New website aims to increase awareness of sustainable consumption

CONSENSUS – a research project on sustainable consumption in Ireland and Northern Ireland – has launched a new project website and set of animations to promote the research, present key findings and raise public awareness.

CONSENSUS is led by Professor of Geography at Trinity College Dublin, Anna Davies, and closely involves colleagues, Drs Laura Devaney and Ruth Doyle from the Geography Department, who are currently leading innovative research on sustainable food and water consumption. CONSENSUS represents the first comprehensive analysis of sustainable consumption in Irish households.

Professor Davies said: "CONSENSUS has outstripped its original aims and objectives, completing the first comprehensive analysis of sustainable household consumption on an all-Ireland basis. The research has engaged over 100,000 members of the public along with 100 government, private sector and civil society stakeholders through workshops and interactive exhibits. The new website and video set represent another facet of our innovative communications approach and public outreach efforts."

One of the newly released video animations on the website provides an overview of research on sustainable transport, food, energy, and water consumption. An animated info-graphic then depicts key results on sustainable consumption from the all-Ireland survey that comprised 1,500 households. Another animation (shown below) discusses the collaborative CONSENSUS visioning process that re-imagined how people might carry out their daily washing, eating and heating practices in the future.

The newly launched website also contains related publications and a regularly updated blog as well as recommendations for regulatory, technological and educational interventions to promote more sustainable living.

Key results of the project include the identification of a persistent gap between reported environmental concerns and sustainable behaviours of Irish citizens, the evaluation of educational initiatives, infrastructures, incentives and restructured working relationships to transform mobility practices, and the development of future scenarios of sustainable eating, washing and heating practices. Transition frameworks have identified steps for policy, business and civil society to build towards these future sustainable consumption scenarios.