Facilitating individuals’ transitions towards a 1.5-degree lifestyle at a global scale with SUSLA: completed research paper

Association for Information Systems Association for Information Systems AIS Electronic Library (AISeL) AIS Electronic Library (AISeL) ICIS 2021 Proceedings Conference Theme Track A: IS for Sustainability Dec 12th, 12:00 AM Facilitating Individuals’ Transitions Toward 1.5-Degree Lifestyle at Facilitating Individuals’ Transitions Toward 1.5-Degree Lifestyle at a Global Scale with SUSLA a Global Scale with SUSLA Sanna Tiilikainen Aalto University , [email protected] Michael Lettenmeier Aalto University , [email protected] Katrin Bienge Wuppertal Institut für Klima, Umwelt, Energie , [email protected] Torsten Masseck Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) , [email protected] Salla Lahtinen Aalto University , [email protected] See next page for additional authors Follow this and additional works at: https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2021 Recommended Citation Recommended Citation Tiilikainen, Sanna; Lettenmeier, Michael; Bienge, Katrin; Masseck, Torsten; Lahtinen, Salla; Kolehmainen, Jari; and Jalas, Mikko, "Facilitating Individuals’ Transitions Toward 1.5-Degree Lifestyle at a Global Scale with SUSLA" (2021). ICIS 2021 Proceedings . 8. https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2021/is_sustain/is_sustain/8 This material is brought to you by the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS) at AIS Electronic Library (AISeL). It has been accepted for inclusion in ICIS 2021 Proceedings by an authorized administrator of AIS Electronic Library (AISeL). For more information, please contact [email protected]. Presenter Information Presenter Information Sanna Tiilikainen, Michael Lettenmeier, Katrin Bienge, Torsten Masseck, Salla Lahtinen, Jari Kolehmainen, and Mikko Jalas This event is available at AIS Electronic Library (AISeL): https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2021/is_sustain/is_sustain/8 Facilitating 1.5-Degree Lifestyle with SUSLA Forty-Second International Conference on Information Systems, Austin 2021 1 Facilitating Individuals’ Transitions Towards a 1.5-Degree Lifestyle at a Global Scale with SUSLA Completed Research Paper Sanna Tiilikainen Aalto University P.O. Box 31000, FI-00076 Aalto [email protected] Michael Lettenmeier Aalto University, D-mat oy P.O. Box 31000, FI-00076 Aalto Mechelininkatu 3d, FI-00100 HKI [email protected] [email protected] Katrin Bienge Wuppertal Institut für Klima, Umwelt, Energie Döppersberg 19, DE-42103 Wuppertal [email protected] Torsten Masseck Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya c/Pere Serra 1-15, ES-08173 Sant Cugat del Vallès [email protected] Salla Lahtinen, Jari Kolehmainen D-mat oy Mechelininkatu 3d, FI-00100 HKI [email protected], [email protected] Mikko Jalas Aalto University P.O. Box 31000, FI-00076 Aalto [email protected] Abstract To keep global warming within the 1.5 degrees suggested in the Paris Agreement, most individuals around the globe need to drastically reduce their carbon emissions and material footprints by adopting a so-called 1.5-degree lifestyle. However, transitioning to this lifestyle can pose a challenge for many and support is needed to facilitate the change. For solving this problem, we introduce a Green IS prototype called SUSLA. SUSLA aims at global reach, informed by design research methodology and sensemaking theory. We introduce SUSLA design, based on data and lessons learned from several test rounds with an increasing number of users around the globe. Our results suggest that when designing a Green sensemaking IS for individuals undergoing a sustainable lifestyle transition at a global scale, acknowledging the local context for each country is needed. In addition, facilitating the temporal setting and organization of goals, can increase individuals’ motivation and commitment to the change. Keywords: Green IS, sustainability, sensemaking, design science, carbon footprint, material footprint, 1.5-degree lifestyle, behavior change Facilitating 1.5-Degree Lifestyle with SUSLA Forty-Second International Conference on Information Systems, Austin 2021 2 Introduction Developing Green IS, information systems for transitioning individuals’ activities into sustainable ones, has been a topic in information systems (IS) since the first decade of the 2000 (Melville, 2010; Watson et al. 2008). However, at present, the need for Green IS designs at a global scale is more pressing than ever. Climate change is a global crisis, requiring large scale action for mitigating it (United Nations Development Programme 2019). The need for an urgent transformation is in its core: at present, most individuals need to drastically cut the environmental impacts of their consumption (Akenji et al. 2019; “Paris Agreement” 2015). The current rate of human activities contributes to global warming at an alarming rate through carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gas emissions (Akenji et al. 2019; Global Footprint Network 2021; Xu et al. 2018). About two thirds of emissions can be attributed to individual consumer activities (Hertwich and Peters 2009; Ivanova et al. 2016) and their carbons footprints. One option to reduce these, is the consumers’ global transition into a 1.5-degree lifestyle (Akenji et al. 2019). A lifestyle comprises several consumption activities over several consumption domains (Tukker et al. 2010), interlinked with constrains such as money and time. Carbon footprinting as a procedure providing a break-down of these emissions. A single footprint summarizes the amount of carbon dioxide emissions stemming from a consumption activity, directly, indirectly, or over its life stages (Pandey et al. 2011; Wiedmann and Minx 2007). In practice, a transition to 1,5 degree lifestyle means that an individual consumer would fit all his or her footprints within the limits of the maximum CO2 emissions permitted by the 1.5-degree lifestyle. A largescale adoption of this lifestyle could limit the global warming to 1.5 degrees above the pre-industrial level. Despite the potential of information systems for aiding in sustainability transitions, IS research has not yet presented many siolutions across the whole lifestyle of individual consumers (Gholami et al. 2016; Golla et al. 2020; Winter and Butler 2011). However, to limit the global warming below 1.5 degrees, any partial solution is not enough. Rather, a transformation of the whole lifestyle is a must-do. Paris Agreement, the long-standing work by bodies such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 2018), names such transformation as the key for stabilising global average temperature rise at 1,5°celsius and achieving carbon-neutrality of the production and consumption systems in a few decades. Green IS can contribute in at least two important ways. Firstly, we need tools for setting targets on different levels for individuals. Secondly, we need tools that prompt significant alterations across all the consumption patterns comprising a lifestyle. The concept of a 1.5-degree lifestyle targets both. It is personalizable and prompts changes in consumption patterns: as long as the individuals stays within the total target, they can decide for themselves, what to include in their 1.5-degree lifestyle target. Nevertheless, reaching the target requires a massive reduction of emissions and footprints for most individuals worldwide (Akenji et al. 2019). Green IS for individual consumers can function by several logics. Typically, they include evaluating the environmental impacts of individual activities, such as the carbon footprint of a flight, sometimes enhanced with recommending less carbon intensive options (such as taking a train instead of flying) (Berger et al. 2020; Brauer and Ebermann 2016; Cellina et al. 2019; Diaz and Contell 2020). At present, many Green IS, tend to focus on a single consumption domain, such as mobility (Cellina et al. 2019), water use (Tiefenbeck et al. 2016; Wörner and Tiefenbeck 2018), or food choices (Berger et al. 2020). Thus, these Green IS tools do not provide the means for achieving a sustainable footprint level across the whole lifestyle: transitioning to a 1.5 degree lifestyle, requires individuals keeping track of and setting reduction targets for all their emissions, with support for reaching the 1.5-degree lifestyle target (Akenji et al. 2019; IPCC 2018; “Paris Agreement” 2015). These kinds of tools, providing an overall view of one’s emissions and support for juggling the choices needed for reducing them over time are what the individuals wish for (Laakso and Lettenmeier 2016; Mulrow et al. 2019). In an organizational context, somewhat similar Green IS has been designed for targeting the overall reduction of carbon footprint of individuals’ work-related activities (Corbett 2013; Seidel et al. 2018). In the work context, especially Green IS based on sensemaking, have shown promise for facilitating reduction of the overall emissions (Seidel et al. 2013, 2018). Such Green IS for sensemaking, could potentially help individual consumers to reduce their emissions, too. However, designing such systems can be challenging, as it is not yet known, how a of complex and temporally bound sustainability goal attainment with a fixed target, such as achieving the 1.5 degree lifestyle, could be effectively facilitated with IS in this context (Malhotra et al. 2013; Mulrow et al. 2019). To add to the knowledge about if and how the successes of the Green IS for sensemaking from the organizational context could inform the design of similar Green IS in an individual consumer context, with a fixed target and global reach, our Research Question is: What are the required design elements for a Green IS sensemaking tool, Facilitating 1.5-Degree Lifestyle with SUSLA Forty-Second International Conference on Information Systems, Austin 2021 3 delivering support for individual consumers wanting to reduce their carbon and material footprints to a 1.5-degree lifestyle level at a global scale? To answer our research question, we report the results of our design research study, informed by the guidelines of Peffers et al. (Peffers et al. 2007) and (Sein et al. 2011), and principles for designing a Green IS for sensemaking support in an organizational context (Seidel et al. 2018). The study was done in seven countries, Finland, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, and Spain. These represent different footprint and affluence levels, geographies, and other characteristics relevant to consumption and footprints in Europe. In addition, Mexico and India represented