1.
Kyungeun Sung, Sustainable Consumption Research Group, School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment
Kyungeun Sung
Supervised by Tim Cooper & Sarah Kettley
Sustainable Consumption Research Group
School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment
Individual upcycling in the UK:
Insights for scaling up towards
sustainable development

2.
Kyungeun Sung, Sustainable Consumption Research Group, School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment
Table of contents
 Introduction
 Setting the scene
 Method
 Results
 Discussions and conclusion

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Kyungeun Sung, Sustainable Consumption Research Group, School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment
Introduction

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Kyungeun Sung, Sustainable Consumption Research Group, School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment
Community-level innovations or actions for sustainability
 Grassroots innovations
(e.g. Davies & Mullin, 2011; Horwitch & Mulloth, 2010; Longhurst & Seyfang, 2011)
 Community-driven development
(e.g. Alkire et al., 2001; Binswanger & Nguyen, 2005; Dongier et al., 2003)
 Bottom-up approach
(e.g. Akpomuvie, 2010; Danish, 1995; Rayner, 2010; Smith, 2008)

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Kyungeun Sung, Sustainable Consumption Research Group, School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment
Grassroots innovations
 Social enterprises and social movements for greener economy in developed
countries (UK and USA)
 Low carbon housing & community renewable energy (Seyfang, 2008;2010)
 Organic food producer cooperatives (Bekin et al., 2007)
 Hubs of innovation (Horwitch & Mulloth, 2010) & social enterprises (Davies & Mullin,
2011)
 Transition towns (Longhurst, 2012)
 Poverty alleviation and capacity building of the poor in developing countries
(India)
 Honey Bee network (Gupta, 1995; 2000) & ICT for BoP (Heeks, 2012)
 Eco-preneurs (Pastakia, 1998) & commercialisation (De Keersmaecker et al, 2012)
 Capacity building (Middlemiss & Parrish, 2010)

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Kyungeun Sung, Sustainable Consumption Research Group, School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment
Community-driven development
 Cases in developing countries
 Problems and challenges (Bebbington et al, 2004; Platteau & Gaspart, 2003)
 Obstacles to scaling up (Binswanger & Aiyar, 2003) & success factors for
scaling up (Binswanger & Nguyen, 2004)
 State-community synergies (Gupta et al., 2003; 2004)
 Empowerment (Grootaert, 2003; Krishna, 2003)

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Kyungeun Sung, Sustainable Consumption Research Group, School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment
Bottom-up approach
 Cases in developing countries
 Self-help strategy for rural development (Akpomuvie, 2010)
 Decentralised energy planning (Hiremath et al., 2010)
 Sustainable urban development (El Asmar et al., 2012)
 Subsistence marketplaces (Viswanathan, et al., 2012)
 Inclusive development (marginalised people) (Danish, 1995)

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Kyungeun Sung, Sustainable Consumption Research Group, School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment
Existing research
 Focus on:
 Expert-led poverty alleviation projects
 Market-led social enterprises
 Activists-led social movements
 Relative little attention to:
 Spontaneous, unorganised citizen’s collective actions

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Kyungeun Sung, Sustainable Consumption Research Group, School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment
Aims
 Introduce the example of spontaneous, unorganised citizen’s
collective actions – individual upcycling
 Analyse from the perspective of Design for Sustainable
Behaviour
 Link behavioural insights to strategy development for scaling up

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Kyungeun Sung, Sustainable Consumption Research Group, School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment
Setting the scene

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Kyungeun Sung, Sustainable Consumption Research Group, School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment
Individual upcycling
Creation or modification of any product out of used materials in an attempt to
result in a product of higher quality or value than the compositional elements
(Sung, et al., 2014)

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Kyungeun Sung, Sustainable Consumption Research Group, School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment
Benefits of individual upcycling when scaled up
 Environmental benefits (Ali et al., 2013; Goldsmith, 2009; Szaky, 2014)
 (-) need for new products > (-) materials and industrial
energy > (-) GHGs
 (-) municipal solid waste > (-) additional landfill spaces
 Economic benefits (Frank, 2013; Lang, 2013)
 Money saving
 SMEs (e.g. Sarah Turner in Sung & Cooper, 2015)
 Sociocultural & psychological benefits (Sung, Cooper & Kettley, 2014)
 Learning & empowering
 Sense of community & relaxing
 …

13.
Kyungeun Sung, Sustainable Consumption Research Group, School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment
Increasing number of upcyclers but still marginal practice
 contemporary Maker Movement (Anderson, 2012; Lang, 2013)
 Physical resources (e.g. Hackspaces)
 Digital resources (e.g. Instructables, Etsy)

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Kyungeun Sung, Sustainable Consumption Research Group, School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment
Research question
How can this emerging, yet still marginal activity, be scaled up into a
mainstream everyday activity in households (and possibly also in
industries) to make a bigger impact on the environment and society?

15.
Kyungeun Sung, Sustainable Consumption Research Group, School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment
Aims
 Introduce the example of spontaneous, unorganised citizen’s
collective actions – individual upcycling
 Analyse from the perspective of Design for Sustainable
Behaviour
 Link behavioural insights to strategy development for scaling up

16.
Kyungeun Sung, Sustainable Consumption Research Group, School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment
Method

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Kyungeun Sung, Sustainable Consumption Research Group, School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment
Methods and sampling
 Semi-structured interview with 23 British residents (April-July, 2014)
 Interview schedule:
 Behaviour variance – how often; materials (what, how/where to get, how
to choose); what to do with end products
 Context of the behaviour – when; where; with whom
 10 Hackspaces/Makerspaces in 10 cities of 9 regions in England (based on
accessibility + activeness)
 A recruiting advertisement on Google groups/forums
 13 direct answer + 10 snowball sampling

