An aesthetic for sustainable interactions in Product-Service Systems?

Copyright @ 2014 Greenleaf Publishing.Eco-efficient Product-Service Systems (PSS, in which the economic interest of the stakeholders involved in the offer continuously foster the optimisation of environmental resource consumption) represent a promising approach to sustainability. However, despite their potential win–win characteristics, the application of this concept is still limited. One key reason is that eco-efficient PSSs are often radical innovations and their adoption usually challenges existing customers’ habits (cultural barriers), companies’ organisations (corporate barriers), and regulative framework (regulative barriers). Starting from these considerations this chapter first investigates the barriers that affect the attractiveness and acceptance of eco-efficient PSS alternatives. A debate is then opened on the aesthetics of eco-efficient PSSs and the way in which aesthetics could enhance specific inner qualities of eco-efficient PSSs, i.e. facilitating and enhancing their wider diffusion. Through the analysis of several case studies, and integrating insights from semiotics, the chapter then outlines several research hypotheses on how the aesthetic elements of an eco-efficient PSS could facilitate user attraction, acceptance and satisfaction

An aesthetic for sustainable interactions in product-service systems?

Copyright @ 2012 Greenleaf PublishingEco-efficient Product-Service System (PSS) innovations represent a promising approach to sustainability. However the application of this concept is still very limited because its implementation and diffusion is hindered by several barriers (cultural, corporate and regulative ones). The paper investigates the barriers that affect the attractiveness and acceptation of eco-efficient PSS alternatives, and opens the debate on the aesthetic of eco-efficient PSS, and the way in which aesthetic could enhance some specific inner qualities of this kinds of innovations. Integrating insights from semiotics, the paper outlines some first research hypothesis on how the aesthetic elements of an eco-efficient PSS could facilitate user attraction, acceptation and satisfaction

A design framework for enabling sustainability in the clothing sector

This article discusses general strategies to enable environmental sustainability within the clothing sector, providing a framework for decision makers involved in the development of programs and policies for this sector. It initially revises the environmental impact of the clothing system and determines its key environmental sustainability priorities. The framework involves five evolutionary strategies for enabling sustainable consumption and production: 1) environmental improvement of flows throughout the supply chain; 2) environmental redesign of existing clothes; 3) design of new clothes intrinsically more sustainable; 4) design of cloth-service systems and 5) promoting life styles towards sufficient consumption. The practical implications of each strategy is analysed based on correspondent ex-post-facto case studies identified in Brazil, using data collected through literature review and desktop research

Campus: “lab” and “window” for Distributed Renewable Energy applied as Sustainable Product-Service System

This paper intends to promote the hypothesis to consider the University Campus as win-win locus for the design, implementation and dissemination of Distributed Renewable Energy (DRE), seen as a key leverage for a sustainable development. In particular, by applying to them a Sustainable Product-Service System (S.PSS) offer model, a promising solution applicable even to low and middle-income contexts. A presentation, description and justification of the following new research knowledge achievements, it is given at the beginning: the design and implementation of S.PSS applied to DRE is a win-win strategy to diffuse Sustainable Energy for All. This is the main knowledge-based outcomes of the LeNSes, the Learning Network on Sustainable energy system EU funded project (Edulink programme II). It is then described and proposed the research hypothesis of making University Campuses as community “labs” and “windows” to design, implement and promote radical innovation for sustainability, i.e. Distributed Renewable Energy systems, seen as a paradigm shift form centralised and fossil fuel-based energy plants and a key leverage for the transition towards a sustainable for all society. In fact, the paper proposes that (design) Higher Education Institution may have a challenging role to play in a transition towards a Sustainable Energy for All society, by going further the diffusion of System Design for Sustainable Energy for All knowledge-base and know-how (in fact the main aim of the LeNses project), towards a new role of university campuses as optimum “lab” for socio-technical innovations test as well as “windows”, i.e. show-cases for the design, testing and dissemination of sustainable energy for all solutions. The paper aims at opening a debate on the reinforcement and amplification of the existing LeNS network, in the sense of real design, prototyping and testing of DRE&S.PSS-based pilot projects within the university’s campus

Making the body tangible: Elementary geometry learning through VR

Given increasing evidence of the importance of sensorimotor experience and meaningful movement in geometry learning and spatial thinking, the potential of digital designs to foster specific movements in mathematical learning is promising. This article reports a study with elementary children engaging with a learning environment designed to support meaningful mathematical movement through the use of two shared, but alternative, representations around Cartesian co-ordinates: a 3D immersive virtual environment, where one child collects flowers from target co-ordinates selected by another child using a 2D visual representation of the virtual garden and person location in space. In this design, the body becomes a ‘tangible’ resource for thinking, learning and joint activity, through bodily experience, and where body movement, position and orientation are made visible to collaborators. A qualitative, multimodal analysis examining collaborative interaction among twenty-one children 8–9 years old shows ways in which the ‘body’ became an instrument for children’s thinking through, and reasoning about, finding positions in space and movement in relation to Cartesian co-ordinates. In particular, it shows how the use of different representations (tangible and visual 2D screen-based) situated the meaning-making process in a space where children, using their bodies, crafted connections between the different representations and used transcending objects to facilitate an integration of the different perspectives