higherand lowermiddle income countries at a global level, with affluence, consumption conditions, and aspirations different from the European ones, offering a ground for a global sustainability tool. The countries also offer different positions within global value-chains with perspectives on production-based emissions and consumptionbased footprints (see Akenji et al. 2019). Our research results in a theory ingrained information technology (IT) artifact tested with users over several iterations, with theoretical and design implications. This paper is organized as follows: first, we review relevant literature. Then we describe our methodology, research process, analysis and findings. We present our initial design for the Sustainable Lifestyle Accelerator tool (SUSLA). SUSLA aims at giving sensemaking support for individual consumers around the globe for reduce their carbon and material footprints over time, to the 1.5-degree lifestyle level, as recommended by the Paris Agreement (2015). SUSLA design comprises footprint calculators, goal setting and organizing features with information and social support. Our findings contribute to the research and theory about Green IS for reducing individual consumers’ footprints at a global level. We discuss the potential and challenges of designing Green IS for consumers’ emission reductions by the implementation of sensemaking apps, with theoretical and practical implications and suggestions for future research. Related Literature In this section, we review relevant background literature from organization science, psychology of behavior change, and IS journals, especially about how IS can facilitate sustainability transitions with sensemaking. Green IS for Sustainability Transformations Green IS can help individuals’ sustainability transition, by providing feedback about the environmental effects of one’s activities, facilitating participation in actions for saving resources, and sustaining motivation through engaging features such as an entertaining interface (Harnischmacher et al. 2020; Jenkin et al. 2011; Kranz et al. 2015; Watson et al. 2010). Providing information about individuals’ present state with IS, followed by organizing information, communicating with others, and presenting alternative actions has proven to be effective in supporting the transition (Seidel et al. 2018). Carbon footprint calculators (CFCs) are a type of Green IS measuring the carbon emissions caused by an activity (such as flying), or a set of activities (such as all consumption choices), based on data about the energy production activities and natural processes comprising the activity (Diaz and Contell 2020; Loyarte-Lopez et al. 2020; Mulrow et al. 2019). Goal setting with IS can motivate sustainable behavior. However, sustainability transitions often include several goals, as well as personal goals competing with one’s sustainability targets (Seidler et al. 2020). What’s more, an IS setting too tight and pre-set sustainability targets can discourage individuals (Loock et al. 2013). A possibility for self-setting goals with IS can motivate individuals to go for bolder targets (Loock et al. 2013; Wörner and Tiefenbeck 2018). Regarding the effectiveness of sustainability goal attainment, the moderate, pre-set sustainability goals have resulted in the greatest actualized achievements overall (Loock et al. 2013). Closely monitoring one’s consumption level with IS can help in achieving a sustainability target (Tiefenbeck et al. 2016). Also, rewards can provide motivation for change, but only to a degree (Lossin et al. 2016). With a constant stream of data about one’s consumption activities and their environmental impacts, it becomes possible to set and track one’s sustainability goals in real time (Wörner and Tiefenbeck 2018). Delivering behavioral and motivational support at opportune times, such as when shopping for groceries, can also help, as has shown by the Green IS nudging research (Berger et al. 2020). Trying to attain an all-encompassing change towards sustainability, such as reducing carbon and material footprint of one’s overall consumption, may lead to the individual feeling compromised (Lorenzoni et al. 2007; Shove et al. 2012). Feeling like one has to give up something can be disheartening to an individual. This is due to the so-called loss aversion effect, a perceived unpleasant feeling of having to compromise one’s tangible, current ownership of something, in favor of a conceptual sustainability benefit in the future (Henkel et al. 2019). The activation of this effect may lead to individuals giving up their goal attainment Facilitating 1.5-Degree Lifestyle with SUSLA Forty-Second International Conference on Information Systems, Austin 2021 4 efforts, but it is possible to mitigate the effect with Green IS design (Henkel et al. 2019; Malhotra et al. 2013). Especially, IS that remindins individuals about their activities’ effects on environment, as well as about what others are expecting from them, can help individuals stick to their efforts, even when it feels unpleasant or burdensome (Seidler et al. 2020). However, revamping the individual’s lifestyle to fit the 1.5degree target is a complex process that includes several consumption choices to attain both carbon and material footprint reduction sub-goals, while progressing towards the 