Kalender

Introduction to the Course

Lecturer: Daniel Pargman, Elina Eriksson, and Hanna Hasselqvist, KTH

Talk: Welcome to the first lecture in this course. Among other things we will give an introduction of the course with course information, and present us, the teachers in the course.

About: Daniel Pargman is an Assistant Professor in Media Technology at the KTH School of Computer Science and Communication. His research interests concerns social media, virtual communities, Internet culture, sustainability and resource challenges.

Elina Eriksson is working as a researcher at Green Leap and at the Center for Sustainable Communications (CESC) at KTH. Her research interest has been in change issues, and user-centred design. However, on a personal level, the survival of the human race and her children in particular has pushed her into climate-sustainability-zombie anxiety, something she tries to harness in research.

Hanna Hasselqvist is a PhD student at the Media Technology and Interaction Design (MID) department. Her research interest is in the use of design and ICT for moving towards a more socially and environmentally sustainable world.

Literature: No literature to read before the lecture.

Sustainability and Sustainable Development - On concepts and issues

Lecturer: Daniel Pargman

Content: The lecture will be an introduction to the concept of sustainability and sustainable development. The lecture will introduce different issues, definitions and perspectives on sustainability and sustainable development and how these contrast each other. The lecture will furthermore relate to and expand on some of the concepts and issues that Johan Rockström discusses in his radio program/podcast - see the literature below.

About: Daniel Pargman is an Assistant Professor in Media Technology at the KTH School of Computer Science and Communication and at the KTH Center for Sustainable Communications (CESC). His research interests primarily concerns ICT in relation to sustainability and resource challenges.

Literature:
Rockström, J. Sommar i P1 (Swedish version), 67 minutes OR
Rockström, J. Sommar i P1 (English version), 88 minutes
Heinberg, R. (2010) What is sustainability?, in The Post Carbon Reader: Managing the 21st Century’s Sustainability Crises, Richard Heinberg and Daniel Lerch, eds. (Healdsburg, CA: Watershed Media, 2010).

The St Matthew Island Comic about overshoot

Climate change and planetary boundaries

Lecturer: Elina Eriksson

Content: This lecture concerns climate change and planetary boundaries. We will go through the natural science background to climate change; the carbon cycle, green house gas emissions and the effect on life on earth if the global mean temperature increases. Furthermore we will also touch upon other important planetary boundaries such as biodiversity, freshwater use and biogeochemical flow boundaries.

About: Elina Eriksson is working as a researcher at Green Leap and at the Center for Sustainable Communications (CESC) at KTH. Her research interest has been in change issues, and user-centred design. However, on a personal level, the survival of the human race and her children in particular has pushed her into climate-sustainability-zombie anxiety, something she tries to harness in research.

Literature:

Steffen, W., Richardson, K., Rockström, J., Cornell, S.E., Fetzer, I., Bennett, E.M., Biggs, R., Carpenter, S.R., de Vries, W., and de Wit, C.A. Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet. Science, 347, 6223 (2015), 1259855.

Steffen, W., Crutzen, P.J., and McNeill, J.R.: The Anthropocene: are humans now overwhelming the great forces of nature. Ambio. 36, 8, 614-621 (2007)

Important and importanter - on values for transition

Guest Lecturer: Pella Thiel

Content: The transition to a resilient society is not all about energy, transportation and organic food. Maybe more important are our values - what we deem important, desirable and normal. This workshop will provide an approach to exploring the importance of the values that underpin concern about many social and environmental issues. It explores how recent social psychology research – particularly on values – provides a lens through which we can understand why people act as they do and how broad, long-term public engagement with problems such as climate change, global poverty, inequality can be achieved.

