Sustainable products and services for sustainable lifestyles

Successful dissemination of sustainable products and services is necessary to support sustainable lifestyles. As a cooperation and communication tool an online platform can enable targeted communication between relevant stakeholders by providing different communication channels to enable a broad discussion on sustainable products and their contribution to sustainable lifestyles.

Developing a platform concept

As a first step toward developing an online platform the CSCP organised an interactive workshop with product designers and communication experts to discuss concepts and potential platform systems. Through this process collaboration models and communication channels were identified that maximise the potential for developing ‘social web 2.0 strategies’ that promote sustainable products and services.

As a second step, different interface types and interaction procedures were identified and discussed during a second expert workshop. In this workshop the identified collaboration models were verified and pre-tested through role-playing games and the models were modified as a final concept for the online platform. To support and strengthen sustainable consumption such a platform might also include several proposals for transferring experiences and results from the online platform to mass-market communication of sustainable products and services.

Background

This project was financed by the Ministry for Climate Protection, Environment, Agriculture, Nature Conservation and Consumer Protection of the German State of North Rhine-Westphalia.