1.5-degree lifestyle goal over time. The individual has to keep his or her goals in mind, prioritizing and juggling them, maybe even reprioritizing them on the go, while keeping up his or her motivation. This can be difficult, as individuals can typically focus on one goal at a time and having several goals at once can lead to them competing with each other, which can increase the risk of failing the overall attainment (Seidler et al. 2020). However, organizing goals with IS can facilitate individuals’ achieving them (Seidler et al. 2020). Examples are juggling the various goals in relation to time (such as having meatless weekends), or in relation to an object (such as reducing meat consumption by 30%), and setting time frames (such as becoming a part time vegetarian within a year). It has been suggested that especially the temporal organization of one’s various sustainability goals with IS could facilitate individuals achieving them (Malhotra et al. 2013). However, it is not known, yet, what kind of granularity and temporal organization would work in this regard (Malhotra et al. 2013). Green IS has potential for large-scale sustainability effects, by promoting more sustainable activities of whole societies by targeting its individual consumers (Kranz et al. 2015). However, not many feasible solutions have been proposed so far (Gholami et al. 2016; Golla et al. 2020). Sensemaking IS for Supporting Transitions Our research is informed by select principles of sensemaking theory from organizational research (Seidel et al. 2018; Weick et al. 2005), adapted to our individual, private use context at a global scale. The concept of sensemaking refers to a process of an individual getting a grasp of a problem and becoming capable of taking action towards solving it: with sensemaking, an individual can organize a chaotic load of information about a problem he or she is wanting to solve into a coherent whole that enables him or her taking action towards solving the goal as a result (Weick et al. 2005). The sensemaking process can help individual accept also information that conflicts with one’s existing beliefs and requires changing one’s behavior, even in those situations when he or she feels ill at ease with what needs to be done (Chater and Loewenstein 2016). IS can facilitate sensemaking for individuals’ attaining of sustainability targets (Degirmenci and Recker 2016; Griffith 1999; Seidel et al. 2018). Sensemaking theory is fit for informing our research, as the our goal is to help individuals reduce their carbon and material footprints into a predefined target, the 1.5-degree lifestyle (Akenji et al. 2019; “Paris Agreement” 2015), within a certain timeframe, by choosing activities based on his or her carbon and material footprint data. Thus, we adapt the principles of Seidel et al. (2018) for designing a Green IS sensemaking system for sustainability transformation towards the 1.5-degree lifestyles for individual consumers. The principles we adapt cover the Green IS sensemaking system 1) triggering disruptive ambiguity by presenting information, 2) noticing and bracketing, 3) presumption to guide action, and 4) open and inclusive communication. Temporal Organizing and Goal Attainment The transition into a 1.5-degree lifestyle is a complex sensemaking process for an individual, requiring a change across all consumption activities and domains. In this kind of change, it is unrealistic to suppose an individual could just decide the changes he or she wants to make and implement them all at once (Shove et al. 2012). Rather, he or she has to set an overall target and start attaining it temporally, one piece at a time, keeping piling on new changes on top of those already in place, taking care not to slip back into the old habits (Shove et al. 2012). To take this into account, our research is informed by the temporal goal-setting literature (Latham and Seijts 1999; Locke 1996; Locke and Latham 2002; Steel and König 2006). When presuming and planning action towards a sustainability goal, an individual can use IS for dividing the sustainability actions into something doable now and doable later (Seidel et al. 2018). For helping individuals achieve their goals more efficiently, focusing on the temporal organization of goals when designing support systems, can be helpful (Locke and Latham 2004, 2006). When organizing goals temporally, it is important to design the individual’s future time orientation both in relation to what he or she wants to achieve, in total, and the total length of the temporal timeframe used (Lens et al. 2012). In addition, to increase the odds for success, considering the goal setting in relation to goal difficulty and Facilitating 1.5-Degree Lifestyle with SUSLA Forty-Second International Conference on Information Systems, Austin 2021 5 proximity is helpful (Steel and König 2006). When asked to “do their best,” individuals tend to do better in those conditions where they can immediately start achieving something towards their final goal (Latham and Seijts 1999). However, this approach may lead to the bigger goal slipping out of reach if the distal goals are delayed much, as the individual may lose his or her motivation mid-process (Steel and König 2006). To facilitate success and prevent slips, providing personalized support for the individual is