Open Access Journals at Aalborg University
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Waste What? A game to communicate about local circular economy practices
Get PDFWaste What? is a card game, intended to communicate about linear economy while highlighting sustainable alternatives of local circular economy (CE) practices offered by grassroot initiatives. The objective of this article is to present the applied co-creative game development process and to show identified CE enablers included in the game. Based on the results, lessons learned and recommendations for future projects are formulated. The project that developed Waste What? used a co-creative development process with four phases: 1. Field Trips: That collected perspectives, insights, and impressions from local CE-Stakeholders. 2. Prototyping: Developed the game concept based on observations. 3. Testing & Design: Prototypes are developed into the final game by including the perspectives of stakeholders in testing sessions. 4. Dissemination and Documentation: The game was documented and published with an open-source license and disseminated at events. With an individual design of 110 cards, a game board, chips, and a manual, Waste What? communicates an experience of involvement in local CE- practices. In the game, players from two teams take the perspective of CE-initiatives. They are active in the re-use of items of the categories: Textiles, Electronics, Food, Furniture, Construction Materials and Bicycles. Players have several options, including selling, donating, storing, combining or incinerating items. The game communicates observed CE-enablers connected to people, items, and infrastructure. The study concludes that CE-games can communicate principles and people are interested in the approach. However, it is recommended to tailor games to specific target groups and plan extensive dissemination efforts to maximize its impact. 
From excess to essential: Exploring the Potential of Adopting Smaller Wardrobes
Get PDFThe overproduction and overconsumption of clothing have substantial environmental impacts. Shifting to smaller wardrobes containing fewer, durable, and frequently used garments is a key strategy in transitioning to a sustainable system. Understanding the size and composition of wardrobes is an essential first step to assess the potential of adopting smaller wardrobes. This study maps the current size of individuals’ wardrobes, the fraction actively used, and the fraction individuals deemed essential to meet their needs. It moreover investigates the characteristics of essential garments and identifies barriers to adopting an essential wardrobe. To examine this, participants' wardrobes were first audited and then reduced to only those items deemed essential to meet their needs for the coming year. The wardrobe audit of 30 individuals in Flanders (Belgium) reveals that participants owned, on average, 169 garments, of which 138 were used in the past year (81%), and 90 were considered essential (53%). Participants’ perceived essential clothing needs varied strongly, ranging from 36 to 275 garments, or alternatively, 28% to 98% of their current wardrobe. Combinability emerged as the most important criterion for selecting essential garments. Both practical (i.e., shortages) and emotional considerations (i.e., loss of joy) were anticipated as obstacles to adopting an essential wardrobe. This study highlights the considerable variation in how individuals meet their clothing needs and what they deem essential. Our findings provide an initial range for the minimum number of garments required to meet clothing needs and offer valuable insights for establishing sufficiency thresholds in apparel consumption
Design Strategies to Strengthen Epistemic Value in Consumer Electronics and Prolong Product Lifetime
Get PDFThe Importance of Reuse and Repair: A Call for Canadian Municipal Action to Promote Clothing Repair Events
Get PDFExploring Parental Engagement in Sustainable Practices for School Uniforms: A Circular Economy Perspective
Get PDFGetting rid of electrical and electronic equipment: Disposal decision and service life in the light of institutional economics
Get PDFWithin the product life cycle, the user's decision regarding disposal (i.e. getting rid of the product) at the end of the utilization phase plays an important role in terms of the service life of a device of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE). This article first examines from an economic perspective whether and how consumers dispose of EEE. The costs of ownership, the utility of ownership, and disposal costs are identified as the key determinants for this decision. It is the costs of ownership that is the actual cause of the will to dispose, and it is the latter two determinants that prevent the user from disposing of them. While the size of the utility of ownership is already frequently analyzed in the discourse on repair, the perspective of disposal costs seems to receive little attention. Therefore, the article continues to investigate the extent to which the determinant of disposal costs can be put to use for regulation towards a circular economy. To this end, three disposal paths (circular, official-final, illegal), the regulatory objectives associated with them (prevention, safe disposal) and the types of hurdles associated with the respective disposal path (pecuniary, transaction costs, spatial, sanctional) are considered. The result is a complex situation for regulation, not least because of a path of illegal disposal that is not easy to control, which makes it difficult to simply apply economic pricing instruments. Instead, the concept of ‘hurdle management’ is introduced, which offers a perspective for future regulatory efforts with regard to disposal costs.  
