Transforming Consumption: design for engagement, meaning and action in a circular economy

Abstract

The Secretary General of the UN recently warned that humanity is waging a ‘suicidal’ war on nature and placed tackling climate change at the heart of the organisation’s global mission (Rowlatt, 2020). Time for action is quickly running out, as it becomes increasingly likely that the Earth’s temperature will increase beyond the critical 2°C limit and catastrophic fires, floods, pollution, desertification, ocean acidification, biodiversity collapse and all of the associated impacts become the new normal.

Against this backdrop, the concept of a circular economy has been popularised particularly amongst businesses and policymaking communities (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2020; European Commission, 2020) over the last ten years as a way to interpret and implement sustainability whilst simultaneously creating economic benefits. Nevertheless, until recently the role of the consumer and the place of consumption within a circular economy has largely been neglected by research, despite its seminal positioning in many CE models. Likewise the role of design has been acknowledged as critical in creating new products and services for a circular economy, but has also been focused more on production (e.g. materials and business models) than consumption (e.g. people’s interaction with their material surroundings or the culture and behaviours of consumers and how these are influenced). Furthermore, CE has not yet taken account of the limits of trying to decouple GDP growth from environmental impacts and the need to address overconsumption with a more sufficiency-based approach, particularly in more affluent global communities.

Behavioural economics and consumer culture research shows that consumers are not merely rational automatons with sovereign control but complex, unpredictable human entities; both consumption and design literature suggest that people usually act according to meaning and emotion rather than information and rationale, and that other priorities often supersede sustainable values or consumption intentions. However, such insights have been somewhat neglected by green marketeers hoping to engage with mainstream consumers and also by the subfield of sustainable consumption which has in the main relied upon psychological theories in researching and instigating behaviour change or engaging people with alternative consumption. Conventional marketing has succeeded in creating new needs and niches to be filled with stuff by equating products with happiness or fulfilment, but this equation has been shown to be flawed. Human wellbeing is a complex concept which cannot be sated by material objects – yet material objects are also more than just functional, and people’s relationship with them is complex.

Design for Behaviour Change and Design for Sustainable Behaviour have made use of various cognitive but also social and practice theories to encourage behaviour or practice change for sustainability. The majority of focus however has been on individual approaches which either provide neutral information or ‘nudge’ the person into a new behaviour by controlling their context or choice architecture, with less attention paid to the meanings which trigger emotion and influence action. As cultural intermediaries, designers along with other social communicators play a key role in creating and inculcating meaning and influencing fashion, taste and consumption. Although it has been accused of encouraging overconsumption, design may also be seen as having a responsibility and a role in encouraging or allowing actions that are in line with planetary boundaries as well as social wellbeing, engaging people with ‘circular’ (and sufficient) forms of consumption, and addressing the meaning of people’s material possessions and the stories behind them.

This thesis therefore asks in what ways design can contribute to engaging people with new forms of consumption as part of a circular economy.

The papers in the thesis review different ways in which design can engage people with more circular consumption, using a variety of qualitative and design-based methodologies. Study 1 newly connects the emerging fields of circular economy and Design for Sustainable Behaviour research, and shows that frameworks such as the nine Dimensions of Behaviour Change or Design with Intent may provide useful indicators or strategies for engagement by businesses wishing to sell circular products or services to customers. A further paper in this study addresses various communications strategies in the context of a circular economy, particularly the use of visual rhetoric and storytelling to increase persuasiveness, prompt emotion or discussion and engage people throughout the customer journey. Study 2 researches the cultural phenomenon of the Marie Kondo decluttering method and places the consumer as designer, or rather re-designer, of their material home environments. Taking a practice-based approach to consumption, it explores the topic of sufficiency and the connection between wellbeing and sustainability. Results indicate that reflecting on what brings the participants joy, and indeed ritualising the process, can reorientate their relationship with and interpretations of consumption at different phases and even lead to significantly reduced acquisition. Study 3 takes the shape of a physical exhibition in which speculative and activist design approaches are used to explore futures of clothing in a localised context following an iterative process of prototyping and user research. Familiar scenarios of clothing combined with elements of storytelling, fun and interaction prompt visitors to imagine future shops in the town and then reflect on their own feelings towards what they wear and how this influences their actions. Once again, meaning emerges as a key ingredient of action.

By focusing on different theoretical or design perspectives through the three studies, it is found that behavioural, practice theory and cultural or future-focused approaches can all provide useful insights into how people may be engaged with consumption change. As the different studies make clear, whether through image, story, performance or material interaction, design has the capacity to engage imagination, prompt emotion and encourage reflection in ways that go beyond traditional modes of communication as fact-based transmission. Through such interventions, design thus has the ability to engage people more directly and to support consumers and users as well as businesses and the public sector to discover new meanings which lead to new actions as part of the consumption process, hereby playing a critical role in facilitating the transition to a circular economy.