important: keeping up the motivational tension to keep the individual going until the desired outcome, is a complex process dependent on, amongst other, individual personality traits and aspirations (Steel and König 2006). SUSLA Research Project This research is a joint effort of a design research consortium with participants from seven countries (Finland, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Mexico, India, and Denmark). Together, we gained a global view into individuals’ consumption activities and their enablers and barriers for changing them for reducing carbon and material footprints. In this project, we applied design research methodology, informed by the guidelines of Peffers et al. (2007) and Sein et al. (2011). Our goal has been to answer our RQ and produce a theory ingrained IT-artifact that can be used for a class of similar problems, as suggested by Sein et al. (2011). Accordingly, we first identified and motivated the problem and formulated the research objectives. Next, we identified the initial design principles, guided by the sensemaking frame of Seidel et al. (2018), with ideas from the temporal goal organization literature (Steel and König 2006), formulating also the material properties for individuals’ sensemaking and goal organizing during their transition towards the 1.5-degree lifestyle. For formulating the principles, we drew from the guideline by Gregor et al. (2020). During the design and development phase, we applied the principles for designing and developing an online prototype of the web application “SUSLA” over several iterations, with an increasing number of users. Last, we demonstrated and evaluated the prototype, communicating it for the professional and academic audiences. During each phase, based on lessons learned, we also reflected back to the previous stages and iterated the whole process accordingly. Figure 1 gives a high-level overview of the process with a timeline and accompanying partners. We open up the details of each phase in the below chapters. Figure 1. Overview of the Research and Design Process with Timeline and Partners Problem Formulation, Motivation, and Objectives (Phase 1) SUSLA design project aimed at providing an online tool for individual consumers around the globe. SUSLA includes carbon and material footprint calculation, roadmapping and experimenting for sustainability change, and getting peer and expert support for the individual consumer’s transitions to a 1.5-degree lifestyle. To this end, Phase 1 consisted of two major objectives: 1) the analysis of existing tools and studies and 2) setting up a preliminary concept for measuring and reducing footprints to be tested offline. To prepare for the problem formulation and objects, we started this phase by identifying the existing online and offline tools and household studies in our participating countries (Germany, Finland, Spain, Switzerland, Denmark, Mexico, and India), to gain an understanding of the state of the art in each country. We started from the premise that to keep the global warming within the 1.5 degrees deemed reasonable by the Paris Agreement, most individuals need to drastically reduce the carbon and material footprints caused Facilitating 1.5-Degree Lifestyle with SUSLA Forty-Second International Conference on Information Systems, Austin 2021 6 by their lifestyle activities (Akenji et al. 2019; “Paris Agreement” 2015). At the same time, the carbon and material footprints of individual consumption vary greatly across the globe. In Finland, for example, the average annual lifestyle carbon footprint per person in 2017 was 10.4 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents (tCO2e) (Akenji et al. 2019). To achieve a 1.5-degree lifestyle of the Paris Agreement (2015), the carbon footprint of an average Finnish consumer should be reduced by 76% and 93% by year 2030 and year 2050, respectively (Akenji et al. 2019). It is realistic to assume that this kind of a drastic and long lasting change is approached in pieces, aiming at gradual reductions over time across all the consumption choices of, to increase the chance of success (Shove et al. 2012). Especially important is to avoid activating individuals’ loss aversion effect and give them time to learn how to live with their changes before going for new ones. These tactics can increase the change of success in attaining a sustainability transition (Shove et al. 2012). SUSLA’s goal is to reduce the individual consumers’ footprints regarding the whole lifestyle. To cover a lifestyle, we chose the domains of reduction to include the categories of housing, mobility, food and other consumption, such as goods and leisure activities, as recommended by Tukker et al. (2010). Tukker et al. (2010) categories fit to our purpose: they relate to individuals’ needs, representing the central aspects related to consumption footprints (Salo et al. 2019). To propose a variety of tangible and impactful activities for the individuals to try out for a change, we utilized a pre-validated collection of impactful activities published by the Finnish Innovation Fund SITRA, called “100 smart ways to be smart and sustainable” (Mänty et al. 2021), including 100 activities to reduce one’s carbon footprint across all consumption. These 100 activities were adopted as the starting point for project’s