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” will envision new ways to explore the opportunities in visualizing sustainable lifestyles and enabling individual sustainable lifestyles and consumption. The project will demonstrate 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

The CSCP prepared a baseline report that includes a map of inspiring activities and active initiatives in Germany. To demonstrate the power of visual images the project will also produce impressions of sustainable lifestyles: Through a competition between art and design students several creative outputs will also be created. The CSCP will also initiate and facilitate a dialogue to generate ideas between creative minds and sustainability experts within an online-platform and during three project workshops. 

Background

The project received funding from the Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt. The student competition is supported by the Alanus University of Arts and Social Science in Alfter, Germany, the ecosign/Academy for Design (Cologne, Germany) and the Detmold School of Architecture and Interior Design (Detmold, Germany).