Kyungeun Sung, Sustainable Consumption Research Group, School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment

Kyungeun Sung Supervised by Tim Cooper & Sarah Kettley Sustainable Consumption Research Group

School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment

Sustainable production and consumption by upcycling: Understanding and scaling up niche

environmentally significant behaviour

PhD Summer School RESEARCH ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, July 2016, University of Basel, Switzerland

Kyungeun Sung, Sustainable Consumption Research Group, School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment

Table of contents

1. Conception of sustainability

2. Conception of sustainable development

3. Sustainability/sustainable development in my research

4. Approaches to the study

5. Contribution to sustainability sciences

6. Contribution to sustainable development

Kyungeun Sung, Sustainable Consumption Research Group, School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment

A normative concept

Physiocentric ethics: How human beings should act collectively towards nature

Intra-generational justice: How they are responsible for each other

Intergenerational justice: How they are responsible for future generations (Baker, 2006;

Baumgärtner & Quaas, 2010; Derissen, Quaas, & Baumgärtner, 2011; Norton, 2005)

1. Conception of sustainability

Image source: http://www.digitalpicturezone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Beautiful-Pictures-of-Nature-and-Animals.jpg; http://www.live58.org/Portals/209485/images/congo%20poverty.jpg; http://news.fiu.edu/wp-content/uploads/ist2_4688926-sisters-from-around-the-world.jpg

Kyungeun Sung, Sustainable Consumption Research Group, School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment

2. Conception of sustainable development

Development that:

“meets the needs of present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (Brundtland et al., 1987, p.41)

“meets fundamental human needs while preserving the life-support system of planet Earth” (Kates et al., 2001, p.641)

”creates and maintains prosperous social, economic and ecological systems” (Folke et al., 2002,

p.437)

Image source: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9c_Mk4eL51c/UhVfWyS79OI/AAAAAAAACho/TUXcFixfFoU/s1600/environment+(1).jpg

Kyungeun Sung, Sustainable Consumption Research Group, School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment

3. Sustainability/sustainable development in my research

Economy Society

Environment

Reducing materials and energy consumption

Saving money for individuals, and job creation with new SMEs

Creative, ethical, happy consumers in households

Upcycling

Reducing carbon emissions 80% from 1990 levels by 2050 Mitigation of climate change for:

Preservation of nature (physiocentric ethics)

Quality of life for everyone now (intra-generational justice)

Quality of life for everyone in the future (intergenerational

justice)

Landscape

Regimes

Niches

Scaling up of upcycling for bigger impact on the environment and society

Scaling up of niches to regimes through niche-cluster and niche-regime, adapted from Van den Bosch (2010)

Kyungeun Sung, Sustainable Consumption Research Group, School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment

Gain insights into upcycling in the UK, paying special attention to product attachment and longevity

Adapted framework from Darnton’s Nine Principle’s framework (Darnton, 2008)

4. Approaches to the study

Identify UK-specific key drivers for and barriers to upcycling

Formulate policy and design interventions for scaling up upcycling

Kyungeun Sung, Sustainable Consumption Research Group, School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment

5. Contribution to sustainability sciences

Transdisciplinary nature of sustainability science (Kajikawa, 2008)

Dealing with three major sustainability-related research domains: climate + energy and resources + lifestyle (ibid)

Three components of sustainability science: 1) goal setting: scaling up upcycling in households and beyond in the UK; 2) causal chain analysis: behaviour factor analysis; and 3) forecasting: semi-Delphi study results (ibid)

Provide knowledge and guidance for actions (Baumgärtner & Quaas, 2010)

Design Policy

Psychology Sociology

Sustainability science (core)

Energy and resources

Lifestyle

Climate

Kyungeun Sung, Sustainable Consumption Research Group, School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment

6. Contribution to sustainable development

Economy Society

Environment

Reducing materials and energy consumption

Saving money for individuals, and job creation with new SMEs

Creative, ethical, happy consumers in households

Upcycling

Meeting the UK climate change target (80% carbon

emissions reduction by 2050)

Preservation of nature (physiocentric ethics)

Quality of life for everyone now (intra-generational justice)

Quality of life for everyone in the future (intergenerational

justice)

Kyungeun Sung, Sustainable Consumption Research Group, School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment

References

Baker, S. (2006). The concept of sustainable development. Sustainable Development, 17-48.

Baumgärtner, S., & Quaas, M. (2010). What is sustainability economics? Ecological Economics, 69(3), 445-450.

Brundtland, G., Khalid, M., Agnelli, S., Al-Athel, S., Chidzero, B., Fadika, L., & de Botero, M. M. (1987). Our common future (\'brundtland report\'). Brussels: World Commission on Environment and Development.

Darnton, A. (2008). Practical guide: An overview of behaviour change models and their uses. Government Social Research Unit: www.gsr.gov.uk/downloads/resources/behaviour_change_review/practical_guide.pdf

Derissen, S., Quaas, M. F., & Baumgärtner, S. (2011). The relationship between resilience and sustainability of ecological-economic systems. Ecological Economics, 70(6), 1121-1128.

Folke, C., Carpenter, S., Elmqvist, T., Gunderson, L., Holling, C. S., & Walker, B. (2002). Resilience and sustainable development: Building adaptive capacity in a world of transformations. AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment, 31(5), 437-440.

Kajikawa, Y. (2008). Research core and framework of sustainability science. Sustainability Science, 3(2), 215-239.

Kates, R. W., Clark, W. C., Corell, R., Hall, J. M., Jaeger, C. C., Lowe, I., & Svedlin, U. (2001). Environment and development. sustainability science. Science (New York, N.Y.), 292(5517), 641-642.

Norton, B. G. (2005). Sustainability: A philosophy of adaptive ecosystem management University of Chicago Press.

van den Bosch, S. J. M. (2010). Transition experiments: Exploring societal changes towards sustainability. (PhD thesis). Rotterdam: Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Kyungeun Sung, Sustainable Consumption Research Group, School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment Image sources: http://image.slidesharecdn.com/clapresentation-talisopenday-march14-140328085008-phpapp01/95/cla-presentation-talis-open-day-march-14-14-638.jpg?cb=1395996639

Thank you! Any questions?

Kyungeun.sung2013@my.ntu.ac.uk http://kyungeunsung.com https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kyungeun_Sung