ICTs for Sustainable Consumption

Session 8c, 22 October 2009 eChallenges e-2009 Copyright 2009 TUGraz

ICTs for Sustainable Consumption

Jesse Marsh, Atelier Studio Associato

Lisa Maurer, TUGraz

Klaus Tochtermann, TUGraz


The ICT-ENSURE Project

• ICT for Environmental Sustainability Research• Support action in the ICT for Environment programme

– Extend the network of environmental sustainability research– Explore the structure and content of European research

programmes relevant for sustainable development.

• WP8: Background studies on key areas– Energy Consumption & Efficiency– Sustainable Use of Natural Resources– Climate Change– Industrial Ecology– Agriculture & Biodiversity– Landscape Conservation and Planning– Personalised Information Services & Quality of Life– Sustainable Urban Development– Health, Environmental Risk Management


PIS and Quality of Life

• Personalised Information Systems– PIS: electronic agendas, personal organisers, etc.

• Increasing power and sophistication eg GPS services• Convergence and plethora of gadgets with environmental impact

– Sub-set of Ambient Intelligence• Mixing user profiles with context awareness (Internet of

services)• Applicable to transportation, tourism, health care and well-being

and personalised learning.

• Quality of Life– Originally a function of GNP/capita and Life expectancy– Linked to ICT in different ways: health care, leisure, e-government

• Lifestyle approach incorporates both issues…


Lifestyles, Workstyles


Lifestyle issues

• Different lifestyles linked to more or less sustainable consumption patterns, including ICT– Cellphone battery rechargers– Ecological footprint of an avatar in Second Life

• ICT products promote or reinforce different types of more or less sustainable lifestyles– Blackberry for the busy manager– iPhones for the hip (environmentally aware?)

• Can R&D work on ways in which ICT can contribute to more sustainable lifestyles?– Real-time information regarding consumption choices– Supporting sustainable behaviour patterns


Tapscott: “Grown Up Digital”

• Value of freedom and choice• Attitude to customise and personalise• Habit of close scrutiny• Demand for integrity and openness• Role of entertainment and play in work• Education and social life• Attitude towards collaboration• Demand for speed• Expectation of constant innovation


ArchipeLabo: small is beautiful


Critical Consumption in TLL-Sicily


ICT4SaveEnergy


Sustainable Consumption Policies

• Sustainable Consumption and Production: art. 4 or 1992 Agenda 21 (Rio summit)

• New impulse from Johannesburg WSSD in 2002: SCP as one of three priorities for sustainable development

• 2002 Oslo Declaration on sustainable consumption• UNEP Marrakech process: 10-year framework to for the

2010-11 cycle of UN Commission on Sustainable Development

• EU Communication on SCP– Entirely product-oriented– No mention of ICT


ICTs and Sustainable Lifestyles

ICT sub-area Relevance Notes

Information management ++ Data-mining used to build user profiles.

knowledge management ++ All are key to dynamic and interactive personalised systems

Human-computer interaction +++ Key for personalisation, particularly important for e-inclusion and well-being

Personalised information, eLearning

+++ The same thing as PIS; e-learning can be considered a component to be seamlessly integrated into lifestyle.

Communication, networks + PIS is currently positioned within the Internet of Services.

Integration, interoperability, services

+ Context-aware PIS rely on ubiquitous and pervasive environments

Cooperative systems ++ PIS are seeing an increasing role of social networking, and social networking systems are in turn based on PIS features eg tags.

Modelling and simulation ++ Can be used to simulate the environmental impact of individual behaviour. Serious games can be used to model group behaviours and for group interactions.

Monitoring & control, sensors + Only relevant to the extent that they provide context information.

Geographical information, GIS ++ Trend in PIS for map-based user interfaces and location-aware services.

Mobile systems +++ The PIS accompanies the user; mobile systems are becoming increasingly relevant for most QoL applications.


Lifestyle approach for key areas

ES Key Area Relevance of personalised + community lifestyle approach

Energy Conumption/Efficiency “Slow” low-consumption lifestyles.Active home energy consumption management.

Climate change Influencing individual and group behaviour in adaptation and emergency situations.

Use of natural resources Personal consumption of water and other resources.Personalised eco-tourism services.

Eco-industrial applications Individual product choices based on eco-friendliness.Alternative market structures (e.g. barter).

Agriculture – biodiversity Food product choices based on traceability.Alternative market structures (e.g. bio direct)

Landscape Participatory landscape management behaviours.Personalised eco-tourism services.

Sustainable Urban Development

Personalised eco-friendly local government servicesParticipatory eco-strategic planning (e.g. Agenda 21)

Health – Environmental Risk Management

Participatory eco-strategic risk monitoring.Active community care.


Technical and Social innovation

Area of activities Techno-organisational innovation Socio-cultural innovation

Food and nutrition Systems to guarantee the traceability of eco- bio- food chains. (eg Cudillero, Frascati Living Labs)

Tools to organise and manage purchasing groups, virtual currencies, etc. (eg Kublai)

Energy consumption Smart grid technologies allowing user production, distribution of renewables, distance management of appliances.

Serious games for community governance of energy efficiency. (eg Smart Energy)

Health and well-being AAL Ambient Assisted Living paradigms Healthy community approach (eg Healthy Helsinki Living Lab)

Leisure and tourism Location-aware mobile systems for eco- and cultural tourism (eg iTacitus).

Relational tourism environments, ad hoc planners (eg Snowpolis)

Transportation Systems for multi-modal transport, logistics efficiencies (eg Mobile City Bremen)

Systems for car sharing, travel groups (eg Kublai)

Work activities Tele-work services increasing efficiency and lowering travel.

Systems supporting “slow business” networks and workstyles.

Government services Personalised eGov services. Increased efficiency in eg waste management (eg MK Connect LL)

Systems supporting participatory strategic planning (eg TLL Sicily)


Conclusions and Recommendations

• Just as human activity shapes technology, ICT shapes individual and social behaviour patterns

• The potential to steer ICT research towards the active promotion of sustainable consumption needs further investigation

• ICTs can be used to promote both technical and social innovation in the direction of sustainability

• The Living Lab approach is an appropriate methodology to develop ICTs for sustainable lifestyles

• An R&D roadmap for sustainable lifestyles should be developed and integrated into the EU’s FIRE, SCP and other policies


Acknowledgements

• The ICT-ENSURE project is financed under a grant agreement number 2224017 of the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme, Theme 3, Information and Communication Technologies

• European ICT – Environmental Sustainability Research• www.ict-ensure.eu


• Thank You…

Jesse Marsh, [email protected]

Lisa Maurer, [email protected]

Klaus Tochtermann, [email protected]

ICTs for Sustainable Consumption

Technology

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