Sustainability is an important issue for HCI that continues to spur an abundance of research and debates. The term itself remains contested, however, with multiple definitions used within DIS and HCI. This workshop seeks to bring into conversation two communities who use “sustainability” in different ways. First, sustainable HCI, which is foremost concerned with how HCI can contribute to sustainable developments (e.g., reduction in carbon emissions) through the design of interactive systems, and how interactive systems themselves can be more sustainable, for example by using less energy or producing less e-waste (sustainability in HCI). The second group is more firmly rooted in community-based HCI, where researchers have been grappling with the sustainability of socio-technical innovations, infrastructures, skills, and practices. A core concern is to explore how HCI interventions can be maintained long-term, particularly once the research project has ended.
While initial “sustainable HCI” research tended to understand sustainability narrowly as an environmental issue, later work has increasingly broadened our understanding of sustainability and included social and – to a lesser extent – economic aspects, slowly adopting the widely used Triple Bottom Line (TBL) framework. As part of this opening, the sustainable HCI research agenda has seen several shifts:
From prescriptive (solutionist, behaviour change) to speculative work
From changing individuals to supporting activists and communities as well policy-makers
From simplistic solutions to system thinking, connecting sustainability with other concepts, such democracy and social justice
From human-centred perspective to non-anthropocentric thinking, flattening the social and environmental domains of the TBL
From an implicit acceptance of a capitalist economy as an unquestioned fact to understanding it as a design space, opening opportunities to design for diverse economics
From assuming positive impact to a difficult search for new sustainability metrics and for responsible innovation
However, recognising the limits of computing and academic research to effect societal transformation as well as the urgency of the climate catastrophe, some authors have asked the HCI community to refocus their efforts on climate change over other sustainability topics.
In parallel, community-based PD and socially engaged HCI research, such as Digital Civics, have grappled with the phenomenon that interactive systems designed for and with communities can remain short-lived. Sustainability in this context usually means that interventions or innovations are maintained, scaled, replicated, or evolving. However, once researchers retreat (e.g., at the end of a project), there are many cases of ‘users’ stopping to engage, knowledge getting lost, or technology breaking. The research agenda of sustainability of HCI is thus concerned with:
Recognising the importance of building and maintaining relationships with and among stakeholders
Sharing control over entire process (incl. project conception, data analysis and results dissemination) to ensure an intervention actually addresses an issue of concern (which is not defined by researchers)
Research approaches and methods that value community knowledge over typical design activities
Iterating and adapting responses to evolving needs, while recognising the burden this puts on community partners
Training and capacity building among community partners as a core part of design
Use of accessible materials and tools and low-barrier and open-source technology
Continuous funding and income generation
New metrics that measure above goals
The two conceptions of sustainability outlined above may appear quite different at first. However, both ultimately ask: How can the interactive systems we design be socially relevant in the long-term? And further: How can we know they are relevant, i.e., how can we measure impact over time? We therefore believe that there is much that sustainability through and in HCI and sustainability of HCI can learn from each other. If we want to contribute to sustainability through HCI, the sustainability of an HCI intervention itself is important in order to have long-term and wide-spread impact. An eco- feedback app is worth little if there is no-one to use, maintain, or update it. And in turn, if we want to increase the sustainability of HCI, drawing on sustainable HCI to consider its environmental and social impact is essential.
To facilitate a conversation between these two communities, in this workshop we will explore what we mean when we say “sustainability”. Drawing on existing frameworks of sustainability, such as the Triple Bottom Line, Circles of Sustainability, Doughnut Economics, or the UN Sustainable Development Goals. We will interrogate how these frameworks translate into HCI practice, spanning ecological, social, economic, political, and cultural dimensions of sustainability. We will use the various dimensions and specific emphases of these frameworks as guiding questions and prompts to reflect on the sustainability of our own work, collect challenges and opportunities for sustainability, and develop reflective roadmaps to assist HCI researchers asking holistic yet specific questions as they conceive, run, and evaluate their research.
We invite participants to reflect on diverse sustainability conceptions and frameworks and how they are applied within HCI, PD, and HCI4D, including Triple Bottom Line, Circles of Sustainability, Doughnut Economics, the UN Sustainable Development Goals, or specific philosophies, such as permaculture. We welcome discussions on tensions between broad and narrow definitions of sustainability and how do they shape research agendas and the development of specific IT interventions or solutions, including environmental, ecological, social, economic, technological, political, cultural, spiritual, and emotional dimensions. Furthermore, we are interested in concepts intersecting sustainability debates, including the more-than-human, diverse economies, democracy, social justice, resilience, and responsible innovation.
Understanding sustainability as an interdisciplinary and collaborative effort within and beyond HCI, we are interested in the complexities that emerge out of this work. What is the role of equity and how is power shared between researchers and partners during research conception, design processes, governance, data collection, analysis, communication, and research translation? What is the role of consensus (prescription) versus contestation (speculation) in sustainability efforts? Users and participants are not just consumers, including producers, businesses, communities, activists, and policy makers. How are community, indigenous, and traditional knowledge systems recognised in the design process?
Long-term use, iteration, adaptation, and impact of socio-technical systems is essential for their sustainability. How are these systems maintained, scaled, replicated, and how do they evolve? There is a tension between training and capacity building for communities and continuous research involvement through infrastructuring. What sustainable funding or income sources make socio-technical systems financially viable? Questioning longevity, we also invite discussions of valuable dissolutions, ends, and transformations of research into something else. Finally, how do we measure impact and what are the limits of metrics?
In this 1-day hybrid workshop, we hope to bring together a diverse group of researchers and practitioners to move forward debates on sustainability. Specifically, the workshop will provide the opportunity to:
Reflect on participants’ own experiences with “sustainability” in their work
Discuss different conceptions and frameworks of sustainability developed and used within and outside of HCI
Relate discourses on sustainability of HCI research with sustainability through and in HCI research
Gather best practice recommendations to improve the relevance of HCI projects to holistic and diverse sustainability
Develop a sustainability “roadmap” as a reflective tool for HCI researchers