dimarts, 27 d’octubre del 2020

SUSLA App: Students document a 33% reduction in their lifestyle carbon footprint due to COVID-19

 15 UPC students aged between 20 and 31 with diverse cultural backgrounds and 7 different nationalities participated in the evaluation of their pre-COVID-19 and current, COVID-19-influenced lifestyle carbon footprint.

The SUSLA Carbon calculator (www.susla.app), co-developed by UPC under the lead of Prof. Torsten Masseck, has been used for this experiment, allowing for specific assessment of individual lifestyle carbon footprints in the fields of housing, mobility, leisure, food and consumption of goods.   

An average pre-COVID-19 lifestyle carbon footprint of 12.9T CO2equ/pers*y has been reported with ranges between 4.4T and 21.6T. The sectorial distribution of the pre-COVID-19 lifestyle carbon footprint has been dominated by Leisure (29%) and Mobility (23%), followed by Food (22%), Housing (12%) and consumption of Goods (12%).

An average COVID-19 influenced lifestyle carbon footprint of 8.6T CO2 equ/pers*y has been reported with ranges between 5.6T and 20.1T. The sectorial distribution of the COVID-19 influenced lifestyle carbon footprint shows to be dominated by Food (32%) and Housing (24%), followed by Mobility (19%), Leisure (13%) and Consumption of Goods (12%).

An average overall reduction of lifestyle carbon footprints of the participants of 33% could be stated through this experiment.

Some students describe surprise and concerns about their elevated lifestyle carbon footprints and are generally surprised about the high impact of their pre-COVID-19 mobility patterns, which through COVID-19 related restrictions have changed essentially.

Conclusion are that the COVID-19 pandemic shows to have an elevated contribution to desired and undesired lifestyle changes, which may result in an important reduction of individual lifestyle carbon footprints. Further research might focus on how to maintain desired low-carbon lifestyle changes as well as how to revert undesired lifestyle changes due to COVID-19 through low-carbon alternatives in the future, instead of the return to carbon intensive pre-COVID-19 habits.

dimarts, 20 d’octubre del 2020

New SUSLA App - Create your personal pathway for a more sustainable lifestyle!

The new SUSLA App is out!

The SUSLA App is the world's first web application that analyzes individual behavior and proposes concrete solutions for the implementation of a sustainable lifestyle. It accompanies users in their everyday life and can measure the effectiveness of new behavioral patterns.

 

The SUSLA Web-App calculates the Carbon and Material Footprints related to your personal lifestyle. It then offers you options to reduce your footprint through specific actions, creating your personal roadmap for a more sustainable lifestyle.

SUSLA furthermore gives you information about the specific savings you can achieve through your selected actions and reminds you weekly on their implementation.

 

We at UPC have co-developed this Coaching App together with institutions in Germany, Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, Mexico and India. We now invite test users in these countries to test SUSLA and give us feedback on its Beta-Version, helping us to further develop the App. 

 

Would you like to live more sustainable and help us in our research?

So please access the SUSLA Web-App under the following link: https://www.susla.app/

 

If you would like to exchange experiences and connect to other SUSLA users, you can join our Facebook SUSLA community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2640569172923855/

 

The App is under constant development and your feedback is very important for its success! So please give us your recommendations on improvements, share with us your user experience or tell us about any problem you might have encountered under the following link: https://www.soscisurvey.de/SUSLA/

 


[cat] La nova SUSLA App ja està disponible!

SUSLA és la primera aplicació web del món que analitza el comportament individual i proposa solucions concretes per implementar un estil de vida sostenible. Aquesta acompanya als usuaris en el seu dia a dia, i mesura l'efectivitat dels nous patrons de comportament.

 

L'aplicació SUSLA calcula la petjada de carboni i material del teu estil de vida, i ofereix un rang d'accions específiques amb les quals reduir-los, creant un full de ruta personal per a un estil de vida més sostenible.

 

A més a més, SUSLA et dona informació especifica de l'estalvi que pots aconseguir amb la implementació de les accions seleccionades i recordatoris setmanals sobre la seva implementació.

 

Nosaltres a la UPC hem desenvolupat aquesta App d'assessoria, junt amb institucions de Alemanya, Finlàndia, Suïssa, Mèxic i Índia, i ara invitem usuaris d’aquests països per provar la versió Beta de SUSLA, perquè ens donin la seva opinió i així, ajudar-nos a seguir desenvolupant la App. 

 

T’agradaria viure de forma més sostenible i ajudar-nos en la nostra investigació?

 

Si us plau, accedeix a la Web-App SUSLA amb el següent link: 

https://www.susla.app/

 

Si vols intercanviar experiències i connectar amb altres usuaris de SUSLA, pots unir-te a la nostra comunitat SUSLA de Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2640569172923855/

 

L'aplicació està en constant desenvolupament, i la teva opinió és molt important per nosaltres. Així que si us plau, dóna’ns recomanacions sobre millores, comparteix amb nosaltres la teva experiència d'usuari o explica'ns qualsevol problema que hagis trobat en el següent enllaç:

https://www.soscisurvey.de/SUSLA/

 

 

[cast] ¡Ya está disponible la nueva SUSLA App!

