Regenerative Energy Communities, Solar Internet and Holding Surplus House are designing with nature: letting the sun and wind power a community-centred web server and exploring householding with regenerative resources. For a week in August 2024 these research projects at Linnaeus University invite the audience to reflect on how we generate and distribute surplus energy in everyday life. 

This is part of the exhibition Sun in My Backyard at Vandalorum, 14-19 August 2024. 

The need for handling the deep uncertainty surrounding the future climate has led to various novel and robust approaches for decision-making under deep uncertainty (DMDU) when adapting to climate change. Here, an online and self-explanatory web-based tool was developed and tested with civil servants from five municipalities in Sweden challenged by rising sea levels. The municipalities used the tool by themselves and were then interviewed about the usability of the tool, the perceived urgency of climate change adaptation, and the possibilities for municipalities for handling the flexible solutions that are at the core of DMDU. Results were that the civil servants reported that the urgency of climate change adaptation has increased, that the tool changed their perspectives compared to traditional planning methods, and that changes in laws and regulations to accommodate decisions about flexible solutions were recommended.

Computing within Limits invites considerations of limits and constraints in design practice. We compare two projects which integrate constraints, the reduction of academic air travel and a solar powered internet, to show a distinction between two approaches to arriving at constraints. In the case of reducing academic air travel, the problem which greenhouse gas emissions pose for business-as-usual academic travel is addressed by proposing constraints on future flying. Constraints in the Flight project can be understood as a process of commensuration, of comparing that which is to be constrained according to a common metric. This gives rise to a future of academic travel understood in relation to CO₂ emissions and reduction targets. In the second case, we have explored the solar internet as a specific way to introduce constraints in the context of the rising electricity use associated with internet infrastructure. In the Solar Internet project, constraints have been approached relationally and iteratively, in reconfigurations of internet use practices and design practices, including the solar internet imaginary and the scale of battery and power supply.

We compare these two approaches, drawing on vocabulary from Sociology of Quantification and Science and Technology Studies, to help articulate their respective implications, while also acknowledging what they have in common, e.g. the ability to expand the frame of what is made relevant for design practice.The case of the Flight project suggests that constraints as a process of commensuration can be fruitful when pursuing a unified future, intervening over time with a trajectory towards a quantifiable target. On the other hand, when trying to account for indirect effects and the future as multiple, the introduction of constraints can better be understood as con-figurations, with a future negotiated iteratively in design practice. Rather than thinking about constraints as essentially requiring one or the other approach, we suggest that problems and the introduction of constraints may be more or less amenable to either approach at aspecific time.

  Recent research points out an alarming decline in insect biodiversity and biomass. Changing agriculture practices, together with climate change, are a main driver behind this decline. Biodiversity interventions in agriculture can therefore play an important role for insect conservation. Validating the impact of such interventions is limited by expertise and labor intensive methods, and there is a growing number of projects exploring how IoT could help. For instance using remote sensors to capture insect images and sound fingerprints non-intrusively, and machine learning models to automatically classify the obser- vation in different taxa. This article will: (a) explore recent advances in Internet of Things, Edge ML and LPWAN technologies and their application for monitoring insect biodiversity; (b) discuss opportunities, needs and ideas for validating the impact of biodiversity inter- ventions in agriculture using these technologies; and (c) outline future research opportunities.  

Although food retailers have embraced organic certified food products as a way to reduce their environmental loading, organic sales only make up a small proportion of total sales worldwide. Most consumers have positive attitudes towards organic food, but attitudes are not reflected in behaviour. This article addresses consumers' attitude-behaviour gap regarding their purchase of organic food and reports on how visualization of personal shopping data may encourage them to buy more organic food. Through the design of the visualization tool, the EcoPanel, and through an empirical study of its use, we provide evidence on the potential of the tool to promote sustainable food shopping practices. Of 65 users that tested the EcoPanel for five months, in-depth interviews were made with nine of these. The test users increased their purchase of organic food by 23%. The informants used the EcoPanel to reflect on their shopping behaviour and to increase their organic shopping. We conclude that the visualization of food purchases stimulates critical reflection and the formation of new food shopping practices. This implies that food retailers may increase sales of organic food through using a visualization tool available for their customers. In this way, these retailers may decrease their environmental impact.