About: Pella Thiel has a master in ecology and long experience working with nature interpretation in NGOs and at the Swedish Center for Nature Interpretation at SLU. She is currently devoting most of her time working within the transition movement, both at a micro scale at her smallholding outside Stockholm, at community level and nationally within the swedish Transition Network, where she is chairing the board. Her main interest is in inner transition and that has lead her to explore work on values. She is part of the Common cause international network.

www.valuesandframes.org
www.omställning.net
www.transitionnetwork.org

Literature:

B. Knowles, "Re-imagining persuasion: designing for self-transcendence", in CHI'13 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 2013, ACM. p. 2713-2718.

Global resource challenges and implications for ICT and media

Lecturer: Daniel Pargman

Content: You have by now heard lectures focusing on the meaning of sustainability and challenges regarding climate change (CO2 emissions, global environmental challenges etc.). I will try to convince you that resource challenges and a global "energy crunch" will pose a more immediate concern than the (possibly more serious, but also acting on a longer time horizon) challenge of climate change - even though these two issues are tightly linked. The first part of the lecture will concern resource and energy issues (especially "peak oil"). The second part will discuss implications for ICT and media technologies. Note: the first part of the lecture will use an "unorthodox" lecture format (see the instructions below).

About: Daniel Pargman is Assistant Professor in Media Technology at the KTH School of Computer Science and Communication. His research interests concerns social media, virtual communities, Internet culture, sustainability and resource challenges. He is a member of the steering committee for the KTH VINN Excellence Center for Sustainable Communications (CESC).

Instructions and literature to read before the lecture:

1) Start by looking at the 35 minutes long film with the not-so-uplifting name "There's no tomorrow" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOMWzjrRiBg.

Please do not look at it on your smartphone while you're on the move. The film is packed with information, so treat it the same way you would treat a complex text (or a math problem). Concentrate on the movie and keep paper and a pencil at hand in order to write down any questions or thoughts that the film raises (the message is very grim and it should raise many questions and perhaps objections). The first part of the lecture will partly be based on the questions you bring to class. The movie below is "backed up" by two texts that you should read.

Rubin, Jeff (2009), "Why your world is about to get a whole lot smaller: Oil and the end of globalization". Chapter 1, "Redefining recovery".

Heinberg, Richard (2003), "The party's over: Oil, war and the fate of industrial societies". Parts of chapter 1 ("Energy, nature and society") and chapter 2 ("Party time: The historic interval of cheap, abundant energy".

First-order effects of ICT and Obsolescence

Lecturer: Daniel Pargman

Content: The first part of the lecture will concern first-order effects. In terms of direct, first-order effects of ICT, nothing positive can really be said in regards to their effect on the environment. We have to mine minerals to build them and these minerals will over time and by necessity become more scarce and expensive to acquire. Besides mineral extraction, production and disposal furthermore have negative effects on citizens and ecosystems who often ”happen” to be located in poorer parts of the world. One of the places where we ship our e-waste (old computers, routers, smartphones etc.) to have them disassembled and recycled is Pakistan. This all is pretty bad, but, are there any alternatives?

The second part of the lecture provides an overview of obsolescence and of how Sustainable HCI research can address this, focusing on the interaction between user and device in the design of consumer electronics.

About: Daniel Pargman is Assistant Professor in Media Technology at the KTH School of Computer Science and Communication. His research interests concerns social media, virtual communities, Internet culture, sustainability and resource challenges. He is a member of the steering committee for the KTH VINN Excellence Center for Sustainable Communications (CESC).

Literature:

First order effects:

Bardi, Ugo. "The universal mining machine." The Oil Drum (2008).

Cramer, B. W. (2012). Man’s need or man’s greed: The human rights ramifications of green ICTs. Telematics and Informatics, 29(4), 337-347.

Raghavan, B. and Hasan, S. (2012). "Macroscopically sustainable networking: An Internet quine". International Computer Science Institute report, TR-12-010.

Obsolescence:

Remy and Huang: Addressing the Obsolescence of End-User Devices: Approaches from the Field of Sustainable HCI. In: Hilty, L.M., Aebischer, B. (eds.) ICT Innovations for Sustainability. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing 310, Springer International Publishing (2014, in press)

Who is pedalling when you are watching kittens on youtube?

