Zapico, Jorge Luis (KTH Centre for Sustainable Communications)
Spikol, Daniel (Linnéuniversitet – Celekt)

Title

Designing Mobile Persuasion: Using Pervasive Applications to Change Attitudes and Behaviors.

Published in

Sharing Experiences with Social Mobile Media. Proceedings of the International Workshop in conjunction with MobileHCI 2009, September 15th 2009, Bonn, Germany. Pp 11-16.

Abstract

We have a personal relationship with mobile phones, since they are closer to us than any other technological device. They are ubiquitous (60% of the world population owns one), individual, and pervasive in our lifestyle (we have them with us all the time and everywhere). These modern devices are nearly as powerful as personal computers, always connected to the Internet, and loaded with sensors like GPS and accelerometers. These mobile devices offer opportunities for persuading users to change attitudes and behaviors towards personal and societal issues. For this paper we focus on the design of a mobile application for reducing in carbon dioxide emissions in personal transportation choices that can change attitudes and behaviors. The paper presents design practices that have resulted in a prototype social mobile application.

Download

Proceedings PDF

Moberg, Åsa (KTH Centre for Sustainable Communications)
Picha, Malin (TU – The Swedish Media Association)
Erlandsson-Segerström, Birgitta (TeliaSonera)
Karagianni, Catherine (TeliaSonera)
Malmodin, Jens (Ericsson)
Wiklund, Lennart (Bonnier Group)

Title

Using a life cycle perspective to assess potential social impacts of ICT services – a pre-study.

Published in

Report from the KTH Centre for Sustainable Communications, Stockholm.
ISSN:1654-479X
TRITA-SUS 2009:1

Abstract

Buying that new mobile phone may make your life easier, provide continuous access to the net and change your image, but what social impact will your action have on others? Different stakeholders along the life cycle of the mobile phone will be affected, in positive and negative ways. Who is responsible and how can we know the impact?

Handling environmental impact with a life cycle perspective, for example using life cycle assessment (LCA), is today common practice. A similar technique for social impact, social and socio-economic LCA (S-LCA) is under development (Benoit and Mazijn, 2009). The aim of the current pre-study was to consider the use of S-LCA for information and communication technology (ICT) services to learn more about the product and facilitate consideration of social impact in different decision-making situations.

From a company perspective, social responsibility is handled in various ways, often under the heading of CSR, corporate social responsibility. Firstly, the company’s own employees are easily targeted and acted on by providing good working conditions, fair wages and working hours, etc. Considering social impact throughout a product’s life cycle is the next step and here measures and responsibilities are less clear-cut.  How is a product distributed (supply chain), how is it used and how is it finally disposed? Different stakeholders are differently affected, positively and negatively.

Four companies and organisations, all partners in the Centre for Sustainable Communications, took part in this study. They currently have different experiences and degrees of activity regarding social responsibility. The telecommunications companies, Ericsson and TeliaSonera, have started to consider social aspects in their supply chain and for their consumers. Social aspects are not only considered in terms of impact of the company management but also of impact related to products (goods and services). The media organisations (Bonnier Group and the Swedish Media Association) have not handled social aspects to the same extent as the telecommunications companies, but of course their products also give rise to social impact throughout their life cycles.

To enable a discussion on the usability of S-LCA, a simplified test was carried out, inspired by the ongoing work on including social aspects into LCA within the UNEP-SETAC Life Cycle Initiative (Benoit and Mazijn, 2009). This screening test was based on a selection of published and readily available information on potential social impacts along the life cycle of two defined ICT services. The goal was not to provide an assessment of social impact, but rather to give a rough sketch and reflect on possibilities and limitations with the method. The two ICT services in the test were mobile news and video conferencing, provided by a newspaper company and a telecommunications company respectively. An interesting feature of both these services was that the company providing the service was not providing the electronic device, the hardware platform of the service. This gives one more dimension in the consideration of who is responsible for social impacts with a life cycle perspective.

There was a lot of information available on potential social impact for parts of the respective life cycles. This kind of information is gathered by scientists, NGOs and others. A small share of the information was compiled for the selected stakeholder groups: worker and consumer. This information indicated that there are social impacts all along the life cycle and that these may be positive or negative and of differing magnitude. As stakeholders become aware of the possible negative social impact, increasing engagement from organizations and companies in social responsibility will be requested.

When companies start to consider social impacts in the supply chain, it is expected to be easier to reach the first and second tier of suppliers. However, ILO (2007) has established that the workers at the beginning of the supply chain (farthest away from the end-product) are generally the most disadvantaged. In some cases, handling e-waste is also leading to major negative social impacts. Raw material acquisition and waste management may have large implications on the social impact related to a product, with best case or worst case possibly leading to significantly different results. A life cycle perspective would facilitate identification of improvement potential.  A key question is who is responsible, or rather who will accept responsibility.