requirements. The SITRA calculations, the detailed information, and the code regarding the 100 smart ways, are all licensed under Creative Commons. We obtained them by request from SITRA, from their website sitra.fi/en and from GitHub. For developing a realistic reduction schedule for SUSLA, we adopted the global schedule for achieving 1.5degree lifestyles from Akenji et al. (2019). The schedule is calculated on the basis of the carbon budgets for achieving the 1.5and 2-degree targets of the Paris Agreement on the basis of five lifestyle scenarios (for details, see Akenji et al. 2019). For an average Finnish consumer for example, to reach a 1.5-degree lifestyle, the reduction target is 93% by 2050, assuming the reduction starts immediately, with targets of 2.5 (t CO2e) by year 2030, 1.4 by year 2040, and 0.7 by year 2050 (Akenji et al. 2019). Compared with the annual average carbon footprint of Finns at the time of this research, 10.4tCO2e, to stick to this schedule, most reductions should take place until year 2030. After that, both further reductions and maintaining the changes achieved are in order. The footprint targets apply also to the rest of the participating countries (Germany, Spain, Mexico, Denmark, India, and Switzerland) but their starting levels in terms of lifestyle carbon footprints vary (e.g. with average 2.0 t CO2e for India, see Akenji et al. 2019). These differences mean the project had to manage the diverse starting points in partner countries. Especially India stands out as a special case, with 300 million Indian citizens having a low carbon footprint at present, but aspiring the new middle class lifestyle, which would mean them increasing their carbon footprints toward the carbon intensive lifestyles of so called developed countries (Lee et al. 2021). European countries, on the other hand, are facing very similar situations, with average LCFs between 8 and 11 t CO2e, all needing a radical reduction (Akenji et al. 2019). We acknowledged these differences: the individuals in India need to, first and foremost, keep their emissions down, while those in the westernized countries need to reduce theirs. We chose to focus mostly on the year 2030 target for several reasons. First, reducing consumption can be hard for individuals, especially if they try to do drastic changes at once (Shove et al. 2012). Therefore, we assumed that from most middle-class consumers’ point of view, getting to 2.5 t CO2e by year 2030 is already challenging enough and, e.g., 0.7 t CO2e by year 2050, might appear too much. Thus, a lifestyle in a timespan of ten years is more imaginable than something happening over 30 years. Even in this timeframe, the challenge is complex and demanding for individuals: the reduction domains cover their whole lifestyle activities at the same time, the total reduction target is significant, and the time span covers several years, over which the constant reductions should be made, and the already attained targets maintained. Therefore, we started our research by offering the participants a range of possible activities to choose from thus enabling them to achieve sub-targets and helping them to keep them up over time. Next, we implemented the above knowledge in carbon and material footprint calculation, followed by offline workshops with individual roadmapping and experimenting, sharing experiences across the participating countries. Our aim was to get the initial design principles for the SUSLA tool, and evaluating it. All partners applied the same overall structure of the activities adapted to their timeline and needs (e.g. India did additional workshops to train student researchers). To ease the recruiting of as many individuals as possible, we invited them to participate by the household. Table 2 provide an overview of the 8 steps in this phase. Facilitating 1.5-Degree Lifestyle with SUSLA Forty-Second International Conference on Information Systems, Austin 2021 7 Step Activity 1 Set-up 2 Launching pilot and releasing search / household acquisition 3 Selecting households and preparation of measurement period 4 Kick-off-event with households 5 Measurement period (Calculation of Footprints based on Excel tool) 6 Roadmapping Workshop with households to create roadmaps 7 Implementation of experiments/Experimental phase 8 Future Workshop / Reflection Workshop Table 2. Steps and Activities in Setting up the Preliminary SUSLA Concept We managed to get 165 individuals in the offline workshops, as specified in Table 3. The materials from these workshops were used for the first round of a paper prototype for SUSLA. Participant ages varied from a few pre-schoolers (whose footprints were filled in by their caregivers) to 65-year-olds, with the majority being from 25 to 50 year-olds, with a 50/50 balance of males and females. Participants were middle-class with urban and suburban background, with diverse households from singles to multi-children families. Participant Country Finland Germany Denmark India Mexico Switzerland Spain Total Number of households 8 8 7 10 6 6 7 52 Number of individuals 29 21 13 45 16 20 21 165 Table 3. Overview of Participants of the Preliminary SUSLA Concept Workshops Finland led in the development and organization of workshops, mainly due to two aspects. First, the concept draws on earlier work, developed and applied