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Kyungeun Sung, Sustainable Consumption Research Group, School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment
Participants
 From 9 cities
 Between 24~66 years old
 17 (74%) British and 6 (26%) non-British
 15 (65%) male and 8 (35%) female
 12 (52%) in science and engineering; 7 (30%) in art and design;
4 (17%) in other areas (health service, business and management) or
unemployed

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Kyungeun Sung, Sustainable Consumption Research Group, School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment
Analysis
 Anonymised transcripts
 QSR NVivo 10 software
 Thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006)
 Categorisation into (1) how often; (2) what materials; (3) how
and where to get materials; (4) why particular materials; (5)
what to do with end products; (6) when; (7) where; (8) with
whom
 Grounded codes

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Kyungeun Sung, Sustainable Consumption Research Group, School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment
Limitations
 May not be generalisable to the overall UK
populations/makers/upcyclers based on the sampling method
+ limited sample
 Limited to the particular aspects of the behaviour
understanding – excluding behaviour factors, skills level, tools
involved, etc.

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Kyungeun Sung, Sustainable Consumption Research Group, School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment
Results

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Kyungeun Sung, Sustainable Consumption Research Group, School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment
Behaviour variance
 Frequency: ‘all the time’ ~ ‘once a year’ depending on the project or job
situation  enthusiastic hobbyists (environmentalists) ~ pragmatists
 Materials: (1) wood/furniture; (2) metal; (3) electronics; (4) fabric; (5)
packaging.
 Source of materials: (1) online shops + networks (males); (2) skips (males); (3)
charity shops; (4) car boot sales
 Material selection criteria: (1) potential value; (2) financial saving; (3) high
quality; (4) easy to handle; (5) un-recyclability
 Use of end products: (1) for oneself; (2) gifts to family/friends; (3) selling (with
high aspirations)

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Kyungeun Sung, Sustainable Consumption Research Group, School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment
Context of behaviour
 When: ‘anytime that suits them’ (hobby) or ‘all the time’ (lifestyle)
 Where: ‘home’ vs. ‘Hackspace/Makerspace’ (tools and bigger space)
 With whom: ‘by oneself’ – difficulty in finding similar-interest people,
previous bad collaboration experience, increased productivity, preferences
towards no interruption and instruction

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Kyungeun Sung, Sustainable Consumption Research Group, School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment
Discussions &
Conclusion

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Kyungeun Sung, Sustainable Consumption Research Group, School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment
Implications for scaling up (behaviour variance)
 Frequency: ‘all the time’ ~ ‘once a year’ depending on the project or job situation  enthusiastic hobbyists
(environmentalists) ~ pragmatists  enthusiastic upcyclers > entrepreneurs + pragmatic
makers > frequent upcycling + non-makers > makers/upcyclers
 Materials: (1) wood/furniture; (2) metal; (3) electronics; (4) fabric; (5) packaging  focus of materials
provision improvement
 Source of materials: (1) online shops + networks (males); (2) skips (males); (3) charity shops; (4) car boot sales
 unified used material centre + online search platform
 Material selection criteria: (1) potential value; (2) financial saving; (3) high quality; (4) easy to handle; (5) un-
recyclability  materials information with the estimated potential value,
estimated money saving and quality rate
 Use of end products: (1) for oneself; (2) gifts to family/friends; (3) selling (with high aspirations) 
business feasibility test, technical safety test, niche market identification

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Kyungeun Sung, Sustainable Consumption Research Group, School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment
Implications for scaling up (context of behaviour)
 Where: ‘home’ vs. ‘Hackspace/Makerspace’ (males)  tools hiring service and
daily/hourly charge for the workshop
 With whom: ‘by oneself’ – difficulty in finding similar-interest people, previous bad collaboration
experience, increased productivity, preferences towards no interruption and instruction 
community match-making events

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Kyungeun Sung, Sustainable Consumption Research Group, School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment
Scaling up beyond hobbies and niche enterprises
 In-house designers in MNCs:
 Products worth mass-production
+ production technique worth
scaling up (cost-effectiveness
and sustainability)
 Effective & efficient systems /
services to take back
products/packaging (extended
producer responsibility)
http://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/product-content/the-long-and-short/season-
one/images/freitag7.jpg

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Kyungeun Sung, Sustainable Consumption Research Group, School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment
Scaling up beyond hobbies and niche enterprises
Deepening, broadening & scaling up transition experiments in niches in relation to multi-level
perspective (based on Geels and Kemp 2000, De Haan and Rotmans, 2009) from van den Bosch (2010)
 Niches in the multi levels of
sustainability transitions (Geels, 2011)
 Broadening: getting
different niches together
(linking it with repair,
reuse, other types of
sustainable DIY activities)
 niche-cluster  niche-
regime (van den Bosch, 2010)

29.
Kyungeun Sung, Sustainable Consumption Research Group, School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment
Quick recap
 Relative little attention to more spontaneous, unorganised citizen’s
collective actions in community-level innovations for SD
 Individual upcycling in the UK
 Interviews with 23 British residents with practical experience
 Variance in behaviour + behavioural context
 Behaviour insights  strategies for scaling up
 Scaling up beyond hobbies and niche enterprises

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Kyungeun Sung, Sustainable Consumption Research Group, School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment
Future prospects
 Developing, global ‘circular economy’ debate (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2015)
 Design movement for sustainable change: design activism (Fuad-Luke, 2013);
design for social innovation (Manzini, 2015)
 How every stakeholder (industry, government, NGOs, citizens) acts and
reacts

31.
Kyungeun Sung, Sustainable Consumption Research Group, School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment
Thank you!
Any question?
Kyungeun.sung2013@my.ntu.ac.uk
http://kyungeunsung.com/
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kyungeun_Sung