Green Economy as a Framework for Product-Service Systems Development: The Role of Sustainable Living Labs

User-integrated Innovations in Urban Areas for a Transition towards Sustainability

“…By implication, changes of social practices [36] have implications on individuals' surrounding infrastructures and the underlying products and services. An illustrative example is our septic system; a change towards overall lower water consumption has led to stakeholders of production, consumption, research, and local communities [39,44]. Such SusLabs therefore proactively integrate user and local citizens as experts of their social systems in the research and design process in order to elaborate sophisticated sustainability solutions.…”

“…5 User-integrated innovations of products and services can facilitate the desired application of technological and social innovations in line with efficiency, consistency and sufficiency strategies (see section 2.1). Living Labs are a strategic research instrument for science, business, and society for the development and diffusion of sustainable sociotechnical innovations [39][40][41]. They are designed to promote usercentered and economically competitive PSS that facilitate a broad set of sustainability potentials.…”

“…They are designed to promote usercentered and economically competitive PSS that facilitate a broad set of sustainability potentials. The sustainable living lab approach, also called SusLab [39], has three main characteristics; it should create space to develop and test innovative user-centered PSS, further develop existing PSS towards sustainability, and improve the development and diffusion of sustainable business models [42,43]. In this manner, SusLabs contribute to the development and diffusion of sustainable sociotechnical solutions in value chains in line with national and international legitimized sustainability goals and strategies (e.g.…”

“…The systemic deliberation of consumer requirements, strategic partnerships, investor relations, competitors and further stakeholder need to be incorporated in the business model in line with hybrid value creation approaches. A sophisticated research and development infrastructure, such as the SusLabs approach illustrates, enables cooperation on a par with relevant system actors that can enable mutual learning outcomes [39,44,45]. As illustrated in section 2.1, sustainability strategies of efficiency, consistency, and sufficiency need to be considered in the PSS and business model creation in order to emerge new markets and foster urban sustainability transitions.…”

“…The three following examples, which follow the SusLab three-step process by focusing on different aspects of it, broach the topics of heating/venting ("Heating Plus" [39]), eating as a community ("Wuppertal isst fremd" [51]), and the use of electronic devices in the neighborhood ("Cycle Genossenschaft" [52]). …”