Cultures of Sustainability: ‘Ways of doing’ cooking

In our research, we have been expanding our conceptual and methodological frames of reference as designers, in order to explore the complexity of factors involved in environmental sustainability and the consequent challenges posed for design research. In this paper, we discuss some of these issues in user-centered and sustainable design, drawing out and developing relations to concepts from other fields of study, such as the sociology of consumption and material culture. In order to better understand the role that (sustainable) design products might play within people’s everyday lives and lifestyles, we interpret and discuss notions of ‘socio-cultural practices’ of consumption and frame an approach to studying people’s ‘ways of doing’ with artifacts. We point to two examples from our previous research on designing for energy awareness and for sustainable bathing practices. A current study is presented in depth, in which families and singles, resident in The Netherlands but originating from different countries, have been observed and interviewed during preparation of a meal, eating and clearing up afterwards. Through studying and reflecting on the different ‘ways of doing’ cooking, we gained insights into how cooking and a range of associated practices and artifacts are deeply embedded in traditions, meanings and aspirations. Issues of environmental consumption, such as water, energy and waste, are at stake in such design research but, as we argue, so is attention and sensitivity to how these are interwoven in meaningful socio-cultural practices. The setup and findings are presented, as a point of departure for raising conceptual and methodological questions to be developed in future work

BALANCING FOOD VALUES: MAKING SUSTAINABLE CHOICES WITHIN COOKING PRACTICES

Within user-centred design and topics such as persuasive design, pleasurable products, and design for sustainable behaviour, there is a danger of over-determining, pacifying or reducing people’s diversity. Taking the case of sustainable food, we have looked into the social aspects of cooking at home, in specific related to the type of food that is purchased. This paper describes what it means for people to make more sustainable choices in food shopping and how that can be mediated while taking different ‘food values’ that household members have into account. In a design experiment, we developed a service for selecting daily dinner meals while supporting choices of sustainable food which reported on environmental impact, health and nutrition values, and purchase data. Through visualizations of alternative food choices, the experiment provided a space for households to negotiate food values, while opening up possibilities for changing cooking practices

Challenges in Energy Awareness: a Swedish case of heating consumption in households

An efficient and sustainable energy system is an important factor when minimising the environmental impact caused by the cities. We have worked with questions on how to construct a more direct connection between customers-­‐citizens and a provider of district heating for negotiating notions of comfort in relation to heating and hot tap water use. In this paper we present visualisation concepts of such connections and reflect on the outcomes in terms of the type of data needed for sustainability assessment, as well as the methods explored for channelling information on individual consumption and environmental impact between customers and the provider of district heating. We have defined challenges in sustainable design for consumer behaviour change in the case of reducing heat and hot water consumption in individual households: (1) The problematic relation between individual behaviour steering and system level district heating, (2) The complexity of environmental impact as indicator for behaviour change, and (3) Ethical considerations concerning the role of the designer

Investigative Designing: usage-oriented research in and through designing

In this paper, we discuss the practice of investigative designing. The notion is currently being used to denote a variety of ideas in design research, and we first seek to clarify some of them. We then present our own, specific take on this notion, while acknowledging that it is being used broadly. We adopted the notion as an umbrella term for our combined research and design activities: as investigative designers. We use it for the exploration of how designers can integrate designing and researching within a design process. The two main concerns we are pursuing within this are to clarify the role of a designer with research skills, and to explore the implications of a usage orientation in design. We present two studies in this paper in which we investigated how usage research for design can be specifically geared to the needs of design, and what helps designers (and what does not) in designing with usage information. In the first study, we ourselves conducted usage research, developed design ideas on the basis of that, and reflected on this process. In the second study, we observed how three other designers engaged with the same user data and developed design ideas. Our findings include that the designers tended to prefer to develop their own design ideas independently from the data, only checking or adapting the ideas to the data. Furthermore, the capacity of designers for dealing with data needs to be taken into consideration. Lastly, the form of data presentation influences how well designers can engage with it in designing. Keywords: Investigative Design; Designing; Designer; Product Usage; User Research</p

Potential för ökad återanvändning i Södertälje kommun

Den här studien har tittat både på potentialen för återanvändning i Södertälje kommun och på hinder och möjligheter som finns för att öka återanvändningen samt kommunens roll för att uppnå den potentialen. Rapporten är framtagen som underlag till Södertälje kommuns handlingsplan för ökad återanvändning

A social practice perspective on the smart grid

Abstract—This is a summary of the workshop that was held as part of the ICT4S conference with a focus on the topic of social practices and smart grids. Here we present an overview of the five invited paper contributions to the workshop, as well as a summary of the plenary discussion, and our final conclusions