in Finland (Laakso and Lettenmeier 2016). Second, the 1.5Degree Puzzle, a physical paper prototype tool used during the workshops, also draws on earlier work, developed in Finland both before and during this project (Akenji et al. 2019; Nielsen 2020). Formulating Initial Design Principles (Phase 2) We started formulating the initial SUSLA online tool design principles based on a series of offline workshops from late 2018 till early 2021. In practice, these workshops were mostly carried out in Finland, conducted by a consulting company specializing in sustainability transformations, where some of our authors also work. In Finland, a growing co-operation scheme with municipalities enabled us to perform about 40 workshops in 15 municipalities, with one region and one foundation during this stage. This way, we could ensure that SUSLA solution is founded on a practical design problem, as well as built and evaluated with real world interventions, as suggested by Sein et al. (2011). The consulting company recruited the participating municipalities and individuals and took care of the practical arrangements. The participants were from Southern and Eastern Finland. Data on their footprints, the reduction options chosen, and the footprint reduction achieved, were collected in different stages of the process. In general, during this phase, the aim was to gather design requirements for the SUSLA online application for all our partner countries to set up a methodology for the SUSLA (comprising footprint calculation, roadmapping, experimentation and considerations for community-building and up-scaling) on the basis of our earlier work (Laakso and Lettenmeier 2016). We developed the calculations on the basis of earlier footprint calculators (Mänty et al. 2021) and our earlier work (Buhl et al. 2018; Laakso and Lettenmeier 2016; Teubler et al. 2018). The participants in this phase comprised a total of 209 households with 590 individuals participating in a total of 40 workshops in 15 municipalities. These participants were between pre-schoolers (assisted by their Facilitating 1.5-Degree Lifestyle with SUSLA Forty-Second International Conference on Information Systems, Austin 2021 14 Revamping individuals’ lifestyles into the boundaries of a 1.5-degree lifestyle globally is a challenge: a lifestyle is an entity, with individual’s choices bound with everyday life’s practices and aspirations. To facilitate change, the individual needs to become aware of his or her situation in relation to the desired state. Here, the user seeing his or her footprints in relation to the 1.5-degree lifestyle target in design, acts as a wake-up call, triggering disruptive ambiguity by presenting information about his or her footprints. For the design of this step, we note that most individuals have no or little prior knowledge about their footprints, its components, or the impacts of actions for reduction. To help an average user make sense of information, providing the noticing and bracketing, and labelling and categorizing features in app design is beneficial. These include presenting the footprints by consumption category, comparing footprints with those from other countries and againts the targets. Here, we point out that designing a global footprint questionnaire, requires providing data in adequate units for each country. Thus, this step requires resources and time, as information on consumption patterns is often available on a country level, and the differences in lifestyles within countries should understood for the individuals to use the tool properly. Further, for the most accurate results, filling in the actual knowledge about user consumption is ideal, but this can be too much trouble for many. Filling in information with country averages is easier for the user, but it can decrease user’s trust toward the results. We recommend user testing for finding a balance between the number of questions and their level of detail in design, to keep the target users motivated. Also, automatic data input could ease this step, if such option is available for design. After realizing his or her state of art with a Green IS sensemaking tool, the user needs to start doing practical changes and sustain them over time. A lasting change in a lifestyle, even a small one, tends to require either special efforts or changes in living conditions (e.g. moving, change in workplace, changes in family composition) for most individuals. Especially in case of the citizens of the westernized countries aiming at achieving a 1.5-degree lifestyle, the challenge can feel dauting, as the gap between the current state of most individuals’ carbon and material footprints and the desired state is huge. Massive reductions and profound changes in lifestyles are in order. In some countries such as India, the average footprints are smaller and thus closer to the 1.5-degree target, but many citizens dream about increasing their consumption to the level of the westernized countries, risking an increase in the footprints. So, the Green IS sensemaking tool aiming at global transition, should acknowledge these diverse scopes and drivers. To attain reductions in footprints, both immediately, and over the long term, we suggest that the presumption to guide action is the critical step in the design. For facilitating this step, we recommend