Abstract

Traditionally, sustainable product design research and education has been focused on manufacturing and end-of-life aspects With a new found focus on the use stage, as in the research area of Design for Sustainable Behaviour (DfSB), a better understanding of how a focus on behavioural aspects can reduce life cycle impacts has emerged. Preliminary findings from on-going DfSB research were used as basis for the development of a method to guide designers in selecting promising design principles that can contribute to change user behaviour into more environmentally friendly patterns. This method is presented, and experiences with using the booklet in a sustainable product design course are shared. The paper reflects on how students cope with this research-based approach, and how research has benefited from this course.

Keywords

Design for sustainable behaviour, sustainable product design education

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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Jun 15th, 9:00 AM

From teaching sustainable product design to teaching sustainable behaviour design

Traditionally, sustainable product design research and education has been focused on manufacturing and end-of-life aspects With a new found focus on the use stage, as in the research area of Design for Sustainable Behaviour (DfSB), a better understanding of how a focus on behavioural aspects can reduce life cycle impacts has emerged. Preliminary findings from on-going DfSB research were used as basis for the development of a method to guide designers in selecting promising design principles that can contribute to change user behaviour into more environmentally friendly patterns. This method is presented, and experiences with using the booklet in a sustainable product design course are shared. The paper reflects on how students cope with this research-based approach, and how research has benefited from this course.

 

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