Envision new ways toward sustainable living

Sustainable lifestyles and consumption choices are of increasing interest to consumers and researchers. To engage a wide cross section of actors and increase the impact of individual lifestyle choices it is necessary to develop new means of experiencing sustainability. A film can impart intense experiences of a landscape when travelled by bicycle rather than by car or demonstrate the pleasures of a vegetarian sandwich relative to a fast food burger. Visual images can motivate us to change our behaviour by illustrating different lifestyles in deep and emotional ways. 

Changing lifestyles by visually illustrating examples of better living

The project “Idea Generation for New Sustainable Concepts in Consumption and Future Lifestyles” envisioned new ways to explore the opportunities in visualizing sustainable lifestyles and enabling individual sustainable lifestyles and consumption. The project demonstrated the potential of three strategies: (1) visualizing sustainable consumption and lifestyles through photographs, drawings and film to reach consumers on an emotional level to enable behaviour change, (2) providing information to motivate and inspire people to find individual sustainable lifestyles and change the way they behave in consideration of local knowledge, and (3) strengthening and building stakeh0older networks to create synergies that enhance impact.

Inspiration from creative minds

During the project, the CSCP collected 60 innovative ideas for projects and initiatives that enable sustainable lifestyles and consumption. About one third of them were suggested by participants of an interactive online platform, others were developed in expert interviews or based on research for innovative ideas. The compilation of these ideas can be downloaded below. The six most promising project ideas were discussed with experts from education, design, economy, civil society and science in a workshop.

Background

The project received funding from the Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt.