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Custom sneakers, classic dishware, a limited-edition automotive—every is an instance of a product house owners could regard as particular and irreplaceable, fostering sturdy emotions of attachment.
From a sustainability standpoint, designers have lengthy believed that attachment was an excellent factor: If folks preserve merchandise they care about longer, they will devour much less and ship much less waste to landfills.
New Cornell analysis gives a extra nuanced understanding, exhibiting that product attachment can even unintentionally encourage much less sustainable habits. To forestall harm or loss, folks could restrict use of their most prized possessions—preserving footwear in a field, dishes as decorations or a automotive in storage—and purchase further, much less significant items for sensible every day functions.
“The aim has been to get folks to carry on to merchandise longer, which was seen as inherently extra sustainable,” mentioned Michael Kowalski, a doctoral researcher within the area of human-centered design with a background as an industrial product designer. “But that is not all the time the case if folks aren’t truly utilizing this stuff.”
Kowalski is the lead writer of “I Love It, I’ll Never Use It: Exploring Factors of Product Attachment and Their Effects on Sustainable Product Usage Behaviors,” printed Dec. 31, 2022, within the International Journal of Design. Co-author Jay Yoon, assistant professor within the Department of Human Centered Design within the College of Human Ecology, and director of the Meta Design and Technology Lab, is the adviser to the analysis.
The analysis seeks to tell designers concerning the a number of elements driving product attachment and which might be tapped to encourage a product’s energetic use for so long as doable—per sustainability targets—and keep away from continued redundant…
2023-01-04 16:38:59 Study explores how significant however unused merchandise hinder sustainability
Source from phys.org