Aksel's 50% seminar - Scaling up Action

We were joined by 17 online participants and 6 participants in the room, when Aksel Biørn-Hansen held his 50% seminar. Chiara Rossitto, senior lecturer at Stockholm University was the discussant, and admirably guided Aksel through possibilities for his continuing phd-work. Below is Aksel’s title and abstract for his 50% text. Hurray and congratulations Aksel!

Scaling up Action Through Collective Engagement with Environmental Data

There is a wealth of data available today detailing the climate impact of our actions. Despite this, it is hard to engage with such data in the abstract and this leads to little practical action in terms of curbing global 𝐶𝑂2 emissions. Furthermore, the use of data when designing for sustainability has in the past drawn primarily on criticized positions of 1) persuasive sustainability and 2) the focus on information provision as the only means of intervention. My research departs from this sentiment of «shouting at people» about energy and emission reductions and explores the implications of engaging people with environmental data as a means to facilitate conversations and negotiations of how our practices need to change in order to transition toward a low carbon society. In particular, I am interested in different scales of action, with a specific focus on the juncture between the individual and the larger collective of e.g. friends, family, colleagues, and larger institutions. This space in-between different actors affords a set of tensions and qualities, as well as a kind of directionality that is interesting to investigate further with the aim of supporting action. Through design-oriented research and ethnography, I aim to design for and study this space, and in so doing try to unpack the meaning of data in the process of challenging and reconfiguring unsustainable practice.