Toolkit for tailored sustainability interventions
A comprehensive Sustainability Lifestyle Typology and practical tools to understand the diverse lifestyle preferences of the Swiss population and develop targeted sustainability interventions.
Who gives up meat consumption, but often travels by plane? Is enthusiasm for technology and a less-is-more mentality mutually exclusive? Who behaves as sustainably at work as at home?
People differ in the way they organise their lives, in their interests, and in the motivations that drive their behaviour such as environmentally relevant behaviours - in short, they differ in their lifestyles. Knowing the different existing lifestyle types is crucial to develop tailored solutions to promote sustainable behaviour.
Representing the latest research on sustainability-relevant lifestyles, we developed a toolkit with practical instruments that support designing, targeting, and implementation of effective sustainability interventions. By combining an evidence-based lifestyle typology with decision support and co-creation methods, the toolkit assists policymakers, practitioners, and researchers in developing tailored sustainability interventions addressing the specific preferences, needs, and capabilities of the different lifestyle types in the Swiss population.
Toolkit’s objectives
The toolkit contains four instruments that enable policymakers, practitioners, and researchers to:
- Identify and characterize target groups (i.e. lifestyle types) based on their sustainability-relevant behaviour and underlying behavioural drivers.
- Develop tailored communication campaigns and behaviour change interventions for specific target groups (i.e. lifestyle types).
- Co-create solutions adapted to the specific profiles of citizens.
The toolkit consists of:
- The Swiss Sustainability Lifestyle Typology: A detailed description of the 6 sustainability-relevant lifestyle types and their prevalence in Switzerland (incl. policy recommendations). The typology provides the scientific basis of the LifeStyler Tool, the Intervention Decision Support Tool, and the Sustainability Persona Cards (see below).
- The LifeStyler Tool: A tool to quickly identify people’s sustainability-relevant lifestyle type according to the Swiss Sustainability Lifestyle Typology, and to raise people’s awareness and provide them with tailored procedural knowledge for a more sustainable life.
- The Intervention Decision Support Tool: A tool to supports selection of intervention approaches targeted to specific lifestyle types of the Swiss Sustainability Lifestyle Typology (coming soon).
- The Sustainability Persona Cards: Persona cards based on the Swiss Sustainability Lifestyle Types to strengthen user focus in co-creation processes.
