Title:

Sustainable practices in algorithmic profiling of young adults

Project manager:

• Malene Charlotte Larsen, Associate Professor, Department of Communication and Psychology

Project partners:

• Martin Trandberg Jensen, Associate Professor, Department of Culture and Learning
• Stinne Gunder Strøm Krogager, Associate Professor, Department of Communication and Psychology
• Jonatan Leer, Assistant Professor, Department of Culture and Learning
• Nadia Gullestrup Christensen, chair, Ungeklimarådet
• Bente Halkier, Professor, University of Copenhagen, vice chair, Klimarådet
• Ignacio Siles, Professor, Media and Technology Studies, Costa Rica University

Description:

The purpose of this project is to understand how sustainable practices of young adults are formed in the nexus of digital media engagements and everyday practices: How do young adults navigate green living in algorithmic and marked-based digital everyday consumption?  

Algorithmic profiling describes the automated ‘systematic and purposeful recording and classification of data related to individuals’ (Büchi et al., 2023, p. 2). Such inferences entail predictions about future consumer actions, general characteristics, and specific preferences that may shape online consumer practices of young adults. If we wish to understand and facilitate green transition and sustainable practices of the future generations, we must take the mechanism of platforms that shape their everyday digital life into account.

Title:

Labour, Migration and Natural Wine: Social sustainability in the green transition of production and trade

Project manager:

• Marlene Spanger, Associate Professor, Department of Politics & Society

Project partners:

• Mira Skadegaard, Assistant Professor, Department of Culture and Learning
• Magnus Andersen, Teaching Assistant, Department of Politics and Society

Description:

Nature is back in the wine glass. The growing popularity of natural wine exemplifies a recent shift in the agricultural industry, replacing industrialized methods with ecological and manual means of production. This interdisciplinary project examines the link between labour, migration, and sustainability through a series of three seminars with natural wine as an exemplary case. By bridging scholars of social science and humanities, as well as practitioners of the natural wine industry, the seminars will provide an avenue for exploring the economic, social, and cultural consequences of a product that is hailed as highly environmentally sustainable. The seminars are organised into themes addressing how the efforts of the green transition align and/or conflict with social sustainability and labour migration, contributing with knowledge on how the green transition re-arranges the agricultural industry.

Title:

Human-nature relations and public legitimacy of sustainability policies

Project manager: 

• Kristian Kongshøj, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science

Project partners:

• Troels Fage Hedegaard, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science
• Carolin Demuth, Associate Professor, Department of Communication and Psychology, Centre for Cultural Psychology
• Pirkko Liisa Raudaskoski, Professor, Department of Communication and Psychology, Exploring Methods for Participation and Dialogue in Communication Research; Centre for Cultural Psychology

Description:

This project investigates public support for strong sustainability policies, how citizens imagine or think about a green transition of society, and the extent to which this is rooted in how citizens relate to nature.

The point of departure for the project is that the various planetary crises (for instance, biodiversity loss and climate change) are interrelated symptoms of the more fundamental problem of “overshoot”, ie. unsustainably high levels of “throughput” from energy and materials (the basic insight from ecological economics).

The project investigates support for policies to directly reduce the biophysical scale and composition of consumption and production, how ordinary citizens think about the green transition, and whether this is rooted in more fundamental, affective and identity-related relations with nature.

The basic research question is: How do aspects of ‘nature connectedness’ and ‘nature relatedness’ (affective relations and value ascribed to nature, experiences with nature, perceptions of the state of nature, etc.) affect public support for policies to achieve sustainable consumption?

This question enables us to answer how the stronger policies needed can achieve public legitimacy, which is crucial for successful implementation of policy ideas in democratic societies. Furthermore, we aim to establish whether a more fundamental reorientation of our relations with nature are needed. 

 

Title:

Strategies for Leading Circular and Green Transitions in the Danish Fashion & Textile Industry

Project manager:

• Mette Vinther Larsen, Professor (mso), AAU Business School

Project partners:

• Pernille V. K. Andersen, Assistant Professor, Department of communication
• Kristina M. Madsen, Assistant Professor, AAU Business School
• Marita Svane, Associate Professor, AAU Business School
• Søren Kerndrup, Associate Professor, The Faculty for IT & Design, Sustainability, Innovation & Design
• Danish Fashion & Textile, Thomas Klausen, CEO & Marie Busck, CSR & Sustainability Manager
• VIA, Centre for Creative Industries and Professions, Rune T. J. Clausen, Research Manager & Poul-Erik Jørgensen, Research Manager

Description:

The Fashion and Textile has the 4th largest environmental footprint in the EU. On an annual base the industry produces 40 million tons of textile waste, of which only 1% is being reused to make new textiles. Hence, the need for green and circular economic transitions within the industry is omnipresent, not least for Denmark, where the fashion and textile industry amounts for 6% of the total Danish export (DKK 87 billion).

Even though both EU and national legislation generate constructive guidelines for how it is possible to stay within planetary boundaries of CO2 emissions, use of chemicals and water etc. these initiatives are far from the reality many Danish fashion and textile companies face: 1) the industry is mostly comprised of SME’s who still operate with a linear mindset regarding their international value chains; 2) there is an outspoken need for more transparency regarding EU legislation and the possible ways to adopt circular and green value chains and; 3) the individual company lacks knowledge and competences regarding working strategically with circular and green transitions with key international stakeholders in EU and the Global South.

