Innovating for Sustainability: Involving Users, Politics and Technology

Abstract

Morality is as much in the things we use as in the minds of people. Therefore, this paper argues that we can only establish a sustainable society if we redesign the material landscape we live in. Our daily practices, and the technology on which they rest, should be revised such that environmentally friendly behaviour becomes the rule instead of the exception that costs extra effort. For such redesign to be achieved we need alternative design approaches that are able to accommodate the needs of consumers, producers and the environment as represented by politics. This implies that we have to rethink the role of users in relation to the current debate on user involvement in design. This rethinking is carried out within the framework of developing an experimental approach for design of 'moralizing' technology that stimulates users towards eco-friendly behaviour.