Refine
Year of Publication
Document Type
- Peer-Reviewed Article (17)
- Conference Object (14)
- Part of a Book (9)
- Working Paper (4)
- Report (2)
- Doctoral Thesis (1)
Language
- English (47) (remove)
Division
The paper describes patterns of resource use related to German households' equipment. Using cluster analysis and material flow accounting, data on socio-demographic characteristics, and expenditures on fuel, electricity and household equipment allow for a differentiation of seven different household types. The corresponding resource use, expressed in Material Footprint per person and year, is calculated based on cradle-to-gate material flows of average household goods and the related household energy use. Our results show that patterns of resource use are mainly driven by the use of fuel and electricity and the ownership of cars. The quantified Material Footprints correlate to social status and are also linked to city size, age and household size. Affluent, established and/or younger families living in rural areas typically show the highest amounts of durables and expenditures on non-durables, thus exhibiting the highest use of natural resources.
This thesis justifies and develops a sustainable level of Lifestyle Material Footprint (LMF) as a benchmark for designing sustainable lifestyles. It shows the application of the benchmark in a Household-level Sustainability Transition method and presents a framework for inspiring design solutions towards a Design for One Planet (Df1P).
The thesis shows how the Material Input per unit of Service (MIPS) concept has developed from product orientation to the application to household consumption and from technically-focused measurement into an integral part of methods for designing one-planet lifestyles and supporting solutions. This provides both an advanced application of the concept and its opening to new purposes and users.
The core of the thesis is the suggestion of a sustainable material footprint benchmark of 8 tonnes per person per year as a resource cap target for household consumption in Finland, an 80% (factor 5) reduction from present average. The 8 tonnes benchmark opens the possibility for a target-oriented, planned reduction of LMFs by target-setting, experimenting and up-scaling of sustainable solutions. The method enabled the participating households to perform footprint reductions of 26–54% during the one-month experiment phase. Notable footprint reductions are thus possible even in the short term, which is an important message to other households and other actors in society. Calculating households' LMFs makes visible the structures underlying household consumption and the need for change not only in household consumption but also in the supply of products, services and infrastructure, and thus systemic changes initiated by others than households.
The orientation framework of Df1P suggests measures that could be promoted by means of design, and structures them in a matrix incorporating priority action areas in the fields of housing, nutrition and mobility, and the domains of product design, service design, infrastructure planning and communication design. Mainstreaming sustainable lifestyles will potentially require a new design culture, but at least significant efforts in product design, service design and infrastructure planning as well as in making sustainable solutions attractive to consumers and disrupting existing routines. The more technology and infrastructure can be integrated into this change, the more space will be left for individual diversity in achieving sustainable household consumption. The orientation framework could provide a first step towards Df1P practice by inspiring designers to integrate the recognition of the planetary boundaries into their work.
The article estimates the natural resource consumption due to nutrition from the supply and demand sides. Using the MIPS (Material Input per Service Unit) methodology, we analyzed the use of natural resources along the supply chains of three Italian foodstuffs: wheat, rice and orange-based products. These figures were then applied for evaluating the sustainability of diets in 13 European countries. The results outline which phases in food production are more natural resource demanding than others. We also observed different levels of sustainability in the European diets and the effect of different foodstuffs in the materials, water and air consumption.
Human nutrition is responsible for about 30% of the global natural resource use. In order to decrease resource use to a level in line with planetary boundaries, a resource use reduction in the nutrition sector by a factor 2 is suggested. A large untapped potential to increase resource efficiency and improve consumers' health status is assumed, but valid indicators and general guidelines to assess these impacts and limits can barely be found. Therefore we will have a try to define sustainable limits towards the individuals' daily diet and therefore stimulate current available scientific debate.
Within the paper an examination of existing indicators and assessment methods is carried out. We set the focus on health indicators, such as energy intake, and environmental indicators, such as the carbon or material footprint. The paper aims to provide first, an assessment of core indicators to explore the sustainability impact of foodstuff, and second, a deeper understanding and a discussion of sustainable limits for those dimensions of food and nutrition. Therefore we will discuss several ecological and health indicators which may be suitable to assess the sustainabilty impact and indicate differences or similarities. As a result it becomes obvious that several ecological indicators "point in the same direction" and therefore a discussion about the variability and the variety of these indicators has to be faced in the future. Further the definition of sustainable levels per indicator is an essential aspect to get an idea about the needed barriers for a sustainable nutrition, by now first steps had been made, but no binding guidelines are available yet. Therefore the paper suggests a few indications to set up sustainable levels for health and environmental indicators, based on the idea to reduce the resource use level up to 30-50% in 2030.
The availability of life cycle inventories is one of the biggest challenges for life cycle wide environmental assessment. There are several life cycle assessment (LCA) databases providing inventory data as well as resource and emission profiles of processes for impact assessment methods like ReCiPe or IMPACT 2002+. But the use of these LCA databases for input oriented environmental assessment is very limited as they cover only a part of all relevant input flows. The paper describes current challenges when calculating the input oriented Material Input per Service Unit (MIPS) indicators based on LCA inventory data from the Ecoinvent database. Propositions are made how to address these challenges. As a conclusion, further need of research to reach a full compatibility of LCA databases and the MIPS concept is pointed out.
Addressing the prevailing mode of high-carbon lifestyles is crucial for the transition towards a net-zero carbon society. Existing studies fail to fully investigate the underlining factors of unsustainable lifestyles beyond individual determinants nor consider the gaps between current footprints and reduction targets. This study examines latent lifestyle factors related to carbon footprints and analyzes gaps between decarbonization targets and current lifestyles of major consumer segments through exploratory factor analysis and cluster analysis. As a case study on Japanese households, it estimates carbon footprints of over 47,000 households using expenditure survey microdata, and identifies high-carbon lifestyle factors and consumer segments by multivariate regression analysis, factor analysis, and cluster analysis. Income, savings, family composition, house size and type, ownership of durables and automobiles, and work style were confirmed as determinants of high-footprint Japanese households, with eight lifestyles factors, including long-distance leisure, materialistic consumption, and meat-rich diets, identified as the main contributory factors. The study revealed a five-fold difference between lowest and highest footprint segments, with all segments overshooting the 2030 and 2050 decarbonization targets. The findings imply the urgent need for policies tailored to diverse consumer segments and to address the underlying causes of high-carbon lifestyles especially of high-carbon segments.
Designguide background
(2013)