If Danish fashion and textile companies want to remain ambitious, ethical and pioneering in relation to green and circular transitions they need to act fast on these challenges in strategic, responsibe and resilient ways. This seed funding project taps directly into this challenge. Based on research within the fields of circular economy, strategy and participatory research this project will tease out innovative, new and scalable knowledge about what leading green and circular transitions in strategic ways entail both within and outside the fashion and textile industry.

Title:

Facilitating young people’s connection with nature? Exploring the role and potential of nature-based activities in strengthening young people’s connection to nature, well-being and mental health

Project manager:

• Niels Ulrik Sørensen, Professor, Cefu, Department of Culture and Learning
• Anne Mette Winneche Nielsen, Associate Professor, Cefu, Department of Culture and Learning

Project partners:

• Louise Dånge, PhD, Cefu, Department of Culture and Learning
• Kathrine Vitus, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Social Work
• Johanne Lybecker Christiani, Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, Copenhagen University

Description:

We aim to develop, implement and evaluate a nature-based intervention with young people to explore:

1. Under which conditions, facilitation and framework do young people experience nature-based activities as beneficial for their well-being and mental health?
2. Under what conditions do young people develop a connection with nature that makes them take concrete steps to take better care of nature (i.e. concrete practices to mitigate climate change and increase biodiversity)?

The amount of young people in Denmark, who experience poor well-being and mental health problems, has increased in recent years. Meanwhile, most young people spend less time in nature as compared to previous generations. We know from existing literature that people’s connection with nature play a key role for their mental health, their environmental awareness, and their likeability to take care of nature.

We see a great potential in engaging young people in nature-based activities to strengthen their connection with nature, their well-being and mental health. We believe this project will generate important knowledge of the best ways forward of how to do so.

Title:

Exploring Environmental Care Work(ers) in Developing a Shared Sustainable Future for our Planet

Project manager:

• Erin Daina McClellan, Associate Professor, Department of Culture and Learning

Project partners:

• Jens Anderson-Ingstrup, Assistant Professor, Department of Communication & Psychology
• Mikkel Fugl Eskjær, Associate Professor, Department of Communication & Psychology
• John G. McClellan, Associate Professor, Department of Culture and Learning
  External partners have not yet been finalized

Description:

Emily Kenway (Oct. 25, 2021) wrote in The Guardian “As the world gets hotter and consequently more dangerous – we are going to need to care for each other more than ever before… We need a care-centred approach to meet the demands of a future that looks very different to our past”.

This sentiment poignantly reflects the tenuous relationship between our planet’s rapid climate change and the need to (re)consider both the people who work and live upon it everyday, and the ways we understand, classify, support, and ultimately recognize such work(ers) as valuable across specific contexts and geographic regions.

Our project aims to engage in a mixed method study of (1) historical trajectories of environmental care work(ers) in various international contexts – e.g., aid organizations, businesses, advocacy groups, diverse media, and/or municipal/community-centered initiatives, and (2) the ways that people who identify as engaging in such environmental care work understand their work in similar and different ways across such contexts.

The project is designed to examine specific environmental care work(er) frameworks to reveal shared language(s) of value used by both workers themselves and those who support them, such that our findings can be used to inform larger and more expansive examinations of environmental care work(ers) across the globe.

The knowledge produced in this pilot study can provide insight into efforts to collectively organize existing environmental care work(ers) such that they can more easily collaborate across contexts, educational programming focused on producing future environmental care workers, and support efforts aimed at preventing burnout, stress and other obstacles those in care-related fields might face across their careers. Our aim is for the evolving field of environmental care work(ers) to be more clearly recognized as essential for proteching our collective future on this planet.

Title:

From Green Conflicts to Green Publics: Transforming democratic engagement in sustainable transitions

Project manager:

• Mette Marie Roslyng, Associate Professor, Department of Communication and Psychology

Project partners:

• Lars Skov Henriksen, Professor, Department of Sociology and Social Work
• Óscar García Agustín, Professor, Department of Culture and Learning
• Anders Horsbøl, Associate Professor, Department of Communication and Psychology

Description:

Land is a limited resource, not least in Denmark, and concern for the environment and the climate has increased political attention and conflicts over how land should be used: for agriculture, new forms of energy production, nature preservation etc.

The project explores how conflicts over land use unfold in new spatial and digital public arenas. It aims to understand the role of public and civil society participation in conflicts with diverging interests and practices. This includes analysis of emerging new conflict lines and alliances, new forms of online and offline mobilisation, organisation and participation and the possible formations of green citizenship. On this basis, the project will explore democratic challenges and potentials for publics addressing green land use.

Research Question: How do conflicts over green land use unfold and re-structure public spheres, and what role do public participation and civil society mobilisation play in a more democratic green transition?

The project is important because it contributes to an understanding of the political barriers for a democratic green transition that works towards strengthening public and civil society participation. We will work collaboratively and across disciplines towards creating a better understanding of the political and cultural obstacles in the societal move towards a green transition that is both democratic and inclusive as well as sustainable.