This (secondary) school-based project seeks to create a multi-player ‘serious’ game to educate and train the next generation of responsibly enabled consumers. This will enhance the social and civic competences of those between the ages of 12-14, helping them better understand the consequences of their actions, both for themselves, their local and national communities, and examine the influence consumers have internationally. Gameplay will enable pupils/players to investigate how their individual and collective behaviours affect issues such as plastic pollution, by engaging in clearly visible and easy to discern behaviours. This includes, for instance, making choices around the purchases of products with different forms of packaging. It will also encourage them to evaluate the outcomes of more subtle choices, such as the purchase of clothing with different fibre compositions and their choice of laundry routine. These actions will then have spill-over effects and inter-relationships with social and trade issues. For example, the movement of waste to be recycled, the development of fast-fashion manufacturing cycles, and the movement of goods and money across the globe to support consumers requirements for product choice and variety. The action of making game-based consumption choices also offers opportunities to help pupils/players comprehend data privacy and security issues, as well as modelling the potential for the accumulation of debt and material goods. This then develops player knowledge surrounding issues that will affect them personally, both in the short and long-term, but again have social and economic consequences. The application of serious games also provides a learning environment that is familiar to many of those between the ages of 12-14 and offers both complex and simple game mechanics to be deployed - for instance, the accumulation of points and the creation of league tables. These league tables can initially be attached to the individual player, but also aggregated to offer opportunities to play at the level of the ‘group’ - including classes, schools, extra-curricular clubs etc. These can then also be developed to provide regional or national positions, and the tracking of the influence of multiple individual decisions to these aggregated outcomes offers a powerful learning opportunity to explore how personal choices shape wider social and planetary outcomes - mirroring metrics such as the Consumer and Consumption Footprint (EU, 2019). Outputs: - Serious game: RESPECT - two key focuses: i) Planet, Society and Trade; ii) Privacy, Security and Technology. The game will offer a multi-player experience that engages with different inter-related and connected consumption choices - for instance, food, fashion and personal transport, to engage with social and planetary issues. It will also enable interaction and choices to be made that have consequences for privacy and security - particularly in increasingly digital consumption environments. - Online interactive learning materials to support and explore issues raised by the game - acting as a resource for pupils/players and teachers etc. - Training materials to support teachers on how to implement the serious game in schools/classes. - Case study materials.
The RESPECT project aimed to foster responsible consumption among future consumers, equipping them with knowledge and impetus to make informed choices. It also sought to empower them to effect positive change within their families, schools, and communities. The objectives were: Develop an educational multiplayer game and accompanying resources to foster future responsible consumers, with support from teachers. Improve pupils’ social and civic skills, enabling a deeper grasp of the impact of their actions. Examine the environmental impact of individual and group clear and subtle consumption actions. Realize the interconnected impacts of social, economic, and environmental factors, such as global trade and financial flows, to aid consumer choices and meet diverse product demands. Assist in grasping data privacy and security-related issues and model potential debt and material goods accumulation. Meeting these objectives has aided diverse links to school curricula, enriched learning, and deepened understanding of economic, social, and environmental costs over time. This approach has included translation into national languages and provides options to enhance foreign language skills.
Sustainable growth is a key EU objective. Faced with natural resource scarcity, ‘doing more with less’ challenges producers and consumers. The EU has introduced varied policies and initiatives to address this, including the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive 2023. Whilst these clearly support sustainable production, they do less to address consumers, though they platform information availability directly. Two-thirds of EU consumers realize their consumption habits have adverse effects, and the solution that they mention most is changing consumption habits and production patterns. However, many studies show a gap between consumers' good intentions and behaviour. This happens when buying as consumers consider varied issues: price, availability, values, norms, and peer pressure, and they use purchasing to reveal identity and belonging. Diverse outcomes show that these tensions mean consumers do not know the costs of their (in)action. This lack makes consumers ignorant of their power to effect change and unable to make informed decisions that are mindful of their individual and collective responsibilities. This project addresses these concerns with future consumers.