behavior formation widely to support overcoming recycling barriers and the implementation of profound recycling behavior in everyday lives

Federated Embedded Systems – a review of the literature in related fields

This report is concerned with the vision of smart interconnected objects, a vision that has attracted much attention lately. In this paper, embedded, interconnected, open, and heterogeneous control systems are in focus, formally referred to as Federated Embedded Systems. To place FES into a context, a review of some related research directions is presented. This review includes such concepts as systems of systems, cyber-physical systems, ubiquitous computing, internet of things, and multi-agent systems. Interestingly, the reviewed fields seem to overlap with each other in an increasing number of ways

Why do farmers over-extract groundwater resources? Assessing (un)sustainable behaviors using an Integrated Agent-Centered framework

This study uses an Integrated Agent-Centered (IAC) framework to investigate the socio-psychological drivers of Iranian farmers’ unsustainable groundwater management practices. Empirical land use change analysis of US Geological Survey Landsat satellite images of the Jaz-Murian wetland region for 1990, 2010, and 2022, is combined with community surveys conducted with randomly selected farmers in five townships within the region (n=356). Visual analysis reveals dramatic increases in agricultural land coverage, diminished water bodies and increased salt lands over the 32-year sampled period. We use survey data to explain the socio-psychological drivers of unsustainable groundwater use that lead to these adverse environmental changes. In the IAC survey analysis, we find that variables for “expectation” and “subjective culture” have a negative influence on pro-environmental “intention”. “Intention” and “habit” have a positive influence, and “contextual factors” have a negative influence on the drivers of “unsustainable water use behavior”. We conclude that situational influences, habitual process, intentional process, and normative processes must be considered together to alleviate pressure on wetland ecosystems. Policy makers must provide effective agricultural extension training, deliberative dialogue amongst farmer networks, well governed local water markets and financial support to shift farmer short-termist economic gain-thinking towards socially-supported pro-environmental habits over the longer term

Pro-environmental User Behavior in the Lifecycle of Consumer Electronics

Acknowledging environmental sustainability as one of the most critical global challenges in our time, information systems (IS) scholars and practitioners have begun to address environmental problems by developing and implementing various green information systems. Besides pro-environmental IT artifacts, we argue that user-oriented green practices play a crucial role in ameliorating the adverse effects that result from making, using, and disposing electronic devices. To that end, we examine user intentions toward engaging in pro-environmental behaviors that can penetrate the electronic device lifecycle, which includes choosing, using, and disposing such devices. In particular, we adopt the extended theory of planned behavior as a lens and suggest ecological beliefs among users can determine their ecological attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control, which, in turn, can shape their pro- environmental behavior. Also, ecological knowledge appears to play an influential role in changing user intentions to perform pro-environmental practices. We also revisit relevant green IT and green IS literature while providing future research directions

Assessing Student Design Work in Social Entrepreneurship Projects

Helping People Living in Poverty? Understanding Factors Motivating Social Entrepreneurship Abstract Increasingly, engineering educators look to increase the social relevance of engineering design activities. The emergence of social businesses has sparked interest in creating programs that teach engineers about social entrepreneurship. Social businesses are viable business ventures where businesses adopt a social mission. Some strategists view social businesses as ways to capture market share in countries that have a large emerging consumer class, such as India and Brazil. These strategists speak of finding “the fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid” and target consumers earning less than 4USD/day. Other strategists view social businesses as direct pathways for poverty alleviation. These strategists contend that businesses focused on meeting people’s needs can create a world without poverty. The purpose of this paper is to ask how engineering education programs teaching social entrepreneurship construct definitions of social entrepreneurship to motivate students.This paper asks the following questions: 1) What do engineering educators define social entrepreneurship? 2) How do emerging social businesses explain the organization’s motivations? 3) How have these definitions and motivations shifted over time?This paper uses multimodal discourse analysis to explore how different business strategies affect engineering education programs teaching social entrepreneurship. Multimodal discourse analysis allows researchers to connect rhetoric used in problem-definition to the real-world business activities of organizations. The researcher selected two distinct engineering education programs teaching social entrepreneurship in the United States to highlight as case studies. Both programs have existed for more than five years, making it possible to explore how discourse within the program has shifted over time.The results of this research can inform student recruitment, program design, and potential organizational partnerships. Preliminary results indicate that engineering programs began by emphasizing high-volume products geared towards meeting basic needs. Later, engineering programs teaching social entrepreneurship began to emphasize capturing market share in emerging consumer markets. Although data analysis is continuing, these engineering programs do not appear to require students to think deeply about the nature of poverty itself