Sustainably unpersuaded: how persuasion narrows our vision of sustainability

Authors:
Hronn Brynjarsdottir;Maria Håkansson;James Pierce;Eric Baumer;Carl DiSalvo;Phoebe Sengers
Affiliations:
Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, United States;Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, United States;Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States;Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, United States;Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, United States;Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, United States
Venue:
Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Year:
2012

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Abstract

In this paper we provide a critical analysis of persuasive sustainability research from 2009-2011. Drawing on critical sociological theory of modernism, we argue that persuasion is based on a limited framing of sustainability, human behavior, and their interrelationship. This makes supporting sustainability easier, but leads to characteristic patterns of breakdown. We then detail problems that emerge from this narrowing of vision, such as how the framing of sustainability as the optimization of a simple metrics places technologies incorrectly as objective arbiters over complex issues of sustainability. We conclude by suggesting alternative approaches to move beyond these problems.