Looking beyond the hype: Conditions affecting the promise of behaviour change apps as social innovations for low-carbon transitions

Wemyss, Devon and Cellina, Francesca and Grieder, Manuel and Schluter, F. (2023) Looking beyond the hype: Conditions affecting the promise of behaviour change apps as social innovations for low-carbon transitions. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 47 (100702). ISSN 2210-4224

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Abstract

Digital tools, specifically smartphone apps, have emerged as enablers of social innovation for low-carbon transitions by using novel feedback to creatively engage people to act more sustainably, and thus capture the power of collective individual action. Such apps have increasingly been implemented in real-world experiments with positive results in the short-term. However critical reflection is required to look beyond this hype to understand the conditions for longer term impact, thus reaching a transformative social innovation potential. In this paper, we take two exemplary behaviour change apps and perform a cost-benefit analysis to assess the break-even point in number of users to achieve net-positive impact and discuss relevant technical, organisational, political and financial conditions that enable or impede this impact. We find that the required scale-up in users seems challenging, yet feasible. However, guaranteeing that the supportive conditions are available is necessary to warrant the focus on behaviour change apps by research and policy.

Item Type:	Scientific journal article, Newspaper article or Magazine article
Subjects:	Computer sciences Social studies
Department/unit:	Dipartimento ambiente costruzioni e design > Istituto sostenibilità applicata all'ambiente costruito
Depositing User:	Francesca Cellina
Date Deposited:	09 Feb 2023 05:37
Last Modified:	09 Feb 2023 05:37
URI:	http://repository.supsi.ch/id/eprint/13798

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