User-integrated innovation in Sustainable LivingLabs: an experimental infrastructure for researching and developing sustainable product service systems

Abstract

A key challenge of the 21st century is to transform society into one that features sustainable patterns of production and consumption. To achieve this, transition processes need to be designed in key areas such as housing, mobility and nutrition. The design and large-scale implementation of sustainable product service systems (PSS) is regarded a promising approach for sustainability transitions. Real-life socio-technical experiments are an important infrastructure for designing PSS in collaboration with stakeholders and users. In this paper, we argue that transdisciplinary and action research methods are required for institutionalising an experimental setup and developing PSS within such infrastructures. We present the Sustainable LivingLabs (SLL) research infrastructure and its methodology as an example of such experimental settings. It was collaboratively developed with key stakeholders in three consecutive research projects and applied to e.g. heating and space heating. We show new qualities of SLL in relation to existing LivingLabs and approaches for PSS design and present its methodological three-phase model (insight research, prototyping, field testing) of research. Our article contributes to knowledge on a methodological framework and tool-kit for PSS development in SLL with a clear focus on socio-ecological sustainability. Intermediate findings confirm the high influence of user practices on heating energy consumption and show starting points for PSS development: e.g. transformational products, home-automation combined with consulting along value chains. We hypothesise that developing PSS in userand stakeholder-integrated settings supports acceptance and diffusion and, by taking into account users' social practices of utilising novelties, reduces rebound effects caused by incorrect application.

Transition and Social Practices

“…social innovations, cf. Howaldt & Schwarz, 2010;Avelino et al, 2015) or sustainable product-service-systems (Liedtke et al, 2015). An integrative model of sustainable practices was elsewhere proposed (Liedtke et al, 2013d;Hasselkuß et al, 2017), which links the MLP of transition research and social practice theories.…”

“…The design of sustainable products and services or integrated product-service-systems (Liedtke et al, 2015) is a possibility to influence social practices by way of intentional transformational elements, also referred to as transition design (e.g. Irwin, 2015).…”

“…In this paper, we therefore argue for a perspective of resource efficiency in the sense of reconfiguring established social practices towards sustainable patterns of action. We thus refer to a reconfiguration of social practices, which involve consumption of materials (including resource use), towards a lower level of consumption, re-use or longer use of such products, or the design and implementation of low resources product-service-systems (Liedtke, Baedeker, Hasselkuß, Rohn & Grinewitschus, 2015).…”

Who are the consumers? – The need for a sustainability-integrated consumer research agenda

“…www.suslab.eu, www.innolab-livinglabs.de). On the field and in laboratories, they offer the possibility to explore incremental changes together with the affected actors and to carefully test both their effects on other subsystems as well as rebound effects, , 2015b, Geibler et al 2014.…”

Suffiziente Haushalte – Illusion oder Möglichkeit?

“…Private Haushalte sind neben den Unternehmen, staatlichen Institutionen und intermediären Organisationen eine zentrale Leistungsinstanz für die Produktion von Gütern und Dienstleistungen und nehmen damit die Versorgung der Menschen ein (Götz et al, 2011;Liedtke et al, 2014) …”