As there is information available for parts of the processes and stakeholders throughout the life cycle of the ICT services studied, the question remains how this information can be used by companies providing products for end-consumers. This pre-study indicates that it can be useful to apply a life cycle perspective and compile data in relation to a specific product also when considering potential social impacts. This would facilitate the inclusion of processes and stakeholders for example at the beginning of the life cycle, where impact may be considerable and negative, and make these more visible. Development of S-LCA is thus interesting in order to provide transparent and ‘standardised’ assessments of potential social impact. By providing guidelines or standards, the assessments of social impact could be interpreted and criticised more easily. The possibilities for using S-LCA to increase knowledge and ultimately improve social conditions should be further studied and developed.

In the field of S-LCA there is plenty of future research to be carried out, examples of which are provided by Benoit and Mazijn (2009). One important way of getting more experience and enabling further development of the method and its practice is through performing case studies. ICT products would be an interesting field for this.

Download report

Borggren, Clara & Moberg, Åsa

Title

Pappersbok och elektronisk bok på läsplatta – en jämförande miljöbedömning.

Published in

Report from the KTH Centre for Sustainable Communications, Stockholm.
ISSN:1654-479X
TRITA-SUS 2009:2

Download

Download report
Download Appendix 1 (Inventory Data)
Download Appendix 2 (Results)

Contact Åsa Moberg if you want to order a paper copy of the report!

Donovan, Craig

Title

Twenty thousand leagues under the sea: A life cycle assessment of fibre optic submarine cable systems.

Published in

Degree Project at KTH, Department of Urban Planning and Environment, Division of Environmental Strategies Research (fms), Stockholm, 2009.

Abstract

Submarine cables carry the vast majority of transcontinental voice and data traffic. The high capacity and bandwidth of these cables make it possible to transfer large amounts of data around the globe almost instantaneously. Yet, little is known about the potential environmental impacts of a submarine cable from a life cycle perspective. This study applies Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology to collect and analyse the potential environmental impacts of a submarine cable system within a single consistent framework. The system boundary is drawn at the limits of the terminal station where the signal is transferred to, or from, the terrestrial network. All significant components and processes within the system boundary have been modelled to account for the flow of resources, energy, wastes and emissions. Data quality analysis is performed on certain variables to evaluate the effect of data uncertainties, data gaps and methodological choices. The results highlight those activities in the life cycle of a submarine cable that have the largest potential environmental impact; namely, electricity use at the terminal station and cable maintenance by purpose-built ship. For example, the results show that 7 grams of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2 eq.) are potentially released for every ten thousand gigabit kilometres (10,000Gb/km), given current estimations of used capacity. The potential environmental impacts are directly linked to capacity and system usage, thus, increasing data traffic improves the environmental performance of the submarine cable system per unit of data. A focus area for further improvements is the emissions from ships, where the greatest gains in environmental performance are likely to be made through reduced emissions. This study is perhaps the first tentative step in linking together research into the environmental impact of terrestrial ICT networks.

The study was undertaken at Ericsson Research in Kista. Craig Donovan was suvervised by Åsa Moberg (Centre for Sustainable Communications) and Fredrik Jonsson (Ericsson).

Download thesis!

Henriksson, Greger

Title

What did the trial mean for Stockholmers?

Published in

Gullberg, A., Isaksson, K. (eds.) (2009) Congestion Taxes in City Traffic – Lessons learnt from the Stockholm Trial. Nordic Academic Press, Lund.

Buy the book at Nordic Academic Press

Göran Finnveden, Michael Z. Hauschild, Tomas Ekvall, Jeroen Guinee, Reinout Heijungs, Stefanie Hellweg, Annette Koehler, David Pennington and Sangwon Suh

Title

Recent developments in Life Cycle Assessment

Published in

Journal of Environmental Management 91, 1-21, (2009), doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2009.06.018

Abstract

Life Cycle Assessment is a tool to assess the environmental impacts and resources used throughout a product’s life cycle, i.e., from raw material acquisition, via production and use phases, to waste management. The methodological development in LCA has been strong, and LCA is broadly applied in practice. The aim of this paper is to provide a review of recent developments of LCA methods. The focus is on some areas where there has been an intense methodological development during the last years. We also highlight some of the emerging issues. In relation to the Goal and Scope definition we especially discuss the distinction between attributional and consequential LCA. For the Inventory Analysis, this distinction is relevant when discussing system boundaries, data collection, and allocation. Also highlighted are developments concerning databases and Input–Output and hybrid LCA. In the sections on Life Cycle Impact Assessment we discuss the characteristics of the modelling as well as some recent developments for specific impact categories and weighting. In relation to the Interpretation the focus is on uncertainty analysis. Finally, we discuss recent developments in relation to some of the strengths and weaknesses of LCA.

