Analysis of fundamental human needs sufficiency by a product based on satisfiers and barriers

Abstract

The sustainable development goals, adopted in 2015, include achievement of sustainable consumption and production (SCP) patterns as the 12th goal. To achieve SCP patterns, it is necessary not only to reduce environmental load caused by production and manufacturing but also to improve the sufficiency of fundamental human needs and the quality of life of consumers. The living-sphere approach aims to design products for a target living-sphere by determining the sufficiency of fundamental human needs among local residents through products using the fundamental human needs framework proposed by Max-Neef. This framework consists of fundamental human needs and satisfiers. Max-Neef argued that fundamental human needs are universal, but satisfiers fulfilling these fundamental human needs depend on region, culture, and time. In order to design products from the viewpoint of satisfying fundamental human needs, this study models the relationship between products, satisfiers and barriers, and analyzes how a product satisfies fundamental human needs. In a case study, we selected Japan as a target region and a kotatsu as an example. The result shows a possibility for an evaluation of sufficiency of fundamental human needs through the model.