Encouraging Low Carbon Food Shopping with Ubicomp Interventions
Lead Research Organisation:
Lancaster University
Department Name: Computing & Communications
Abstract
The greenhouse gases arising from food account for more than ten percent of the UK carbon footprint. Carbon-related food interventions such as smartphone apps have largely targeted supermarket shopper decisions 'in store' and have yet shown little evidence of impact.
To be truly relevant, we must seek nuanced understandings of food acquisition both within and beyond the supermarket: these include the negotiation and planning of household meals, and positioning with respect to take-away and convenience foods.
Using multidisciplinary methods as diverse as ethnographic observation, interaction design, carbon profiling and crowdsourcing, we will iteratively develop and trial both low and high tech interventions which meaningfully support food acquisition and carbon awareness, with the aim of promoting lower impact food practice.
Built into the research programme is continual engagement with the supermarket itself, to explore opportunities for making scalable, sustained reductions, in its role as a food institution for tens of thousands.
To be truly relevant, we must seek nuanced understandings of food acquisition both within and beyond the supermarket: these include the negotiation and planning of household meals, and positioning with respect to take-away and convenience foods.
Using multidisciplinary methods as diverse as ethnographic observation, interaction design, carbon profiling and crowdsourcing, we will iteratively develop and trial both low and high tech interventions which meaningfully support food acquisition and carbon awareness, with the aim of promoting lower impact food practice.
Built into the research programme is continual engagement with the supermarket itself, to explore opportunities for making scalable, sustained reductions, in its role as a food institution for tens of thousands.
Planned Impact
We have two main delivery vehicles for impact arising from this work. Firstly, our sustainable shopping app itself will be available on an app store for uptake by all Booths supermarket shoppers. We will create a website and YouTube video to publicise and 'launch' our application.
Secondly, to provide access to the top level messages from our carbon analyses and app design, we will make some of the low-tech resources, e.g. leaflets with guides to low carbon food choice and related case study materials available on our web site, to have impact on non-study participants who are sufficiently interest.
Specifically, we aim to:
- Benefit the Economy, and specifically the supermarket sector, by providing strategic input on sustainable product lines; and design and usability input for to Booths for future mobile shopping applications.
- Contribute to a sustainable society, by influencing lower GhG grocery products available and promoted, by offering new knowledge concerning attitudes and price sensitivity to GhG in products.
- Support society by creating a streamlined shopping app which supports household food practices within and outside the supermarket, and offers eco-feedback concerning GhG impacts.
- Create examples of low-technology delivery which provide the general public with advice about what to change to make GhG impact savings through diet choice.
- Influence policy by providing solid scientific data to help inform strategy regarding viable options for promoting sustainability in supermarkets.
Secondly, to provide access to the top level messages from our carbon analyses and app design, we will make some of the low-tech resources, e.g. leaflets with guides to low carbon food choice and related case study materials available on our web site, to have impact on non-study participants who are sufficiently interest.
Specifically, we aim to:
- Benefit the Economy, and specifically the supermarket sector, by providing strategic input on sustainable product lines; and design and usability input for to Booths for future mobile shopping applications.
- Contribute to a sustainable society, by influencing lower GhG grocery products available and promoted, by offering new knowledge concerning attitudes and price sensitivity to GhG in products.
- Support society by creating a streamlined shopping app which supports household food practices within and outside the supermarket, and offers eco-feedback concerning GhG impacts.
- Create examples of low-technology delivery which provide the general public with advice about what to change to make GhG impact savings through diet choice.
- Influence policy by providing solid scientific data to help inform strategy regarding viable options for promoting sustainability in supermarkets.
Publications
Clear A
(2015)
Designing for transitions to sustainable lifestyles
in Interactions
Clear A
(2016)
Bearing an Open "Pandora's Box" HCI for Reconciling Everyday Food and Sustainability
in ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction
Clear A
(2015)
Supporting Sustainable Food Shopping
in IEEE Pervasive Computing
Lord C
(2015)
Demand in My Pocket
O'Neill K
(2019)
'Fractures' in food practices: exploring transitions towards sustainable food
in Agriculture and Human Values
Shakeri G
(2022)
Eco-Joy: Imagining Sustainable and Joyful Food Eco-label Futures
| Description | We have developed a richer understanding of supermarket shoppers and the diversity and motivations around food shopping (uncovering barriers to more sustainable food shopping). Our analysis of shopping behaviour in store has also helped us profile high and low GhG impact shoppers, with a view to providing targeted advice to reduce the footprint of a typical shop. We have highlighted in recent publications where 'transitions' in living arrangements and at stages in life can lead to profound changes in diet, which can be supported via new technology. We have completed two engagement workshops around this topic, and advised a startup in Norway creating applications to encourage sustainable food choice. |
| Exploitation Route | The supermarket partner and Norwegian startup may be able to offer new services around sustainable shopping recommendations to consumers (discussions in progress). |
| Sectors | Agriculture, Food and Drink,Environment,Retail |
| Description | The food app work was a significant part of Booths' submission to three national and international sustainability awards. Booths did well in all these, receiving a Ruban d 'Honeur in the sustainability category of the European Business Awards (the only UK company to do so), and a Green Tick (=runner up) in two Business In The Community Awards. The app project also is currently helping to inform the development of ACT (http://www.aacctt.org/) a start-up developing an app to 'democratise the food system' and enable consumers understand what lies behind what they are buying, and support the supply chains they like, and understand how they can get the products they want to buy. A kickstarter campaign to crowd fund this application in 2017 has led to an innovative young business employing a a team of 16 including data scientists, marketing and business development staff. Beyond the app, work conducted on the project continues to have life. The fine grained carbon footprint for comparing project footprints developed during the project has been taken forward by Small World. They are now strongly involved with Pawprint and Cogo, two of the worlds leading carbon cutting apps. Both have benefitted from insights developed during this project. Small World are now advising M&S and this work has been mentioned, though too soon to note any impacts. |