Sharing Communities - Final report 2021

I Sverige är många vana att dela både på utrymmen med stora offentliga rum och allemansrätten, funktioner som vård, idrottshallar, tvättstugor och avfallshantering, mobilitet som kollektivtrafik och saker som på bibliotek, parklekar, fritidsgårdar. Att dela saker, transportmedel, ytor, tid och kunskap har potential att bidra till en mängd hållbarhetsvinster, både ekologiska, sociala och ekonomiska.  Utifrån identifierade framgångsfaktorer och fallgropar beskrivs vad som är bra att tänka på när det gäller samverkan med boende, samverkan med aktörer, samverkan internt och samverkan med stadsdelen inom delning. En vägledning är framtagen för Stockholmshem för i första hand områdeschefer, kundansvariga och centrala stödfunktioner inom bostadsbolaget för samverkansdialoger kring delning, men som är öppen för andra bostadsbolag att använda sig av.  Vägledningen guidar till sju steg för att öka möjligheterna till delning mellan boende och verksamheter i bostadsområden:  1.  Inventera 2.  Sätt hållbarhetsmål 3.  Skapa dialog 4.  Utforma 5.  Stöd engagemang och växande 6.  Utveckla stödsystem 7.  Stöd självständighet och fortsatt utveckling Projektet har letts av IVL Svenska Miljöinstitutet i samarbete med Stockholmshem, IIIEE Lunds Universitet och ÅWL Arkitekter. Det har genomförts som ett strategiskt projekt inom Sharing Cities Sweden, en del av det strategiska innovationsprogrammet Viable Cities för smarta och hållbara städer som får stöd i en gemensam satsning av Vinnova, Energimyndigheten och Formas.In Sweden, many people are used to sharing historically, having open access to large public spaces and the right of public access, as well as functions such as care, sports halls, laundries and waste management, mobility such as public transport and products, such as in libraries, parks, and leisure centers. Sharing stuff, transport, spaces, time and knowledge has the potential to contribute to a number of sustainability gains, both ecological, social and economic. Based on identified success factors and pitfalls, we describe what to consider when it comes to collaboration with residents, collaboration with actors, collaboration internally and collaboration with the district within sharing. A guide has been developed for Stockholmshem primarily for area managers, customer service and central support functions within the housing company for collaborative dialogues about sharing, but which is open to other housing companies to use. The guide provides seven steps to increase the opportunities for sharing between residents and businesses in residential areas: 1.  Make an inventory 2.  Set sustainability goals 3.  Create dialogue 4.  Design and develop 5.  Support engagement and growth 6.  Develop support systems 7.  Support independence and further development The project has been led by IVL Swedish Environmental Institute in collaboration with Stockholmshem, IIIEE Lund University and ÅWL Architects. It has been implemented as a strategic project within Sharing Cities Sweden, part of the strategic innovation program Viable Cities for smart and sustainable cities, which is supported in a joint initiative by Vinnova, the Swedish Energy Agency and Formas.The project "Sharing Communities - Gröna Solberga Delar" has been ongoing 2019-2020. IVL Swedish Environmental Institute, together with Stockholmshem and with the support of ÅWL architects and Lund University, has investigated and developed ways for how a housing company can facilitate division between residents. The project aimed to deepen the understanding of the social contexts around sharing in a relatively small but representative residential area in Stockholm and develop a model for how housing companies can use the potential for sharing in existing contexts to strengthen the connections between existing and new areas. The results are compiled in the report: "Sharing Communities".</p

Cultures of Sustainability: ‘Ways of doing’ cooking

In our research, we have been expanding our conceptual and methodological frames of reference as designers, in order to explore the complexity of factors involved in environmental sustainability and the consequent challenges posed for design research. In this paper, we discuss some of these issues in user-centered and sustainable design, drawing out and developing relations to concepts from other fields of study, such as the sociology of consumption and material culture. In order to better understand the role that (sustainable) design products might play within people’s everyday lives and lifestyles, we interpret and discuss notions of ‘socio-cultural practices’ of consumption and frame an approach to studying people’s ‘ways of doing’ with artifacts. We point to two examples from our previous research on designing for energy awareness and for sustainable bathing practices. A current study is presented in depth, in which families and singles, resident in The Netherlands but originating from different countries, have been observed and interviewed during preparation of a meal, eating and clearing up afterwards. Through studying and reflecting on the different ‘ways of doing’ cooking, we gained insights into how cooking and a range of associated practices and artifacts are deeply embedded in traditions, meanings and aspirations. Issues of environmental consumption, such as water, energy and waste, are at stake in such design research but, as we argue, so is attention and sensitivity to how these are interwoven in meaningful socio-cultural practices. The setup and findings are presented, as a point of departure for raising conceptual and methodological questions to be developed in future work.Designing Social InnovationForms of SustainabilitySustainable ways of livin

Policylab for reuse of take away packaging

Syftet med detta projekt som är finansierat av Naturvårdsverket, har varit att dels kartlägga vilka hinder och möjligheter som finns för att öka återanvändning av take away-förpackningar för mat och dryck, samt dels utforska vilka policyåtgärder som kan användas för att hantera hindren och öka möjligheterna för en omställning. Rapporten lyfter tretton policyåtgärder som föreslagits av branschföreträdare som i sin helhet ska betraktas som möjliga lösningar för olika problem och typer av aktörer, eftersom ingen helhetslösning finns. Efter en prioritering lyfter rapporten fram fyra förslag, vilka har analyserats ytterligare i en konsekvensanalys: Att använda offentlig upphandling som styrmedel, att göra det dyrare för konsumenter att köpa och använda engångsförpackningar samt att genomföra kommunikationsinsatser riktade till konsumenter är de förslag som flest ser som pådrivande. Även fler tester och pilotförsök skulle ha en betydande effekt för att driva på utvecklingen. The purpose of this project, which is funded by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, has been to map what obstacles and opportunities exist to increase the reuse of take away packaging for food and drink, and to explore what policy measures can be used to deal with the obstacles and increase the opportunities for a changeover.The report highlights thirteen policy measures proposed by industry representatives which, in their entirety, should be considered as possible solutions for different problems and types of actors, since there is no one-size-fits-all solution. After a prioritization, the report highlights four proposals, which have been further analyzed in an impact analysis: Using public procurement as a policy instrument, making it more expensive for consumers to buy and use disposable packaging and implementing communication efforts aimed at consumers are the proposals that most people see as driving . Even more tests and pilot trials would have a significant effect in driving development