Bridging Ga

ps
in
Education f
or Sustainab
a n R izk
Consumptio le
Aym
Ol or i t un n
m an
Rah with
a t iin
n A. M Social Medi
W a a
 2005-2014
UN’s Decade of
Education in Sustainable Development
Emphasis on developing social capacity to fight against economic
and environmental impacts of unsustainable development

Education for Sustainable Consumption

 Monitor consumption patterns
 Generate knowledge on sustainable consumption
 Bottom-up empowerment of individuals &
communities
 Transport

Materials Food
Consump
tion
Water Energy

Widespread Education—basis for Widespread Change

 Challenges in ESC
1. Complexity/controversy of SD concepts
2. Overcoming Internal & External Barriers
 Learner’s busyness
 Learner’s fatalism
 Learner’s weak belief in self-efficacy
 Limited opportunities to practice
3. Transforming Awareness & Attitude into Behavior
4. Mobilizing community involvement & support
5. Maintaining cohesion & connectivity of ESC efforts
 • Eliminating barriers
• Empowering audience
with Knowledge &
Efficacy
• Providing/highlighting
opportunities

Assessment Implementation Evaluation

• Identifying barriers • Analyze impact

• Characterizing • Feedback for
audience affect, improvements
values, identity • Support for sustainable
• Setting targets & result
goals
 Content
Misc.
Communities

Online Social
Gaming Networking

Blogging
Social
Collaborative
Media Projects
Social Media—an Enormous
Online Resource!
Virtually the new ‘third place’ for digital
technology users, offering them:
 Community-level interactions, and

 Gratifying entertainment and activities

supported by increasingly powerful,

convenient, multi-media, mobile and intuitive
technology

Online ‘ecosystems’ teeming with resources

that can drive ESC forward
 The Social Media Phenomenon
 1979—Tom Truscott & Jim
(Duke University) created
Usenet

 1998—Bruce & Susan Abelson

founded ‘‘Open Diary,’’ bringing
together online diary writers
into one online community
 February 2005,

> 2 billion views in a day

150,000 full length films every week

February 2004

> 500 million active users.

50% log on daily with

average of 130 friends July 2006

175 million registered users

95 million tweets per day

300,000 registered apps in its ecosystem

 Information is:
Reciprocal
Durable
Unique structure
Traceable
Scalable

Strengths
 

Immersive
Experience can counter:
ContributorsAudience
Busyness
&
Fatalism User
Diverse
Base
Democratic
transformative
Poor belief in self-efficacy
Discovered &
experience
Limited opportunity
undiscovered talent
 Feedback drives
improvements in
performance
Clear, open visibility
of what is being
done

Light

Crowd
Get the audience!

Chris Anderson: How web video powers Global innovation

Efforts Worth Learning From

 Focuses on responsible,  Focuses on unsustainable life cycle

sustainable food choices of things, invisible impacts on
 Support for society & environment
family/community-based  Expands influence via creative
farm products YouTube presentations (3.5 mil
 Website, blog, YouTube views) & online community
resources—facts, advice & (150,000 activists)
support  Ingenuity in communicating
 2003-2008—20 mil views otherwise complex, intricate
for The Meatrix concepts
Efforts Worth Learning From
 Greenpeace mobilized social
action against controversial
palm oil
 Viral video campaign
(1.5mil views) and
Facebook protests
 Nestle’s pledge to shift to
sustainable sources by 2015
(18% in 2010, expected at
50% in 2011)
 2007—simulation of first 32
weeks of global oil shortage
 Chronicled in 1,500 player-
created blog posts, videos, images
& voicemails
 Contents ranked based on
realistic quality of their portrayal
 Novel ‘playing with the future’
approach
 Conclusion &
Recommendations
0 The growing online presence of society makes it
important for ESC strategies to appreciate the
emerging values, cultures, and capacity within social
media communities
0 Development of future ESC approaches can really
benefit from the strengths and greater impact Social
Media has to offer
0 When ESC strategies optimize engagement with the
vast pool of contributors and learners, we start
making REAL PROGRESS
They Are
Listening.
Are We?