Where Furniture Goes to Die. Designing for Sustainable Behaviour in a Practice Perspective

This article explores the fruitfulness of an interdisciplinary approach to Design for Sustainable Behviour DfSB). Through an ethnographic approach and Practice Theory the author creates narratives that illustrate social and material antecedents of why people waste furniture. Furthermore, the insights developed by the narratives are approached with DfSB tools, in order to point to possible design efforts that may contribute to prolong the lives of furniture. The aim is both to provide designers with a methodological approach applicable to DfSB challenges in general, as well as to the case of furniture in specific

Mobilier en fin de vie

Image d’ouverture Centre de recyclage d’Haraldrud. Le malheur des uns fait le bonheur des autres. © Erlend Berge Dans l’univers de la conception d’objets, des efforts sont en train d’être fournis pour augmenter la durée de vie des produits afin de réduire l’impact environnemental. Ce travail est le plus souvent axé sur la durabilité des matériaux, la « réparabilité », les constructions modulaires et les parties séparables de différents matériels dans une optique de recyclage. Au lieu de pro..

Where Furniture Goes to Die. Designing for Sustainable Behaviour in a Practice Perspective

This article explores the fruitfulness of an interdisciplinary approach to Design for Sustainable Behviour DfSB). Through an ethnographic approach and Practice Theory the author creates narratives that illustrate social and material antecedents of why people waste furniture. Furthermore, the insights developed by the narratives are approached with DfSB tools, in order to point to possible design efforts that may contribute to prolong the lives of furniture. The aim is both to provide designers with a methodological approach applicable to DfSB challenges in general, as well as to the case of furniture in specific

Food Waste: A practice-oriented design for sustainability approach

Summary of the thesis This dissertation develops a practice-oriented design for sustainability (PODS) approach to explore opportunities for reducing household food waste by design. Through this approach it has produced narratives of current and possible future food-related practices that have been co-created with participants in order to elicit opportunities for design interventions. The narratives provide insights into how food waste occurs within the flow and rhythm of everyday life, how it is entangled in a web of interrelated practices and conflicting ideals, and how practices could be reconfigured in the future by design - imagining not only incremental innovations but also new ways of food consumption. Moreover, in light of the food waste case, it reflects on what the theoretical underpinnings of PODS mean for current and future ways of addressing sustainable consumption issues by design. Two routes towards reducing food waste by design are identified, which are not mutually exclusive. The first route consists of product-level and product-service-level innovations, such as the ones that can already be seen in packaging, labelling, fridge/freezer technology, apps, box scheme services and online grocery shopping services. The second route entails reimagining and reconfiguring food-related practices more profoundly. This route involves rethinking how we go about provisioning for food, when and where we eat, how and where food is stored, etc. The research presented in this dissertation has implications for actors working on issues related to sustainable consumption in general and on household food waste and food consumption in particular. It can be of interest to policymakers, non-governmental organisations, various actors in the food industry, and to commercial and public innovators of products and services seeking to contribute to sustainable consumption. By making explicit the elements which practices entail and how they cause inertia and represent opportunities for change, it is argued that social practice theory provides a framework for increasing understanding and unpacking the complexity inherent in the role of practices in wicked design problems. Furthermore, that providing these insights enables us to approach the design problem in both incremental and radical ways, moving from ideas of product/service-user interactions to ideas of new ways of living. The dissertation is based on a total of four articles: three peer-reviewed and published journal articles, and one submitted journal article. The research has been conducted in Norway

Developing a Framework of Dis-domestication : The Dis-domestication of Furniture in Norwegian Households

This thesis contributes to and further develops the work on domestication by STS scholars to include the process of disposal. Based on the study of furniture disposal in Norwegian households I develop what I call a framework of dis-domestication. Through developing the framework, I describe the process of disposal by identifying practices and strategies, material properties and perceptions, as well as major social influences and the interplay between these. The thesis departs from an environmental concern regarding waste production. The increasing production of waste is an environmental issue widely discussed around the world, and the Norwegian government has articulated waste prevention to be a key measurement to address this problem in Norway. Prolonging the life of goods is important to reduce resource depletion, energy use and pollution. It is therefore important to understand the whole process of the life cycle of artefacts. The particular case of furniture is interesting from an STS perspective as they are artefacts that are substantially visible and subjected to social rituals. I found the properties of furniture to change and get lost through changes both in the materiality of the furniture, and through external influences from the wider social surroundings, where the external influences seem more significant to the process of dis-domestication. Changing life phases particularly affect the dis-domestication of furniture in Norwegian households. I have identified several strategies and practices that are applied to perceptually flawed furniture

Contextualising food waste prevention - Decisive moments within everyday practices

