Unified waste metrics: A gamified tool in next-generation strategic planning

Abstract

A gamification approach for tackling waste management planning and urban development provide a more engaging and interactive experience with high pedagogical potential. Existing serious games involving waste management are complex in their data ingestion, use, and presentation, limiting individuals' opportunities to gain knowledge and decision-making skills transferrable to the real world. Simulations, by comparison, provide either an oversimplified and unrealistic user interface or explore in depth individual rather than aggregate key performance indicators for waste management, limiting potential knowledge retention. There is a clear opportunity in creating an informative, easy-to-use simulation-based game to help stakeholders build understanding of waste management policies, performance, and causal relationships. This gamified tool provides clear feedback through quick-visibility performance indicators (i.e., waste accumulation index, waste compositional analysis, prevention activities etc.) and offers the opportunity, through multi-criteria decision making, of simulating real-life scenarios and previewing the possible outcomes of certain in-game actions. The research question is how the process of gamification might serve as powerful tool for educating decision makers. The results are considered as a reference point to any policy maker intending to assess environmental performance, proposed activities to reach Circular Economy targets, and European Green Deal and UN Sustainable Development Goals.