• European Commission's Seventh Framework Programm

 

Key Facts:
Project start: 1 January 2011
Project end: 31 December 2012

 

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SPREAD About the Project

Anticipated Impact

The overall aim of the SPREAD Sustainable Lifestyles 2050 European social platform project is the formulation of a research agenda for the EU and its Member States. This research agenda aims to address how the challenge of reducing current levels of energy, transport and resource use while at the same time improving health and quality of life of the ageing European society can be met.

The following project objectives will be met during the project:

  1. The conditions and complexities of shifting current lifestyles towards more sustainable ones will have been explored by reviewing the current knowledge base and learning from existing promising cases.

  2. A communication platform for stakeholders will have been established to share and transfer knowledge on sustainable lifestyles in the fields of sustainable living, moving and consuming and on sustainable society at national, EU and international levels.

  3. Real world experiences will have been included through the set-up of a People’s Forum which identifies (with interviews, focus groups to everyday citiziens) the meaning of sustainable lifestyles from the perspective of everyday life.

  4. Structures of analysis and interactive assessment of current initiatives and promising practices of sustainable living, moving, consuming and healthy lifestyles will have been developed; emerging sustainable practices will have been identified, and (context-specific) barriers and drivers to the mainstreaming of current initiatives will have been analyzed.

  5. Alternative future scenarios of sustainable lifestyles for 2050 and their visualisation will have been created which will imply social and behavioural innovation and identify the needed change in society through back-casting.

  6. A roadmap for different stakeholders on how to shift to sustainable lifestyles by 2050 will have been defined and will facilitate how foundations for new European social models can be established through stakeholder action and active communication and dissemination of developed ideas.

  7. A research agenda for EC policy makers on how to facilitate the shift towards more sustainable lifestyles based on the results of the project will have been formulated.

  8. The results of the project will have been actively disseminated to relevant stakeholders, policy makers, CSOs and society at large.

Meeting the above objectives is anticipated to result in the following far-reaching impacts, amongst others:

Impact: Advanced understanding of sustainable lifestyles among the participants.
Impact: Bridge-building between citizens, stakeholders, research & political stakeholders.
Impact
: Inclusion of real world experiences from citizens in the top 10 research questions.
Impact
: Improved and multi-stakeholder-based recommendations on sustainable lifestyles.
Impact
: A better understanding of possible future scenarios of sustainable lifestyles.
Impact
: Increased visibility of the project among European players.