Perceptions of sacrifice in the pursuit of sufficient consumption
Get PDFThis study investigates the role of perceived sacrifice in the adoption of behaviours of sufficiency in clothing consumption. With the urgent need to reduce carbon emissions and consumption to stay within planetary boundaries, this research explores how consumers perceive and are willing to make sacrifices for sustainable consumption. The paper examines seven types of perceived sacrifices—functional, emotional, social, epistemic, conditional, financial, and time/effort—and their impact on the intention to adopt sufficiency behaviours such as reducing purchases, extending clothing longevity, shifting to second-hand items, and sharing clothes. The findings reveal that perceived sacrifices significantly and negatively influence the willingness to adopt these behaviours, with variations across different types of sacrifices and behaviours. This research contributes to the literature on sustainable consumer behaviour and offers insights for policy-makers, marketers and designers to promote sufficiency in consumptio
The Consumption Economy - Finding Value in Our Clothing
Get PDFThe fashion industry is one of the largest global polluters, with its linear ‘take-make-dispose’ supply chain model driving unsustainable consumption patterns. With over 100 billion garments produced annually, the industry contributes significantly through over-production and consumption in the multi-billion dollar industry. Overarching Question: This study investigates consumer consumption practices to understand the true ethical beliefs and values of individuals in relation to fashion purchasing, use, and disposal. Consumption practices are rarely explored by understanding consumer deeper thoughts and perceptions in second-hand retail, despite garments having an average lifespan of 3.3 years, many clothing items are unused, with 26% of garments in the UK remaining unworn (SCAP, 2021).Sub Question: The effects of the high and low value of clothing in the second-hand economy need to be investigated with the collection of empirical data of consumption practices. Predominantly unseen activity in Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C) transactions remains underexplored, executed through digital and online selling platforms. Sub Questions: This study examines consumer’s ethical belief systems that influence second-hand purchasing behaviour. Exploring participants’ motivations when engaging in second-hand markets in physical and online spaces, it highlights the complexities of consumer belief systems that shape their purchasing behaviour. The findings emphasise the importance of values and beliefs playing an integral role in the second-hand market landscape—challenging traditional consumption models and shedding light on potential avenues for innovation in a circular fashion future. 
Introducing the Reshape strategy: Preserving material integrity
Get PDFOne of the significant challenges of today’s society is the unsustainable overconsumption of resources, coupled with the generating of enormous amounts of waste. European manufacturing produces over 230 million tons of waste annually, much of which remains unaddressed within existing circular economy frameworks that predominantly focus on post-consumer waste. This paper introduces the Reshape strategy, which aims to respect, incorporate, and utilise pre-consumer industrial waste to create new products, thereby reducing dependence on virgin materials. Positioned within current R-frameworks, the Reshape strategy addresses a theoretical gap in circular economy literature, where the Recycling strategy is commonly used and Reuse often being misapplied, leading to theoretical ambiguity. Reshaping emphasises the extension of material lifetimes rather than downcycling through recycling. Therefore, this research explores the potential of industrial waste as a resource through 19 case studies from a Danish research project focused on designing with industrial waste materials. The findings emphasise the inherent qualities of industrial waste and outline activities within the Reshape strategy that leverage the material’s integrity in terms of function, form, or material composition, thereby extending its lifetime. By leveraging these qualities, this study contributes theoretically to the circular economy by refining terminology and advancing the understanding of pre-consumer waste within circular systems. The Reshape strategy aligns with circular economy principles, aiming to keep materials in productive loops while addressing the significant untapped potential of discarded materials.  
Designing materials with living organisms for care-based practices: An analysis of case studies within the wearables domain
Get PDFThe unsustainable patterns of human consumption, exacerbated by materialism, digital technologies, disruptive global events and the mounting issue of e-waste, demand a fundamental shift in design approaches. In light of these challenges, this paper discusses how integrating living organisms into materials design can facilitate this transition, fostering innovative interactions and enabling care-based practices. By analysing three case studies in interaction design, the research highlights the transformative potential of incorporating biological matter like plants, moulds, bacteria and fungi into domains such as the one of wearables. The biodesign processes examined reveal commonalities, including the unpredictable, transient and time-consuming nature of designing with living organisms, as well as the evolving commitment and sensitivity of both designers and users towards the artefacts. The findings suggest that embracing non-human agency in the design field can nurture empathy and symbiosis and encourage users’ ethical practices, responsibility, and emotional awareness. The study provides valuable insights into embedding care in design, redirecting the focus away from the traditional environmental products’ durability to a designed temporality, capable of engendering long-term emotional durability