SUSLA es la primera aplicación web del mundo que analiza el comportamiento individual y propone soluciones concretas para implementar un estilo de vida sostenible. Esta acompaña a los usuarios en su día a día y mide la efectividad de los nuevos patrones de comportamiento.

 

La aplicación SUSLA calcula la huella de carbono y material de tu estilo de vida, y ofrece un rango de acciones específicas con las que reducirlos, creando una hoja de ruta personal para un estilo de vida más sostenible.

 

Además, SUSLA te da información específica del ahorro que puede lograr con la implementación de las acciones seleccionadas y recordatorios semanales sobre su implementación.

 

Nosotros en la UPC hemos desarrollado esta App de asesoría, junto con otras instituciones de Alemania, Finlandia, Dinamarca, Suiza, México e India, y ahora invitamos usuarios de estos países a probar la versión Beta de SUSLA, para que nos den su opinión y nos ayuden a seguir desarrollando la App.

 

¿Te gustaría vivir de forma más sostenible y ayudarnos en nuestra investigación?

 

Puedes acceder a la Web-App SUSLA con el siguiente link: 

https://www.susla.app/

 

Si quiere intercambiar experiencias y conectar con otros usuarios de SUSLA, puedes unirte a nuestra comunidad SUSLA de Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2640569172923855/

 

La aplicación está en constante desarrollo, y tu opinión es muy importante para nosotros. Así que, por favor, danos tus recomendaciones sobre mejoras, comparte con nosotros, tu experiencia de usuario o cuéntanos cualquier problema que hayas podido encontrar en el siguiente enlace:

https://www.soscisurvey.de/SUSLA/

 

dijous, 9 de juliol del 2020

INNOVATION AND CO-CREATION SEMINAR MSC RENE 2020: HOUSING-ENERGY-LIFESTYLE

A new edition of our Innovation and Co-creation Seminar has been held for the InnoEnergy MSc Program "Renewable Energies" (RENE) with 24 students from 8 different countries working on a “Holistic Sustainability Approach for Innovations”. Due to the exceptional situation of the COVID Pandemia the whole seminar had to be converted into an online course, quite contrary to the concept of our Living Lab as a place to meet, discuss, explore and design in a inspiring place like our LOW3 energy self-sufficient solar house.

Nevertheless, students could visit the Living Lab virtually through guided visits which are part of our MOOC course "LOW3-Living Zero!", and many other online materials could be made available for analyzing the LOW3 concepts and technologies as inspiring starting point for looking into a more sustainable future.

Again students worked during 3 days on "Sustainable Lifestyle Scenarios 2030" including technological, environmental and socioeconomic forecasting as a result of the presented projects and generated discussions.

The first day was dedicated to Innovation through the presentation and analysis of research projects in the three main focus areas of Housing, Energy and Lifestyle.

HOUSING: Students got known to the innovative concepts of UPC's nearly zero energy buildings, exploring and analyzing the technological concepts of the LOW3 prototype house in the fields of solar thermal, solar photovoltaic, HVAC, bioclimatic building management and energy monitoring systems, energy storage and circularity. A forecasting exercise, projecting the analyzed technologies to 2030 allowed to enter fully into the discussion about the relationships between housing, energy and sustainability.
ENERGY: Students got introduced into the results of the  R4E - Roadmaps for Energy project (www.roadmapsforenergy.eu), getting known to the developed energy roadmaps for European partner cities in the field of Smart Buildings and Smart Urban Spaces and Smart Mobility in order to discuss energy transition of society in the coming decades.

LIFESTYLE: Students got introduced to a holistic transition to sustainability through the international Sustainable Lifestyle Accelerator project 2018-2020 (www.suslifespain.blogspot.com, www.suslife.info), where UPC collaborates with international partners from 7 counties under the lead of the Wuppertal Institute in the reduction of the environmental impact of private households. 

The second day was dedicated to co-creation, applying the R4E methodology of complexity maps and roadmapping for the generation of innovative product or service concepts for a “more sustainable urban life in 2030
A guest lecture by Michael Lettenmeier from Aalto University (Finland) and director of D-MAT, gave to students valuable insights on resource consumption, resource acountabilty and pathways for 1.5º lifestyles which would allow living within the planetary boundaries.
Finally, students co-created in dynamic group sessions through a story telling approach concepts for “a more sustainable urban life in 2030 with fruitful follow-up discussions, fostering the creative potential of these future “game changers” of InnoEnergy. 

This seventh collaboration with the MSc Program RENE of KIC InnoEnergy confirms again that the LOW3 Living Lab offers a valuable contribution to engineer students’ education through its holistic approach to sustainability, bringing together in one place the important topics of Housing, Energy and Lifestyle.