Excursion: Lecture by Melanie Jäger-Erben

How can objects promote sustainable consumption? This question marks the beginning of Jaeger-Erben’s lecture. Melanie Jaeger-Erben is a sociologist and transformation researcher and professor of technology and environmental sociology in Cottbus. In her work, she deals with topics such as circular economy and other economic concepts like degrowth or agrowth. She takes us on a journey through the world of consumption. She dreams of a world where few things are used for a long time, a world oriented toward sufficiency. The reason for this is the reality she presents to us through several examples. She begins with an Israeli study that discusses planned affluence in the retail sector, which found that a third of the clothing produced worldwide is never worn, but instead often directly disposed of or incinerated. Clothing made to satisfy the generated need of consumers for variety and novelty in the product world. She also shows us the latest “bullshit innovations,” as she calls them, currently on the market, such as a single-use power bank—technology destined for the landfill. But there are alternatives. With various concepts for increasing societal openness to technological sustainability, a repair culture, convivial design, and modularity, she presents ways to achieve modern, circular-oriented design. She then transitions to her smartphone study. In this study, she discovers that smartphone users have different requirements for their devices. She identifies user groups and designs smartphones tailored to the needs of each group. For instance, the smartphone of a grandfather, who writes messages to his grandchildren, makes phone calls, and occasionally takes a photo, doesn’t need to do much more than that. For him, the multitool that smartphones currently are by default is over-engineered. Jaeger-Erben provides a possible answer to the initial question with this study. For our part, we take this question with us into our ideation phase and finally say goodbye, after this valuable insight into her work.