The art of living a good life : an interactive personalized exhibition experience that reduces the environmental impacts of different lifestyles

Abstract

#misLaebe is an interactive exhibition based on LCA which increases visitors’ awareness of the environmental impact of their lifestyle. Its goals are to 1) disseminate information on LCA results to the public in order to use the considerable potential for more sustainable development through better everyday choices and to 2) improve future LCA studies using new data from the visitors. The exhibition was designed as an apartment with a journalist visiting to conduct an interview. Within this context, relevant information for LCA calculations and social lifestyle categorisation is collected from each visitor using a webapp. What is particularly new about this exhibition is that instead of providing standard advice for a more sustainable life style, the information collected from visitors is used to personalise tips taking into account their personal habits and lifestyle choices. Around 1100 people visited the exhibition between August 2018 and November 2019. A survey among the visitors showed that 46 % of them acquired surprising new information and 26.8 % somewhat surprising information from the exhibition. Even more, the exhibition sensitised 52.4 % to reflect on their personal consumption behaviour. After the exhibition, 47.5 % of visitors were motivated to change specific consumption patterns. Examples of possible changes are the switch from animal-based to more plant-based products and a change in the means of transport. The results from this science communication project show that mainstreaming life cycle thinking has the potential to increase the adoption of sustainable behaviour in society