Authors
Sustainable development goals
Theme
- consumption of single-use plastics
Tools
- immersive virtual reality
What does the promoted behavioral change consist of?
A case study is the decrease in single-use plastic consumption and the consequent environmental damage due to the presence of plastic waste in the environment. This is done by informing and communicating with consumers, who are currently aware of the problems caused by the use of plastic, but are not always able to imagine the impact of their consumption choices over time and on a large scale. The consumer is therefore made aware of how the sum of his/her behaviour and the behaviour of other people directly impacts on the natural environment and it is therefore his/her responsibility to try to reduce it by changing his or her habits.
What are the main features of the tools designed/implemented to promote behavioral change and how have they been tested?
Users find themselves immersed in a natural scenario, designed with the aim of creating an affective bond with the environment, through the inclusion of elements capable of creating this effect. In this scenario, they visualise the plastic bottles consumed first individually and then by the entire city of Milan over a week, a month and a year, accompanied by an auditory narration.
Different ways are compared, using figures, concrete objects (bottles), or both. Users are confronted with the sum of their personal and collective consumption habits, visualising it within a natural scenario and thus becoming aware of the related environmental damage.
What results have been achieved? What are the potentials and obstacles?
The critical issues in developing similar experiences relate to the need to verify the duration of these effects over time, at a distance from the virtual experience. Furthermore, attitudes and intentions are correlated with people’s behaviour, but are not sufficient to predict it with certainty, especially in the presence of established habits.
Different approaches and opportunities offered using virtual reality were also explored and discussed, both for consumers and for students and professionals in different sectors and organisations, with purposes related to sustainability issues.
Virtual reality can also be used as a tool to support decision-making, to test new products and scenarios by assessing their impact on the environment and users, even in contexts far away in space and time (e.g. ocean pollution over the next decades).
[last update: 08/01/2021]
Research team at PoliMi
Francesco Ferrise, Giulia Wally Scurati – DMEC
Publications