Considering that food production for human consumption has a large environmental impact, food waste is major challenge for sustainable development. Although food waste occur at all phases in the food supply chain, private consumption has been identified as a major phase of food waste generation. Intervening at this phase provides an opportunity of change. The article reports the testing of a digital prototype designed to facilitate for employees and students at a university campus to share food. A representative group tested the prototype and associated food sharing activities for two weeks. At the closing of the test period they filled in a questionnaire evaluating their experience. Twenty-three responses were obtained showing that twelve people used the prototype for collecting food, whereas nine used it for sharing their food. Six people did both. Main reasons for not collecting food included lack of time, unavailability of shared food in their proximity and inaccessibility of spaces where food was located. Main reasons for not sharing food were that they lack of food to share, lack of time, and that sharing was possible without the prototype. General conclusions from the study are that people will use a digital service for sharing food in the workplace if there is a critical mass of users and if an effective organization of sharing and collecting food is provided.

There is a growing number of farmers embracing information and communication technologies (ICT) as a way of enabling direct sales to consumers and creating added value through involving the consumers and making food production more transparent. This article presents the case of Nybrukarna, a community supported agriculture (CSA) cooperative in the south of Sweden, and explores how social media is used in their operation. The social media posts during a growing season were analyzed and used to identify different cases. Three main themes were identified: (1) practical communication and feedback from customers; (2) increasing transparency of crop production and values; (3) marketing and direct sales. These results were combined with information from a survey with feedback of the CSA customers, and a survey with growers in similar context, for identifying and discussing challenges, drivers, and opportunities for future development and research.

Reducing the use of energy is important for several reasons, such as saving money and reducing impact on the climate. However, the awareness among non-experts of how much energy is required by different activities and appliances is generally low, which can lead to wrong prioritizations. In this study, we have developed an interactive tool to increase “energy awareness”, and performed a longitudinal study to evaluate its effect. A group of 58 students first did a test to benchmark their current energy awareness, where their current knowledge of energy used for 14 different activities, such as driving vehicles and using home appliances, was measured. They then tried the interactive learning tool for 10 min. Next, they did the same test immediately after trying the tool, then again one week after trying the tool, and finally again six months after trying the tool. The results showed a significant learning effect in energy awareness with a “huge” effect size of 2.25 immediately after the intervention, a “very large” effect size of 1.70 after one week, and a “large” effect size of 0.93 after six months. The results further showed that the respondents consistently underestimated what 100 kWh could be used for, and especially so for appliances and activities requiring little energy. Before the intervention, on average they underestimated how much 100 kWh could be used for by 95.2%, and six months after the intervention the underestimation was 86.8%.

Increasing energy literacy has been identified as an important topic in order to help people understand their energy use and thereby enabling them to reduce their energy use. We have developed a tangible interface for helping people learn about energy by using wooden blocks as representation of several common cases of energy use. These are then placed on a digital scale connected to a computer which visualizes how many solar panels are required to power these.

Reducing the use of energy is important for several reasons, such as saving money and reducing impact on the climate. However, the awareness among non-experts of how much energy is required by different activities is generally low, which can lead to wrong prioritizations. In this study, we have developed an interactive tool to increase “energy awareness”. A group of 58 students first did a test to benchmark their current energy awareness, then tried the tool for 10 min, and then did the same test immediately after trying the prototype and one week after trying the prototype. In addition, they answered questions regarding which, if any, of the energy requirement of different activities surprised them, any thoughts about their own energy use aroused after using the prototype and what they thought about using the tool compared to more conventional methods of learning. The results showed a significant learning effect in energy awareness with a very strong effect size of 1.689, that they were most surprised by the energy required to produce a hamburger, 39 of 58 explicitly said they intended to change one or more aspects in order to improve their energy use, where 24 actions involved changing habits and 18 actions was of a one-time investment character. The attitude towards using such a tool instead of more conventional learning was very good and the words most frequently used to describe the tool was good, simple and easy to use, fun, and interesting, but five users also said they were bored after a while. In total the results indicate that using an interactive tool like this even for a limited time is a good way to in an efficient and fun way increase energy awareness.