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Gap on Consumption – September 3, 2014, Degrowth Conference, S313

Attendence: 19 People
(clockwise: Felix, Martin, Lukas, Corinna, Dieter, Christine, Katja, Kathrin, Karl-Heinz, Hima, Hannah, Christopher, Melani, Alex, Tabea, Ben, Christiane, Anne, Dietmar)

Time Schedule:

17:30-17:45 introduction

17:45-17:55 organisational stuff

17:55-18:20 Mind Map

18:20-18:25 Results from Barcelona

18:25-18:30 Results from online discussion

18:30-19:00 stirring Paper I

Introduction:

How do you feel?, Name:, Origin:, recent item bought:

organizational stuff:

time keeping: Alexandra

Presenters: Melani (and Alexandra)

Protocol: Lukas

Vibe keeper: Katja

Paper creative sum-up: Kathrin(?)

• Please insert the picture

Mind Map:

1. Silent Discussion on a big paper

2. One Proposal per Person on Matrix of Implementation time/ Relevance on environment:

• Please insert the picture

Results from Barcelona:

(distributed on paberbase)

Discussion:

…: Basic income is a little bit off topic, as it a very long term

…: Basic income so important

…: Consumption is so brought, so lets get an agenda. So its a risk to fall apart.

…: Lets read it again and do the task again tomorrow.

Karl: It is important. [...]

Anne: Let us do that again.

Results from online-discussion:

Define Consumption:

• social practice exercised in order to provide the desired way of living

• spend money

• final purchase

Paper I: Empowering the Willing – Practicing the Transformation

Assumptions:

• Lots of people want to consume differently

• apparently all society-statistics show that these people fail doing so

Obstacles:

• consumption is a complex issue with multiple approaches to do so, many are not in the same track!

• people are consuming based on habits which are very heavy to change, what makes it easy to change our habits?

• we consume mostly in our social setting, which is not normally changing at the same time redeems efforts. That is why people who want to change need to build consumer communities!

Initiative:

Don´t buy for a year new things-campaign/challenge! No furniture, no cloth, no electronics gathered in a movement connected via facebook (a year without stuff)

Discussion on the paper: ( / = new person speaking)

• Economic constraints: (Systemic evidences), such linked working till 8 o´clock and next being tired, so changing for new consumptions is interesting / maybe more on obstacles than on economic constrains

• You focus on obstacles, I would like to focus more on solutions!

• Is it about consuming less? Not necessarily. But buy getting engaged in different strategies for a year you get in touch

• What is your target group? Industrial country people? We focused on it, but it is not necessarily

• What you mean by incentive for consuming less?

• Karl: It is not promising to ask people to renounce on such a project. I rely on there feelings. Better lay back and ask: What do I really need? / It is not pleasant, but seems to be a catchy campaign and people like challenges.

• Corina: Do you try to scale up your project? / That is why we are here! We have no clue how many do it. Fb-page has 2000 likes. Ben and Christiane are doing it since January.

• Lukas: I liked your focus on obstacles. I researched on companies efforts to overcome information gaps. I state that, we need to think of systems to engage more on product enhancements individually.