Lecturer: Daniel Pargman

Content: Energy is invisible. Our daily use of electricity is invisible. So how can we even start to contemplate changing our behaviours and using less when we don’t have a visceral feeling for how much energy we consume? This lecture introduces the concept of ”energy slaves” as a way to help make the invisible visible. How many ”energy slaves” do we have working for us 24/7 to provide us with our modern lifestyles?

About: Daniel Pargman is an Assistant Professor in Media Technology at the KTH School of Computer Science and Communication. His research interests concerns social media, virtual communities, Internet culture, sustainability and resource challenges.

Literature:
- Human Power Station. Read the short text and see the 3-minute video clip on this page: http://www.electricpedals.com/human-power-station/
- Nikiforuk (2011), You and your slaves (4 pages), http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2011/05/05/EnergySlaves/
- Nikiforuk (2012), "The energy of Slaves”. Chapter 2, ”Slaves to energy”
- Homer-Dixon (2006), ”The upside of down”. Part of chapter 2, ”A keystone in time”
-Tomlinson, Silberman, Patterson, Pan & Blevis (2012), "Collapse informatics: Augmenting the sustainability and ICT4D discourse in HCI", in proceedings of CHI'12

Ericsson Sustainability – Technology for good

Guest Lecturer: Mine Ercan, Ericsson

Content: The lecture will give an insight on how we address sustainability issues at Ericsson where we take a broad view of sustainability that includes social, environmental and economic aspects. Specifically, our fact-based research focuses on: methodology development for impact assessment, life cycle assessment of products and networks, proof points that illustrate the enablement potential of ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) to drive sustainable development, the macroeconomic effects of ICT and the end-to-end energy performance of our networks. Along the way, a number of relevant ICT  trends and concrete examples will illustrate possible contributions to more sustainable practices.

About: 

Mine Ercan is an experienced researcher at Ericsson Research in the area of Sustainability focusing on ICT and their impact on a sustainable future.

More about sustainability and corporate responsibility at: http://www.ericsson.com/thecompany/sustainability-corporateresponsibility

Literature:

von Heland, F, Westerberg, P. and Nyberg, M. Using Minecraft as a citizen participation tool in urban design and decision making. Manuscript (not yet published).

von Heland, F, Bondesson, A., Nyberg, M. and Westerberg, P. (2015). The Citizen Field Engineer: Crowdsourced Maintenance of Connected Water Infrastructure. Proceedings of the Third International Conference on ICT for Sustainability (ICT4S 2015), Copenhagen, Denmark.

Please also glance through:

Malmodin, J. and Bergmark, P. (2015). Exploring the effect of ICT solutions on GHG emissions in 2030. Proceedings of the Third International Conference on ICT for Sustainability (ICT4S 2015), Copenhagen, Denmark.

Practice - Opportunities for ICT to support sustainable changes in society?

Lecturer: Hanna Hasselqvist, KTH

Content: The lecture concerns the complex and uncertain third order effects of ICT - what are the opportunities for ICT to support sustainable changes in society? Products and projects that address this typically focus on changing the behaviour of individuals, e.g. by visualising data or providing information on environmental effects related to a certain behaviour. However, this might in many cases not lead to any long-term changes in behaviour and we need to understand practices in society, rather than only focusing on individuals, to better support long-term change. During the lecture we will look at examples of projects on sustainable transportation and energy use in homes to see how practices affect the choices we make and what the role of ICT can be in supporting more sustainable practices.

About: Hanna Hasselqvist is a PhD student at the Media Technology and Interaction Design (MID) department. Her research interest is in the use of design and ICT for moving towards a more socially and environmentally sustainable world.

Literature:

Strengers, Y. Smart energy in everyday life: are you designing for resource man? interactions, 21, 4 (2014), 24-31.

Kakee Scott, Conny Bakker, and Jaco Quist. 2012. Designing change by living change. Design Studies 33, 3: 279–297.

