Establishing Design Strategies and an Assessment Tool of Home Appliances to Promote Sustainable Behavior for the New Poor

Abstract

Abstract:Environmental benefits related to home appliance life cycles depend on how these products are used. Designing home appliances that promote sustainable behavior is an effective way to reduce environmental impacts. This study aimed to increase relevant opportunities for promoting sustainable behavior practices on the new poor through home appliances, which is rarely discussed in the fields of design for sustainable behavior (DfSB) and product design. In particular, relevant assessment tools or indicators are lacking in DfSB, and people's use of home appliances is generally unsustainable. Therefore, repertory grid technology was used to understand the perceptions of the new poor, develop an assessment tool, and construct design strategies for home appliances that promote sustainable behavior. Data were collected from the new poor and from designers. Through cluster and principal component analyses, three strategy types were proposed that corresponded to different product features, suggestions, and guidance. In addition, the effectiveness and potential of an assessment tool were demonstrated using the Wilcoxon rank test. The findings could be used by designers, retailers, and green marketers to propose effective product design programs that promote sustainable behavior of the new poor during product use.

Circular Economy in the WEEE industry: a systematic literature review and a research agenda

“…Fourth, sharing or pooling products among several users helps reducing the product stock, as in the case of sharing washing machines in laundry facilities or in common rooms in apartment blocks (Amasawa et al, 2018;Cooper, 2005;Kjaer et al, 2019;Yates and Evans, 2016). Fifth, a reduce strategy emerged was using EEE in a more sustainable way (Laurenti et al, 2014;Tu et al, 2018). For instance, in the case of washing machines, by either lowering the temperature used for washing to reduce the energy consumption, saturating the washing machine capacity to reduce the number of washing cycle needed or by using the appropriate amount of detergents to avoid waste and leakages (Abeliotis et al, 2015;Alborzi et al, 2017b;Bocken et al, 2018;Laitala et al, 2011;Lasic and Stamminger, 2015;Morgan et al, 2018;Shahmohammadi et al, 2018).…”

Advancing the use of the repertory grid technique in the built environment: A systematic review

“…Studies within the built environment scope used RGT to examine the applicability of physiological techniques in a housing project (Dayaratne, 2016), promote sustainable behavior practices (Tu et al, 2018), and avoid energy consumption (Cheah et al, 2018). RGT was also used to elicit users' perceptions of key attributes of UGS, understand the meanings of UGS (Taylor and Stough, 1978;Potter and Coshall, 1986;Selby, 2004;Home et al, 2007;Wan and Shen, 2015), provide planners with necessary tools (Home et al, 2010), identify spatial inequalities, and integrate it with multivariate analysis in geography (Potter, 1986).…”

“…Based on the definition of the built environment cited earlier, these studies can be classified as either direct or indirect Frontiers in Built Environment frontiersin.org contributors to the field. Direct contributors included record 234 (Dayaratne, 2016), which used RGT to examine the applicability of physiological techniques in a housing project, and records 133 (Tu et al, 2018) and 135 (Cheah et al, 2018), which adopted RGT to promote sustainable behavior practices or avoid extra energy consumption. Additionally, records 26 (Ratnasingam et al, 2020), 209 (Lallemand and Koenig, 2017), 712 (Vassiliadis and Fotiadis, 2007), 1078 (Mitchell and Kiral, 1999), and 1088 (Mitchell and Kiral, 1998) used RGT to explore human-space interaction, user experience, and spatial experience; assess images of space, or determine material selection.…”

“…In (Tu et al, 2018), two phases were used to promote sustainable behavior practices. The first phase used RGT to understand participants' views of the Design for Sustainable Behavior (DfSB) approach, develop an assessment tool in the form of a grid, and propose design strategies for improving the sustainable behavior of household appliances.…”

Food management innovations for reducing food wastage – a systematic literature review

“…Another technology-based solutions were mentioned by Tu et al (2018). They proposed effective product design programs that promote sustainable behaviour of the new poor during product use (Design for Sustainable Behaviour).…”