I-CHANGE – Individual Change of Habits Needed for Green European Transition

How do we accelerate the green transition? What comes first – Legislation and technology, citizens’ demand or conversion of production?

I-Change is based on the thesis that the engagement of citizens and civil society is crucial in order to succeed in accelerating the green transition. The engagement can lead to needed solutions partly by individual change of habits and partly by identifying the structural barriers and local circumstances that need attention.

In I-Change, citizens from 8 communities in 6 European cities as well as 2 non-European cities are involved in 8 local Living Labs. When engaged in a Living Lab the citizens gain knowledge about local climate challenges, such as floods, droughts, air pollution and waste management, with the aim of empowering them to act in their everyday lives and to drive local change.

The Board of Technology participates together with 15 organizations from a total of 12 countries and contributes with the development of the processes and methods for engaging a diverse group of stakeholders and citizens.

Citizens are widely recruited and engaged in the 8 Living Labs as active participants in the scientific collection of data and in a co-creative development of the project’s technological instruments and tools. The collection of data and the co-development of tools of course have a scientific gain but equally important the citizens also gain insight and understanding of their local climate challenges.

I-Change also aims to examine whether it is possible to track a change in the behavior of the participating citizens as they learn more about their local climate challenges. It is both interesting to examine whether the citizens change their habits but also to identify what may stand in the way of creating the required change of behavior.

In this way, the aim is to highlight and disseminate knowledge locally about what one as a citizen can do and why, just as the aim is to identify the structural barriers and communicate this to local, national and European decision-makers.