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In the next months, CircEUlar project partners will conduct qualitative interviews and a quantitative pilot study to investigate factors influencing circular consumption and circular citizenship. That way, we will gain a deeper understanding of circular consumption and circular citizenship behaviours in different countries.
During the summer months, the CircEUlar project partners looking into circular consumption have developed an interview guide. The interviews will address CircEUlar’s focus areas of mobility, building & household appliances, and digitalisation. From October until December, the project partners of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU, Germany), the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change (CMCC, Italy), and the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (RUG, The Netherlands) will interview people about:
- car (non-)ownership and using car sharing services,
- commoning spaces and sharing goods and appliances,
- using online trading platforms, such as eBay or Marktplaats, to acquire or sell goods.
The semi-structured biographical interviews focus on past and current circular consumption practices, life events and socio-economic circumstances that impact the adoption of circular consumption practices, and considerations regarding future engagement.
Further, the RUG will run a quantitative pilot study looking at factors influencing the engagement in circular consumption and circular citizenship behaviours, which aim at influencing other actors, including governments, businesses, and other citizens, that could lead to system change (i.e., demand, supply, and the political context) in favour of circularity. Examples of circular citizenship behaviours are spreading knowledge and awareness across friends and family, co-designing circular goods and services with businesses, and voting for parties that aim to make the economy more circular. Normative considerations due to feelings of responsibility, problem awareness, and values will be looked at as well as social influence and effects of personal agency, i.e., to which extent people feel like they are able to show a certain behaviour and that this behaviour is effective in reaching a goal.
Results of the interviews and pilot study will then feed into nationally representative surveys which will be conducted in Germany, Italy, and The Netherlands.
By RUG