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Future Wash: Exploring new norms, procedures and technologies for sustainable personal washing through a backcasting approach.

Trinity College Dublin

www.consensus.ie  

Dr. Ruth Doyle

SCORAI 2013, Clark University, Worcester MA, 13 June 2013  

Washing Practices  

•  Social practices: “Forms of bodily activities, forms of mental activities, ‘things’ and their use, a background knowledge in the form of understanding, know-how, states of emotion and motivational knowledge” (Reckwitz, 2002: 249)

•  Evolve through time...in conjunction with changes in tools, meanings, procedures (Shove, 2003) and systems of provision, infrastructure and institutional context (Spaargaren, 2003)

•  So how might they be encouraged to evolve to more sustainable forms in the future?

•  Irish households = c. 50 litres per day on washing (25% total daily usage)

Ruth Doyle, Consensus 2013  

Problem definition 2050

Visioning Workshop (1)

Scenario Elaboration

Scenario Sustainability Assessment

Citizen-Consumer

Workshops (3) Backcasting Workshop (1)

Transition Framework

Practice Oriented Participatory (POP) Backcasting

•  How to move beyond minor tweaks to more transformative changes to daily washing practices?

•  Backcasting = an innovation, governance and social learning process.

•  3 Future scenarios: How might we deliver the results of washing more sustainably in the year 2050?

Ruth Doyle, Consensus 2013  

Citizen-Consumer Workshops  

-  Green, Mainstream, Dynamic profiles (Bode, 2000)

-  Positive & negative evaluations, refinement of scenario concepts

-  Revealed opportunities for interventions that promote: adaptive, efficient and connected washing practices

Problem definition 2050

Visioning Workshop (1)

Scenario Elaboration

Scenario Sustainability Assessment

Citizen-Consumer

Workshops (3) Backcasting Workshop (1)

Transition Framework

3 PROMISING PRACTICES

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1. Meanings: Personal  and  ecological  wellbeing,  public  acceptance  of  varying  levels  of  cleanliness  v’s  standardisa=on      

2. Hardware: Local  and  communal  rainwater  harves=ng,  supply  monitor,  smart  water  grid,  low-­‐tech  adap=ve  bathing.          

3. Skills: Evalua=ng  water  availability,  planning  around  fluctua=ons,  responding  accordingly  

Ruth Doyle, Consensus 2013  

Promising Practice example:  1. Meanings: “Natural” washing

“I just thought the idea of living more in tune with natural rhythms, that this is what it does is a good idea, rather than you know, going all sort of futuristic and so on, that you’re actually there going back to the natural” (Karen, Green group). Natural as familiar, tested and known to work versus high-tech visions “[Aqua Adapt] was a more natural idea, and it was less kind of government imposed - you know, rules and regulations” (Deirdre, Dynamic group) Natural versus regulatory constraints

“Won’t harm the environment, or won’t harm your skin, or your body”. (Helen, Mainstream) Engaging with issues such as health & wellbeing to catalyse action.

Ruth Doyle, Consensus 2013  

2. Hardware: “Re-calibrating technologies”

“it would be really strange if we really shift people’s psyche instead of like oh God its terrible all this rain, you’d be going woohoo, bath time!” (Deirdre, Dynamic group, on rainwater harvesting) Re-calibrating devices: Facilitating a more harmonious relationship, both practically and emotionally, human wants and the needs of nature.

“I like the idea of, you know, if I could…feel my body more adjusted to the rhythms, you know, the biorhythms” (Isobel, Dynamic group, on De-Waterise’s revite-alarm). ‘synthetic world' mingling between humans & environment (Rolston, 1998)

Ruth Doyle, Consensus 2013  

3. Skills: Adaptability

“I didn’t care for the wash monitor either, but for a different reason, it’d be a sort of thing that we’d all be robots, you know, kind of like you wouldn’t be able to use your own mind kind of to decide whether you need a shower or not.” (Anne, Mainstream)

–  Wanted to retain authority and skills. Ambient design (Kuznetsov and Paulos, 2010)

–  Conceptual frames, ‘nurturing parent’ v’s ‘strict father’ (Lakoff, 2006) –  Preference for technologies of care, and efficiency rather than control.