providing the users with design features for the temporal self setting and self organizing of goals, including a possibility to monitor the progress and reorganize the goals as needed. The basic principle of this part is that a more difficult, bigger goal (such as achieving the carbon footprint that fits the 1.5-degree lifestyle) can seem more achievable when a user can select from a sufficiently large set of activities to put into a timeline, part of which can be immediately attained (such as switching to green electricity). The amount of options available to the user to chose from, should be large enough to provide a feeling of choice, so that the app doesn’t make the user feel either restricted or hopeless. The commitment to change can also be hard for individuals in attaining sustainability transitions. We learned that the open and inclusive communication for sensemaking with Green IS is important. Therefore, we recommend setting up an online community for the app users and linking it to the user interface. Aiming at global change with Green IS comes with specific challenges. When designing for a global reach, it is important to examine all the design principles to the context of each country, to see if they are meaningful or not. Here, it is essential to consider not only users’ average footprints in the target country, but also their diverse actual and aspirational conditions of living and infrastructure. Failing to acknowledge these, may lead to designing such features the user deems impossible or detrimental. We suggest addressing which features can, or cannot, be generalized at the global level, and which ones should be tailored to the local context. An example can be suggestions to use a heatpump or invest in wind energy. Both make sense in a country where such solutions are available and affordable for an average citizen, with reduction benefits considering the local climate, such as Finland and Germany. However, in countries such as India, these do not make sense, considering the local infrastructure, climate, and the financial reality of an average citizen. Conclusion and Future Research The results from the SUSLA online tool, support the research on the potential of Green sensemaking IS in facilitating sustainability transitions at a global level. Our results add to the existing knowledge about this topic by highlighting the need of contextual, country level personalization of the goal setting features, Facilitating 1.5-Degree Lifestyle with SUSLA Forty-Second International Conference on Information Systems, Austin 2021 15 enhanced with the possibility for users’ personal temporal setting and organization of goals. Our research opens up several avenues for future research. Within this project, we could only implement a set of 30 actions. At present, SUSLA inlcudes general actions (reducing mobility, saving energy and materials, reducing waste and consumption). These are quantifiable and quite similar in impact in many countries. For the future, we suggest experimenting with all the 100 smart ways (Mänty et al. 2021). For upscaling, a Green IS concept has to be flexible enough to be transferrable from one location to others, attracting users in each new location (Golla et al. 2020). We note that any actions dependent on the local culture, technologies, and infrastructure, may be more difficult to generalize than those already in SUSLA. To this end, a regional or local mode could be added to the Green IS sensemaking design, for tailoring actions to the local culture and context. Examples include knowledge about local climate, infrastructure, technical solutions available (such as wind electricity), cultural practices, and food preferences. Future research could also address theorizing the Green IS for attaining the 1.5-degree target, through goal setting, organizing, and temporal sensemaking in more detail. For most individuals, the change required to attain a 1.5-degree lifestyle is huge, with infrastructural barriers the individual cannot control. For mitigating these, we propose systemic changes driven by local or regional administration. For future research, we suggest experimenting with features by which individuals can send “greetings” to the municipalities and other relevant actors about their wishes, for support and change in this regard, to facilitate discussion about sufficiency in consumption. Examining the automatic collection and use of personal data and its integration into the Green IS with AI, could also be a relevant for making Green IS more attractive, by decreasing the user efforts in data input. Also, we suggest researching how to best link the Green IS designs to the possibilities of the sharing economy and services, such as product substitution, upkeep, swapping, and mending, could all facilitate the change toward the sustainable 1.5-degree lifestyle. Acknowledgements The research was funded by the Strategic Research Council at the Academy of Finland, grant#13327771. References Akenji, L., Lettenmeier, M., Toivio, V., Koide, R., and Aryanie, A. 2019. “1.5-Degree Lifestyles: Targets and Options for Reducing Lifestyle Carbon Footprints,” Institute for Global Environmental Strategies Publication Series, Hayama. (https://www.iges.or.jp/en/pub/15-degrees-lifestyles-2019/en). 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