At RISE, we work on social impact assessment from a life-cycle perspective, that is, we analyze every part of a chain needed to deliver a product or service, and how it can be improved. Health effects are a social effect that is evaluated in a regular life cycle analysis, but in a social life cycle analysis, 54 qualitative & quantitative indicators are included, including areas such as work environment and labor law, child labor, fair wages, working hours, local employment and economic growth, discrimination or social well-being.

Social LCA is a method for assessing the social effects of products and services (UNEP 2009). It is important to select and reduce the number of social indicators in S-LCA studies. Evaluations within a life cycle perspective and its social effects (PSILCA 2015) include 54 qualitative and quantitative indicators, 16 subcategories and 15,000 industrial sectors and raw materials. To select indicators, the Handbook for Product Social Impact Assessment (HPSIA, 2018) recommends the use of material assessment (MAT), which has also been used in corporate CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) work.

RISE has experience in: bioeconomy, textiles, chemistry and food production

RISE offers assessment and calculation of social sustainability in a life cycle perspective.

• SLCA according to UNEP SETAC or HPSIA or simpler variants (screening SLCA).
• Various variants such as potential social risk or benefits, as well as socio-economic analysis and social effects.

Urban environments strive harder and harder to become cleaner and more pleasant where the resources available are respected and used more efficiently. IRIS will focus on energy-positive areas, smart energy management and a smart e-mobility sector, an innovation platform for digital cities, residents involvement and co-creation.

RIS is a Lighthouse project which consists of three European cities: Utrecht (Netherlands, project manager) and Nice (France) and we, Gothenburg, Sweden. In addition, four follow-up cities participate: Vaasa (FI) Alexandroupolis (GR) Santa Cruz de Tenerife (ES) and Focsani (RO).

Lighthouse cities have come a long way in sustainable commercial solutions in energy, mobility and ICT. The idea is that the follow-up cities will learn and be able to replicate the solutions.

The work in the IRIS project is organized around 16 solutions, grouped in five different Transition Tracks: 

1. Smart Renewables and closed-loop energy positive districts
2. Smart Energy Management and Storage for Grid Flexibility
3. Smart e-Mobility Sector
4. City Innovation Platform (CIP)
5. Citizen Engagement and Co-creation

The sharing economy can be described as the parts of the economy that are made up of the sharing, trading, renting and lending of artifacts and services. This can include for example technologies, furniture, clothes, facilities, services and information.

In parallel we can see a development around the world where cities and communities are striving towards the creation of so-called active frontages, meaning premises in the ground floors of buildings which house shops, restaurants, culture, arts etcetera. However, up until this day, not much work has been conducted on the role that sharing initiatives can play in the ground floors of buildings.

The aim of this study is to map and evaluate how sharing initiatives contribute to value creation in cities and communities. The hope is that the study can make it easier for municipalities and property owners to house sharing services in their ground floor premises. The study is conducted within the programme Sharing City Gothenburg, in cooperation with the City of Gothenburg and a consortium of property developers active in the regeneration of the inner-city area of Masthuggskajen, an area where this issue is prioritized.

The study includes an international research overview as well as interviews and workshops with sharing initiatives, property owners and civil servants from the municipality. The study will result in a report and additional visualy oriented materials for communication.

Challenges

Antibiotics are a prerequisite for our ability to prevent and treat infections, but also for modern healthcare in general. Antibiotic resistance is a growing problem worldwide, an increase that is accelerating as a result of systematic misuse and overuse in both animals and humans combined with insufficient preventive measures and the spread of infection. In the EU alone, 33,000 people die each year due to antibiotic resistance, and globally the corresponding figure is over 1.2 million. Antibiotic resistance is not only a threat to human health, but also to animal health and to a sustainable society.

Solution

As antibiotic resistance is a complex societal challenge, we all need to help each other to take on this challenge - we therefore need to be more and do more. With the vision of an antibiotic-smart Sweden as a benchmark, we want to invite more actors to work to strengthen the conditions for antibiotics to continue to be effective in curing infections. We need to create new, innovative efforts and ways of working while making use of everything that is already being done around Sweden and the world. Target groups for the efforts are currently residents, municipalities and regions and their activities (preschool, school, care for the elderly and disabled, water and waste-water mangagement organizations, hospitals and primary care) as well as international actors. However, we are constantly working to include more target groups.

Nudging is a method aimed at influencing choices without restricting options, by making it easier and quicker to make better choices, or by placing information that helps users evaluate their choices where they make those choices. An example could include positioning salads at the beginning of a buffet line or providing users with a brief warning when an email is flagged as suspicious. Individuals can still opt to eat only meat or click on the email link, but they have then made a considered decision to do so. The objective is to foster behavioral change without using coercion or economic pressure. Through nudging techniques, your company can enhance its environmental profile, for instance, by reducing food waste or promoting safer online behaviors.

Challenges that need to be addressed include: how we can make it easier for the user or buyer? How can information be organized and presented to facilitate a climate friendlier choice? Several nudging tools are available but one size does not fit all. RISE helps you to identify suitable strategies to create change for your company! 

