Can private companies drive behaviour change for sustainability?—The case of the IKEA Live Lagom project

The urgency to respond to natural resource destruction and a looming climate breakdown requires whole patterns of behaviours to change; incremental and serial change will not suffice. This accounts particularly for citizens of western societies who must turn from seeking new resources to crafting and adapting new behavioural patterns and lifestyles hat function well within finite ecosystems.

As response to this IKEA UK & Ireland launched Live Lagom. The three year behaviour change project in collaboration with IKEA and Hubbub aimed to find solutions that allow for extended behaviour change at home, and to explore the supporting role IKEA can take in their customer’s attempt to live more sustainable lifestyles. Approaching business-customer interaction from this angle extends businesses’ understanding of their responsibility with potential implications for a more nuanced understanding of their role in society. However, this approach is not without challenges.

This seminar is of interest and relevance for academics and practitioners alike. It draws on findings which highlight the potential of private sector companies to drive behaviour change for sustainable development through new service offerings. In particular, the presentation will emphasize the need to create new services that serve as interventions with the potential to nurture conditions under which citizens become behavioural entrepreneurs themselves, eventually creating, managing and sharing successful approaches to behaviour change with positive implications for wellbeing and prosperity.

About

Based at CEEDR Middlesex University, Patrick Elf is conducting interdisciplinary research projects on businesses and their potential to operate as a force for good, sustainable fashion entrepreneurship, innovation, sustainable development and identity related studies.

Prior to CUSP, as part of doctoral studies at CES Surrey, he conducted research for IKEA UK & Ireland, exploring the potential of multinational corporations to support people in their aim to live more sustainable lifestyles. He received a scholarship for his BA in International Management from the Cologne Business School, Germany and the Universidad Viña del Mar, Chile, and holds a Master’s degree in Sustainable Development from Forum for the Future and Middlesex University. He recently completed his PhD at the Centre for Environment & Sustainability at the University of Surrey.