View article

Andrews, E. S., Barthel, L-P., Beck, T., Benoit, C., Ciroth, A., Cucuzzella, C., Gensch, C-O., Hebert, J., Leasge, P., Manhart, A., Mazeau, P., Mazijn, B., Methot, A-L., Moberg, Å., Norris, G., Parent, J., Prakash, S., Reveret, J-P., Spillemaeckers, S., Ugaya, C., Valdivia, S. and Weidema B. Benoit C. and Mazijn, B. (Eds).

Title

Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products. Social and socio-economic LCA guidelines complementing environmental LCA and Life Cycle Costing, contributing to the full assessment of goods and services within the context of sustainable development.

Published in

UNEP-SETAC Life-Cycle Initiative, 2009.
ISBN: 9789280730210

Abstract

The Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products provides a map, a skeleton and a flash light for stakeholders engaging in the assessment of social and socio-economic impacts of products life cycle. First, the S-LCA Guidelines provides a map, which describes the context, the key concepts, the broader field in which tools and techniques are getting developed and their scope of application. The map is important because it relates to history, initiatives and ideas that are both molding the S-LCA technique and essential to its broad application.

Shared concerns about the state and sustainability of environmental, economic and social dimensions of today’s and tomorrow’s world are expressed through the concept of Sustainable Development. The journey towards sustainability finds sustainable production and consumption at its very heart. It also relates to the social responsibility of organizations and the objective to improve social and environmental performances along with sustained economic profitability -all in the perspective to contribute notably to greater human well-being.

Because it is holistic, systemic and rigorous, Life Cycle Assessment is the preferred tool when it comes to access information about potential and real impacts of products life cycle. Life cycles of products involve material, energy and economic flows. They are also made of stories about production and consumption impacts on the workers, the local communities, the consumers, the society and all value chain actors. Second, the S-LCA Guidelines provides a skeleton. It presents key elements to consider and provide guidance for the goal and scope, inventory, impact assessment and interpretation phases of a social life cycle assessment. The S-LCA Guidelines provide the necessary basis for the development of databases and the design of softwares that will ease the practice of S-LCA. The skeleton is important because it is a foundation on which a larger group of stakeholders can engage.

The framework detailed in the S-LCA Guidelines is in line with the ISO 14040 and 14044 standards for Life Cycle Assessment. Adaptations for the consideration of social and socio-economic issues are described in the framework. It proposes a two-fold classification of social impacts: by stakeholder categories and impact categories. A set of subcategories, which are social and socio-economic issues of concerns, to be used in S-LCA are presented.

Third, the S-LCA Guidelines provide a flash light that highlights areas where further research is needed. Other publications shall follow these Guidelines, presenting details of the methodology and further developments notably in regard to Impact assessment. A flash light is important to enable researchers and practitioners to identify rapidly where additional efforts should be invested. It also helps to prevent the use of the technique for applications that would not be appropriate considering its current state of development such as comparative assertion communicated to the public. Further resources will be made available to the public on the UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative web site.

Social Life Cycle Assessment is a technique available to account for stories and inform systematically on impacts that otherwise would be lost in the vast and fast moving sea of our modern world. May it help stakeholders to effectively and efficiently engage to improve social and socio-economic conditions of production and consumption.

Download publication

Ekman, Agneta

Title

Eye2Eye Telepsychiatry

Published in

Poster presented at the American Psychiatry Association 2009 Annual Meeting, San Francisco, May 16-21, 2009.

Download poster (pdf)

Zapico, Jorge
Turpeinen, Marko
Brandt, Nils

Title

Climate Persuasive Services: Changing behavior towards low-carbon lifestyles.

Published in

Proceedings of Persuasive 2009: Fourth International Conference on Persuasive Technology, Claremont, CA, 26-29 April 2009, ACM Digital Library.

Abstract

ICT has reshaped our society, and with the current accelerating development of technology, and its wider distribution throughout the globe, they will continue doing so even more. These changes in society are important for sustainability. They affect the physical way the society and the environment interact, but they also affect the way people think, learn and behave.

We suggest that the persuasive power of ICT can be oriented towards climate change. For this purpose we define the concept of “climate persuasive services” as ICT applications that change personal attitudes regarding climate change and/or change behavior towards reducing greenhouse gases emissions. We consider mobile phones, pervasive sensors and social media as three key technological drivers for the development of climate persuasion applications.

We have analyzed the use of persuasion principles in existing web and mobile applications forming three clusters: tracking carbon footprints, sharing goals and making green behavior easier. Based on this analysis, we suggest a more planned use of persuasive principles, and propose six different opportunities for improvement.

Download article (ACM Digital Library)

Moberg, Åsa
Johansson, Martin
Finnveden, Göran
Jonsson, Alex

Title

Screening environmental life cycle assessment of printed, web based and tablet e-paper newspaper.

Published in

Report from the KTH Centre for Sustainable Communications, Stockholm, 2009 (Second edition).
TRITA-SUS 2007:1
ISSN: 1654-479X

Download report (including appendices)