| Sector | Agriculture, Food and Drink,Retail |
| Impact Types | Economic |
| Description | Advisory board member for new startup in social food sharing |
| Organisation | Kitchie |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Contacted by CEO (kitchie.com) based on Aarhus to join the advisory board for a social network for food sharing business. Idea for the company stemmed from a student project influenced by ideas from a talk I gave at the PITlab in ITU Copenhagen, called Domestic Food and Sustainable Design: A Study of University Student Cooking and its Impacts. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Providing input steering initial product offering and prototyping. |
| Impact | Just starting, none yet. |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | A role for ICT toward Sustainable Futures? Talk at UCL, January 2017. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A research talk to the Intel smart cities/ UCLIC group at UCL, London. This talk directly led to discussions about multidisciplinary funding bids with Prof. Yvonne Rogers, and Prof. Mark Harman. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | https://uclic.ucl.ac.uk/news-events-seminars/seminar-13th-jan-adrian-friday-a-role-for-ict-toward-su... |
| Description | CHI 2015 SIGCHI HCI & Sustainability Workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | CHI HCI and Sustainability Community workshop to focus on "address[ing] the full diversity of sustainability issues", to "do research that considers longer timescales" and to "grapple with the full multi-scalar complexity" of sustainability challenges. This workshop will build on this, by asking questions and formulating discussions that support a broadening and scaling up of the SHCI research agenda, and a challenging of entrenched beliefs and perceived boundaries that we as researchers may hold. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| URL | http://wp.lancs.ac.uk/chi15sust/ |
| Description | DESIGNING SUSTAINABLE FOOD SYSTEMS #foodchi |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The FoodCHI workshop will bring together HCI researchers, designers, and practitioners to discuss the interplay between the various components of the food system, how we can create sustainable food systems, and how we may design technologies for a sustainable food system. This was about community building and sharing of research insights. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www.foodchi.org |
| Description | Food Design for Sustainability workshop at the Design Research Society 50th Anniversary Conference, Brighton, 27th July, 2016 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Dr Stephen Clune, Prof. Adrian Friday and Dr Roger Whitham from Lancaster University facilitated a Food Design for Sustainability workshop at the Design Research Society 50th Anniversary Conference, Brighton, 27th July, 2016. The workshop resulted in a series of engagement cards to stimulate discussion, and action on how design may contribute to a more sustainable food system. Within the workshop, we built upon an initial set engagement cards we developed through our expertise in Life Cycle Assessment of food, social practice theory, and design for behavoural change. These datasets and design resources are now publicly available to the community. This is part of an initiative to build a sustainable food design community in UK/Europe. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://imagination.lancs.ac.uk/news/Food_design_sustainability |
| Description | Invited talk at SIRACH Network Innovation in Heating and Cooling Seminar, Wed 22nd Oct 2014 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Interesting discussion with practitioners, commercial cooling engineers. Exchange of research papers, new contacts made. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| URL | http://www.sirach.org.uk/ |
| Description | Invited to Dagstuhl Seminar on Proactive Health and Wellbeing |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | Yes |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | A manifesto document is being compiled and will be published to help set the research agenda and build a community around technologies for promoting wellbeing. New research links forged. Manifesto document close to publication. Workshop at CSCW and panel at NordiCHI followed. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| URL | http://www.dagstuhl.de/de/programm/kalender/semhp/?semnr=14272 |
| Description | Online article in popular engagement focused website (the conversation): Sustainable living means making big changes, so why can't we face up to it? |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Article reflecting on how the UK government's Global Calculator reinforces the way we are living now (food, travel, housing and work environment), rather than a more sustainable and lower impact future. This short article on the conversation.co.uk points out that ttransitioning to sustainability will require profound changes in our everyday ways of living, particularly in westernised countries. It requires changes that are much more significant than simply doing the things that we currently do, but more efficiently. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| URL | https://theconversation.com/sustainable-living-means-making-big-changes-so-why-cant-we-face-up-to-it... |
| Description | Participated in SIGCHI HCI & Sustainability community workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
| Results and Impact | Led to a paper helping shape the research agenda for sustainable HCI. Led to a paper in the widely circulated 'Interactions' magazine, helping set the research agenda in this area: http://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/september-october-2014/next-steps-for-sustainable-hci |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| URL | http://chi2014sust.120cell.org/index.php |
| Description | Participated in discussing sustainable food charter for the county |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Worked to help establish a sustainable food charter for the county. Work in progress. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| Description | Presentation to Green Lancaster and interested students about the embodied and energy impacts of food with campus University Head Chef. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Invited presentation to green lancaster event on the impacts of food, coupled with preparing a sustainable meal with the University head chef. Part of a movement to offer more sustainable and local food options on campus. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| Description | Sustainable HCI in the UK workshop, a British HCI 2015 (13-17 July 2015) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Sustainable HCI seeks to address global and local challenges of social, economic, and environmental health and sustainability in HCI. This workshop had three goals: 1) Establish a UK network of Sustainable HCI researchers; 2) Map the landscape of UK Sustainable HCI, emphasising the UK as a specific research domain, to identify challenges and opportunities for future research, and 3) Create the foundation for a long-term community presence in Sustainable HCI at the national and international level. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| URL | https://openlab.ncl.ac.uk/uk-shci/ |