Social sustainability and ICT

Guest lecturer: Elisabeth Ekener Petersen, PhD

Content: The lecture gives a brief introduction to the concept of social sustainability and the engineer’s responsibility for (socially) sustainable technological development. The first part of the lecture discusses the idea of a ‘safe and just space for humanity’ presented in Raworth (2012). In the second part of the lecture, tools for including social sustainability aspects into engineering practice, such as social life-cycle assessment, are introduced using examples from ICT.

About: The research of Elisabeth Ekener Petersen is focusing in the social dimension of sustainable development. She was involved in the international  process of developing the standard ISO 26000 Social responsibility. She has a PhD in Social Life Cycle Assessment and has conducted several case studies using this methodology. At present she works in a number of projects addressing social impacts in areas such as sustainable cities, vehicle fuels and biotechnology.

Literature:

Raworth, K. 2012. A safe and just space for humanity: Can we live within the doughnut? Oxfam Dicsussion Papers. Oxfam, UK.

Chhipi-Shresth, G.K., Hewage, K., and Sadiq, R. 2015. ‘Socializing’ sustainability: a critical review on current development status of social life cycle impact assessment method. Clean Techn Environ Policy, 17:579-596

Evolutionary and institutional economics - using economics as a tool for sustainability

Guest Lecturer: Thomas Hahn, Agr. dr., Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University

Content: Economics offers powerful tools to guide policy. Efficiency and cost-effectiveness sound very attractive, it's wasy to agree on these intuitive claims. But these and related concepts are based on a narrow ethical basis and applied economics compromises even more, making the norm Sustainable Development difficult to reach with the norms efficiency and cost-effectiveness. The lecture will explain the reaons for this and suggest remedies.

About: Thomas Hahn has a MSc in Agricultural Economics and did a PhD based in ecological and institutional economics, addressing property rights of the Sami and conflict resolution. He has been teachning economists and non-economists for the last 20 years and his research focuses on governance and transformation of social-ecological systems. He is board member of Sveaskog AB and the Swedish Nuclear Waste Fund.

Literature:

TEDx talk by Kate Raworth

Hahn, T., 2014, Green economy, economic growth and sustainable development. in Access to Resources - An Urban Agenda. AADR

Greenely - Nudging towards sustainablity

Guest lecturer: Fredrik Hagblom, Co-funder and Product Manager

Content: The lecturer will provide the audience with tangible solutions and findings of how the concept of "nudging" has an important role regarding human routines. Greenely is specifically trying to use this concept to reduce energy consumption in private households, around the world, which will be partly showcased during the lecture.

About: Fredrik Hagblom is an energy enthusiast and has worked as a Plumber, HVAC consultant before starting with Greenely.

Literature:

As a background to the lecture, read the executive summary of the following report: Robinson, J., (2014) Understanding Electric Utility Customers.

Froehlich, J., Findlater, L., and Landay, J. (2010) The Design of Eco-Feedback Technology, in proc. CHI2010

How participatory culture enables and empowers people to become part of movements

Guest Lecturer: Mattias Jägerskog, founder of the non-profit ridesharing movement Skjutsgruppen and #RidesharingDay, OuiShare connector Sweden

Content: There is hope! More and more people feel empowered to do actual change in society and in their personal lives. In this lecture we will use the non-profit ridesharing movement Skjutsgruppen and the growing Collaborative Economy as an example and a case study of "participatory culture".

About: Mattias Jägerskog is what the collaborative movement calls an "enabler". He helps out with spreading the Collaborative Economy through both practical action, philosophy and ideology.