Household food waste is a matter of increasing concern for policy makers and organisations because recent research has shown that consumers contribute to about half of the edible food wasted in the developed world. The most applied measure to address the problem has been knowledge and awareness campaigns aiming at inducing changes in behaviour by educating consumers of the scale and impact of food waste, and on the meaning of date labelling. We argue that this approach is insufficient in achieving food waste reduction on a satisfactory scale, and that the potential of implementing measures into the actual contexts of food waste related practices should be further explored and developed. The research presented in this article is based on fieldwork from 26 households in Oslo, Norway. By applying a practice-oriented approach to food waste drivers, we focus on five food waste related practices: acquiring, storing, assessing, valuing and eating. Based on our analysis of how these practices are causing food waste, we identify decisive moments and contexts for food waste prevention and discuss examples of measures that could be further explored. The aim is to inspire a more contextual approach to food waste prevention by policy makers and organisations

Maten vi kaster

Med mathåndtering i hverdagslivet som utgangspunkt finner denne rapporten fem hovedårsaker til matsvinn i norske husholdninger: (1) Forbrukerne er usikre når det gjelder egen vurdering av mattrygghet og matkvalitet, (2) Rutinisert mathåndtering fører til for få bruksanledninger for mange matprodukter, (3) Matens verdi oppfattes som lav, (4) Langtidsplanlegging reduserer fleksibiliteten i hverdagen, og (5) Forbrukerne er lite bevisste på hvor mye mat de selv kaster. Basert på disse årsakene utredes kontekstuelle tiltak innenfor to hovedområder: (1) materielle strukturer (emballasje, butikk og kjøleskap) og sosiale og (2) kulturelle strukturer (populærformidling, måltidsorganisering og utdanning). Rapporten er skrevet på oppdrag fra Barne- og likestillingsdepartementet.

Household food waste: Drivers and potential intervention points for design – An extensive review

This review describes the consumer related material and socio-cultural drivers behind food waste found in academic and grey literature. The aim is to identify intervention points for design interventions to reduce household food waste. Within the reviewed literature, an array of different aspects of consumer food waste is studied such as consumer behaviour, attitudes, beliefs and values, quantifications and compositional analyses of food waste in Western countries, waste prevention and concrete design interventions. This illustrates that the problem of consumer food wasting practices is an issue that is complex and involves both socio-cultural and material factors. However, the literature is more focused on generating knowledge about the problem than on finding solutions. Thus, further research should attempt to find ways to test new ideas and interventions that could reduce food waste in households

Forbruksreduksjon av plastposer – en litteraturstudie

Plastens innvirkning på miljø og klima har lenge vært et svært omdiskutert tema. Plastbæreposene fikk særdeles mye oppmerksomhet i forbindelse med EUs “plastposedirektiv” som kom i 2015. Etter at EU-direktivet ble vedtatt, har land tilpasset seg dette på ulike måter. De fleste land har innført tiltak som har ført til at forbrukerne må betale for posene (Atzori 2017). Effekten av disse tiltakene har likevel variert mye, fra en reduksjon på 90% i Irland (Convery et al. 2017) til en reduksjon på 10% i Norge (regjeringen 2018). I dette notatet vil vi gjennom en litteraturstudie undersøke mulige forklaringer på dette. Først og fremst er det forunderlig at forskjellen er så stor mellom de skandinaviske landene, der tallene viser a nordmenn bruker et betydelig større antall poser enn svensker og dansker. Ser vi til Tyskland er forskjellen enda større. Vår innledende hypotese har vært at strukturelle forutsetninger, som butikktetthet, handlehyppighet, bruk av transportmidler, tilgjengelighet av posealternativer, reguleringer og sosiale konvensjoner, kan være med å forklare forskjellene. Vi har derfor søkt å samle forskning og informasjon om disse faktorene, og valgt oss ut Norge, Sverige, Danmark og Tyskland, som case. Forbrukerne blir tilbudt plastbæreposer i de fleste butikker. Likevel er 70% av det norske forbruket knyttet til handling i dagligvarebutikker (Regjeringen 2018). Vi har derfor avgrenset omfanget i denne studien til å handle om poser fra dagligvarehandelen, og dermed også fokusert på handlevaner knyttet til innkjøp av mat. Formålet med studien har vært å se om vi kan identifisere noen potensielle sammenhenger mellom forskjeller i faktorer og forbruksnivå av plastposer. Avslutningsvis identifiserer vi nåværende kunnskapshull, og diskuterer tre ulike strategier for å redusere plastposeforbruket. Sist, men ikke minst, skisserer vi muligheter for videre forskning og peker på interessante problemstillinger og relevante metoder