At RISE, we use a range of scientific and/or design-oriented methods to understand the interplay between people and technology of different kinds. Such an understanding can be as important in a process to improve an existing technology/service/product/physical environment (for example, the city), to in a process of developing something new. For something to become truly useful to the user, it is often a prerequisite to have a good understanding of the individual’s or group’s needs, attitudes, and context.

How households can reduce their energy consumption, is one example of a challenge where it is necessary to understand human behaviour related to activities and practices that use energy. Without an understanding for how tenants, for example, do their laundry or cook food in their everyday life, and what is possible for them to change in these practices, there is a risk that new solutions will not support change, or worse, lead to a negative behaviour instead.

Another example of a challenge where behaviour issues play an important role, is change processes where one wants to introduce life cycle thinking in an organisation or innovation for transition. There are several complex questions in these processes, including technical and informational aspects, but research shows that information alone rarely leads to a changed behaviour. In order to succeed with large change processes, it is therefore key to also understand and include the individual’s perspective. At RISE, we can help to deepen the understanding of behavioural aspects through studies of/together with relevant target groups. But we can also help to include individuals or groups of people in the development of for example technology or urban environment, to identify the best conditions for a transition to a more sustainable society.

We have competence in methods from disciplines such as sociology, psychology, and design. These involve for example interviews, questionnaires, observations, workshops and/or focus groups with target groups. We can perform both qualitative and quantitative analyses of collected data to identify important insights, questions, knowledge gaps or challenges that are key to understand in order to make a service/system/product etc as successful as possible. Depending on the study, we can make design guidelines related to an observed behaviour.

The experts at RISE who work with behaviour and behaviour change have a large interest and knowledge in both people and technology. We are experienced in studying behavioural issues related to different technical areas, and how to set up studies so that they match our collaborators’ needs and questions. Given our unique position at RISE, our activities are grounded in research and at the same time applied.

Purpose and goal

Climate change is a one of the defining crises of our current times, and the overall goal of the project is to take urgent action to combat climate change by engaging with young citizens in Västmanland County. The project will develop participatory methods for museums to support them to work with changing social norms in society based on climate research.

Challenge

For the individual and society to relate to and understand what the climate goals mean and what changes are necessary is complex. More innovative methods are needed to communicate abstract questions about climate change and climate research. Only informing and raising awareness has been proven to be insufficient to change behavior to become more sustainable.

Solution

In this project we define important environmental issues and the norms around them as relational and socially emerging phenomenon. Therefore, the project focuses on exploring and reflecting on the collective social practice and norm-making among young citizens aged 15-20. This is done through a series of workshops at Västmanland County Museum, where young citizens together with museum staff, designers, actors and researcher focus on various climate issues. The young citizens are also offered summer jobs within the project with the goal to co-create a pop-up exhibition in a digital or physical form.

Effect

Concrete outcomes of the project include developed methodology of participatory theatre to support museums to address and fight climate change, and two pop-up exhibitions co-produced with the young citizens.

The project came shared second place in Årets Pedagogiska Pris 2019 of museums in Sweden, and book was written about the processes, methods and personal stories of participants to explore how museums can develop new ways of working with visitors to address contemporary global challenges. Read more about the project in the digital version of the book here:
https://issuu.com/vastmanlandslansmuseum/docs/carbon_dioxide_theatre_at…

Team: Lizette Reitsma, Hayley Ho, Sofie Nyström, Wasim Brikham, Birgit Brunklaus

Digital games have been used in citizen participation for decades, and have lately grown in popularity as urban development tools. Some research has been done on the subject and, together with practical experiences, it indicates that use of games can be a way of motivating participation as well as stimulating learning on urban development. Still, there’s much we don’t know about the advantages, disadvantages, prerequisites and obstacles for using digital games in this area.

In order for games to better contribute to urban development processes, the knowledge base as well as methodology needs to be strenghtened – for this reason RISE started the initiative Digilog in 2018. A preparatory inquiry into the subject has been conducted within Digilog; with the aim to compile the knowledge that already exists, identify knowledge gaps and initiate future development work. Amongst other things, the inquiry has resulted in a research review, which is available for anyone who wants to learn more about the subject matter. During the inquiry phase work also began on building a consortium with different relevant actors, which will develop future projects in the subject area.

The material A tool for social sustainability in the construction phase was developed during the project The socially sustainable entrepreneur. It consists of a discussion manual, a slide show (which explains how the tool should be utilized and in what ways the construction phase impacts people) and a more theoretical report on the tool's background and design. The manual contains a number of key issues to discuss before, during and after the construction phase. Together with the slide show, this is intended to help entrepreneurs develop their ability to reflect on the impact of construction projects on people in the surrounding area.

To ensure that the tool fulfills its purpose, and contributes to more socially sustainable processes and results, the tool will be tested and developed further. RISE will follow a number of construction projects where the tool is implemented and study how it is being used - and how it is perceived by the users. During this project the researchers will also function as process support for the entrepreneurs, so as to facilitate mutual learning about social sustainability and the practical processes involved in the construction phase.