Literature:
Youtube: Challenges of the Shared Economy - Yochai Benkler

Lecture: "We're sitting shoulder to shoulder"

The Collaborative Economy In Europe: http://jonathanwichmann.com/2015/07/19/the-collaborative-economy-in-europe/

Silberman, S., (2015) Information Systems for the Age of Consequences, First Monday Vol. 20, No. 3

Optional reading:
http://magazine.ouishare.net/
Christle, J., (2013) Sustainable Web Design, A List Apart, No. 383
Peters, D., (2013) The Web Runs on Electricity and We’re Running Out, A List Apart, No. 383

Panel debate: Images of the future

Panelists:

• Elin Bergman, Corporate partnerships, World Wild Fund for Nature (WWF)
• John Howchin, Secretary General, The Ethical Council of the Swedish Pension Funds
• Somya Joshi, Senior lecturer, Dept. of Computer & Systems Science, Stockholm University
• Maria Normark, Senior lecturer in Media Technology, Södertörn University

Content: Course participants have been presented with a variety of images of the future. This lecture won't be a lecture at all, but rather a discussion between invited guests who are expected to have widely differing ideas and opinions about the future, and about the future of sustainability. Can we imagine a future sustainable society? What would it look like? What are our chances and what is our best course of action in attempting to reach that future? Furthermore, what is the role of ICT and media in relation to these questions and issues? 

Elin Bergman is the chairman of the board of the circular economy network "Cradlenet" and she is responsible for corporate partnerships at WWF Sweden. Cradlenet is a non-profit network that promotes the benefits of moving towards a circular economy aimed towards the business sector through ICT-channels and by organising events. At WWF Sweden she is in charge of coordination, implementation and communication of the organisation's corporate engagements. Elin has worked in the sustainability and social responsibility sector since 2007 at Stockholms Stadsmission and at the sustainability consultants Respect and Tricorona. Prior to that she worked in the entertainment sector for the computer games and movie industry at Massive Entertainment, Vivendi Universal Games and Twentieth Century Fox.  Elin holds a Bachelor degree in Culture, Society, Media production from Linköping University.

John Howchin is Secretary General of the Ethical Council for the First, Second, Third and Fourth Swedish national pension funds. He is in charge of strategy, research and coordination of corporate engagement of the Council. John is also a member of the asset management committee at Mistra, the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research. John has worked with socially responsible investments and corporate social responsibility since 1998. Prior to joining the Ethical Council he worked as senior analyst at Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM) in Oslo, Norway, where he was in charge of the environmental strategy. Previous positions include five years at GES Investment Services as deputy CEO and Head of research. He also co-founded Green Index who produced the Folksam climate change index, the first of its kind when released in 2000 and has also worked with sustainability management at the Swedish/Swiss company ABB. John holds a BSc in environmental science and human ecology at Goteborg University.

Somya Joshi is a research scientist with expertise in the field of ICT when applied to Social Inclusion & Sustainability. Her specialisation falls within the applied context of technological innovation, particularly in how it translates into transparency in governance, environmental conservation and health services within the developing world. She has experience working with a range of partners from academia, industry, NGOs, as well as international development organisations towards the common goal of facilitating inclusive development. Currently, Somya is a Senior Lecturer and Research Fellow at eGovernance-Lab at the Department of Computer & Systems Science (DSV) at Stockholm University. She is responsible for course development and teaching in two Masters programs - ICT4D (ICT for Development) and Open Governance & e-Democracy. She is also teaching an Undergraduate course on Participatory Design and HCI with a specific focus on Sustainability.

Maria Normark is a senior lecturer in Media Technology at Södertörn University since 2006. Her main interests are collaboration in practice, design quality and norm-critical design in several domains; youth counseling online, sustainable lifestyle and art/theatre. Normark earlier held a 3-year VinnMER Fellowship and was during this period a visiting researcher at Mobile Life VINN Excellent Centre i Kista. One of the main projects was ‘EcoFriends’, the development of a prototype app that dealt with changed practices concerning buying seasonal food. Her current project, ‘Sustainable Communities through Digital Design’ is financed by the Baltic Sea Foundation and concerns urban farming and digital design. Urban farming makes a suitable case for investigating how values and ideas are shared, communicated and reproduced through digital platforms.