ZIN-spokeswoman Prof. Doris Fuchs, ZIN-member Jun.-Prof Antonia Graf  as well as ZIN junior scholars Carolin Bohn, Berenike Feldhoff  and Tobias Gumbert attend the international conference “Sustainable Consumption Research and Action Initiative (SCORAI)”, from the 27th – 30th June in Copenhagen. The SCORAI initiative, founded in 2012, aims at promoting innovative research in the field of sustainable consumption and networking with practice and politics. In 2018, an international conference organized by SCORAI has taken place for the third time. Numerous renowned scholars will join the conference, as well as five ZIN members who present papers on various sustainability-related topics and, in some cases, also organize own sessions.

ZIN-spokeswoman Doris Fuchs and her staff member Carolin Bohn examine under which conditions participation for sustainability can develop transformative potential in their contribution “Transformation through Participation? The Pivotal Role of Political Judgement Formation”. In doing so, they conclude that fostering citizens’ capability for political judgment plays a crucial role in participation processes. They then illustrate the possibilities and challenges of promoting this capability by examining state-funded projects on the German Energiewende.

Tobias Gumbert, another research fellow at the Chair of Prof. Fuchs, argues that consumers currently develop an attitude id daily consumption practices that suggests a high awareness for materiality (characterized e.g. by reflecting on the making of products, their origins and disposal= in his paper “Let’s Be (More) Materialistic! A Framework to Study the Renewed Interest in Materiality within Sustainable Consumption”. Taking into account different research approaches in the field of environmental theories, he proposes an analytical framework capable of understanding and systemizing this attitude and of revealing its possible contribution to general sustainability efforts. The paper concludes that environmental management strategies should not exclusively focus on promoting less materialistic consumption attitudes, but on the contrary should open up to the potential of materialistic attitudes towards consumer goods.

The contribution of ZIN-member Antonia Graf and her staff member Berenike Feldhoff deals with driving bans as an environmental policy instrument. Under the title “Co-production on the Ground: Researching Driving Bans Integrating STS and Urban Governance”, the authors examine which factors led to an increasing use of driving bans in German cities. The article looks at driving bans from an urban governance perspective, focusing in particular on the role of the main actors in the relevant decision-making processes and the relationship between technology and science in their impact on driving bans.

Antonia Graf, together with Dr. Ing. Marco Sonnberger furthermore examines the collective vision of autonomous driving and corresponding conceptualizations of human needs in the paper “Imaging the future of car driving? Concepts of Needs in Sociotechnical Imaginaries of Autonomous Driving”.

In addition to submitting a conference paper, Prof. Doris Fuchs also co-organized the special session “Living Well in a World of Limits”, which addresses a variety of issues around sustainable consumption in a biophysically limited world.

Further information on the 3rd International SCORAI Conference can be found here.