During the Big Freeze: “you automatically do the necessary things…just for a few days though, and then you kind of go back to normal”.

–  Practices “destabilised” (Shove et al., 2008) however did not fossilize. –  From “captive consumers” (Guy and Marvin, 1995) to adaptive practitioners

Ruth Doyle, Consensus 2013  

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Ruth Doyle, Consensus 2013  

1. Meanings: “Natural” Washing  

2. Hardware Re-calibrating technologies  

3. Skills: Adaptive & engaged  

“living in tune with natural rhythms…rather than going all sort of futuristic, you’re actually going back to the natural”

To “shift people’s psyche”. And to “feel my body more adjusted to the biorhythms”    

“we’d all be robots, you wouldn’t be able to use your own mind to decide whether you need a shower or not” (resistance towards complete technological delegation).

Preference for natural v’s regulatory constraints

Re-calibrating: Facilitating a more harmonious relationship, both practically & emotionally between needs of nature & people.

Anecdotes where practices “destabilised” (Shove et al., 2008)

Engaging with issues such as health & wellbeing to catalyze action.

‘Nurturing parent’ v’s ‘strict father’ conceptual frames (Lakoff, 2006)

From “captive consumers” (Guy and Marvin, 1995) to adaptive practitioners.

Ruth Doyle, Consensus 2013  

Conclusions: Implementation & Living Labs

•  Citizen-consumer input - exploring questions of distributed competency

between humans, technologies and institutional actors.

•  Cannot influence all drivers shaping practices, but opportunity exists to intentionally stimulate external hardware, organizational and educational context to script efficient, adaptive, and ecologically connected washing practices

•  Scenarios, Transition Framework Living Labs research proposal. •  Important to allow space for transformative processes – to stimulate social

learning and re-framing opportunities that may lead to more innovative proposals and actions for deeper transitions in daily consumption practices (Davies et al., 2013)

Thank you for your attention. Questions?        Thanks  to  Prof.  Anna  Davies,  Visioning  and  Transi=on    workshop  par=cipants,  EPA  STRIVE  Programme    Ruth  Doyle  rdoyle@tcd.ie  www.consensus.ie  

 

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Publications

•  Davies,  A.,  &Doyle,  R.  (forthcoming)  Waterwise:  extending  civic  engagements  for  co-­‐crea=ng  washing  futures,  ACME:  An  Interna=onal  E-­‐Journal  for  Cri=cal  Geographies  

•  Doyle,  R.,  &  Davies,  A.,  R.  (2013).  Towards  sustainable  household  consump=on:  exploring  a  prac=ce  oriented,  par=cipatory  backcas=ng  approach  for  sustainable  home  hea=ng  prac=ces  in  Ireland.  Journal  of  Cleaner  Produc/on  (DOI  informa=on:  10.1016/j.jclepro.2012.12.015).  

•  Doyle,  R.  and  Davies,  R.  (2012)  Transi=on  Framework:  Towards  Future  Prac=ces  of  Sustainable  Personal  Washing.  Available  on-­‐line  at:  h^p://www.consensus.ie    

•  Davies,  A.R.,  Doyle,  R.,  and  Pape,  J.  (2012),  Spaces  for  Sustainability  Learning?  Future  visioning  as  a  geographical  process  for  transforming  produc=on  and  consump=on  prac=ces,  Area,  44,  (1),  2012,  pp.54-­‐60  

•  Ruth Doyle: rdoyle4@tcd.ie •  www.consensus.ie/publications •  www.consensussustainableliving.wordpress.com

Ruth Doyle, Consensus 2013