Publications by Ralph Hansmann

Promoting synergies for sustainability through peer-to-peer sharing: an analysis of drivers and barriers

Claudia Rebeca Binder Signer, Ralph Hansmann

Peer-to-peer (P2P) sharing may foster sustainability synergistically by saving resources, reducing costs and promoting satisfaction of consumer needs and social connectivity. A survey of Swiss and Swedish consumers (N = 1522) was conducted to analyze drivers and barriers for P2P sharing of household products as taker and/or provider in a complementary way referring to social exchange theory. More than two-thirds (69.1%) of the participants took or provided shared household products during the previous 12 months. The traditional mode of sharing was more prevalent (53.5%) than sharing on online platforms (14.5%). Nearly half of the participants (44.5%) both took and provided shared products, 18.1% exclusively took and 6.5% exclusively provided them, and 30.1% were non-sharers. The traditional mode of sharing involved more reciprocal sharers (66.7%), who both took and provided products, compared to online sharing. Reciprocal sharers were on average younger and had higher income and education levels than non-sharers. Furthermore, their ecological, social, and economic value orientations were stronger, and they rated the benefits of sharing higher than non-sharers. Knowledge about sharing and experience of positive emotions when sharing were consistently positively related to both the number of products taken and provided. To promote the sharing economy, online sharing platforms should enhance consumer's knowledge and trust through information campaigns and review or insurance systems. Marketing activities should communicate easy access and application of platforms, and the ecological, socio-emotional and economic benefits. A meaningful social interaction between takers and providers should be promoted to promote social connectivity and emotionally positive experiences.

TAYLOR & FRANCIS INC2023

Drivers and Barriers Toward Healthy and Environmentally Sustainable Eating in Switzerland: Linking Impacts to Intentions and Practices

Ivo Philippe Baur, Claudia Rebeca Binder Signer, Ralph Hansmann

Food consumption is among the activities with the most significant environmental impacts, and furthermore contributes to rising health costs. We explored the factors that foster or hinder healthy and sustainable eating in Switzerland. Based on an online household survey with 620 respondents, we first determined the disability adjusted life years and greenhouse gas impacts associated with individuals' dietary habits to measure healthy and environmentally sustainable eating. We then relate the nutritional health and environmental impacts to individual's intentions, and explore what interpersonal and societal factors foster or hinder healthy and sustainable eating. Results suggest that intentions for healthy eating are stronger than intentions to eat environmentally sustainable and that intentions for healthy eating transmit better into behavior than intentions for environmentally sustainable eating. Males and females had similar intentions but males showed substantially higher dietary related health impacts with 12 min of healthy life lost per day and 14% higher carbon footprint than females. Furthermore, vegan and vegetarian diets yielded very high nutritional health benefits of >23 min of healthy life gained per person and day, mostly realized through the reduced intake in processed and red meat and increased consumption of nuts, wholegrain, and to a lesser extent in fruits and vegetables. Meatless diets show concurrent high reductions in the carbon footprint of −42% for vegetarians and −67% for vegan. A key obstacle to healthier and more environmentally sustainable eating is that people do not recognize the high nutritional and environmental co benefits of vegetarian and vegan diets. This suggests that policies promoting healthy eating can target factors affecting intentions, while measures targeting environmentally sustainable eating should aim at overcoming the intention behavior gap, by informing on e.g. the importance of reducing meat consumption toward environmental sustainability.

2022

Activities, Housing Situation and Other Factors Influencing Psychological Strain Experienced During the First COVID-19 Lockdown in Switzerland

Claudia Rebeca Binder Signer, Garance Clément, Livia Bianca Fritz, Ralph Hansmann, Anna Pagani

Background: The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) crisis and the corresponding first nationwide lockdown from mid-March to 10 May 2020 engendered considerable psychological strain among people in Switzerland. This study analyzes determinants of changes in subjective levels of psychological strain experienced during the lockdown. Methods: An online survey conducted as part of a larger mixed methods study examined the material and emotional aspects of individual reactions to the lockdown from a socio-ecological perspective. Participants (N = 5932) were asked about their personal and employment status, housing features, changes in various activities (e.g., physical activity, watching TV, social media use) and aspects of mental distress and well-being. Results: A substantial share of participants reported to feel depressed (33%) and anxious (43%) more often during the COVID-19 lockdown than before, whereas significantly (p < 0.001) less persons reported a decrease of these negative feelings (depressed 17%; anxious 14%). Women, single people, students and people who lost their jobs or were temporally unemployed due to the lockdown experienced a particularly strong increase of subjective psychological strain. Important residential factors reducing subjective psychological strain were the general comfort of the housing situation and having a private garden or multiple types of outdoor space. Considering leisure activities, the strongest positive psychological effect resulted from increased physical activities, followed by reading and cooking. However, 45% of the participants reported a decreased frequency of physical activity during the lockdown compared to before, whereas significantly less persons (26%) reported a corresponding increase (p < 0.001). Conclusion: Consistent with other studies, the results indicate a substantial reduction of subjective psychological well-being of the population during the first COVID-19 lockdown in Switzerland. The psychological burdens which the participants experienced differ depending on personal characteristics and situational factors. Negative psychological and economic consequences and gender inequalities should accordingly be carefully considered and actively prevented when designing COVID-19 measures. Supportive economic and social, cognitive and behavioral psychological interventions need to be designed and implemented to maintain the well-being of residents during lockdown.

2021

Exploring residential preferences before and during the first COVID-19 lockdown in Switzerland

Claudia Rebeca Binder Signer, Livia Bianca Fritz, Ralph Hansmann, Anna Pagani

The first COVID-19 lockdown blurred the boundaries between all dimensions of life. Residential environments had to function as schools, offices and homes, often challenging residents’ comfort and wellbeing. In this study, we look into the effects of the first COVID-19 lockdown on housing residential preferences in Switzerland, which have been shown to be linked to health and wellbeing. Based on an online survey of residents (N = 5378) we explore the extent to which the functions they assign to their ideal dwelling (e.g. a status symbol, a shelter) have changed during the pandemic. We relate this change to the respondents’ socio-demographic characteristics, their feelings about the confinement and whether and how their leisure activities were affected by it. Results show that for more than half of the sample at least 1 of the 3 most desired housing functions prior to the pandemic gained or lost importance. Whilst the wish for a place for ‘satisfaction of aspirations’ showed the largest increase, a place fulfilling basic needs (i.e. eating, cooking) was found to be less desirable. With the support of logistic regression models, we identify two profiles of residents whose preferences changed, thereby shedding light on diverse ways of responding to the confinement measures. We argue that an enhanced understanding of the ideal housing functions is critical to design healthy residential environments which enable their inhabitants to cope with future challenges.

2021

How the first wave of COVID-19 in Switzerland affected residential preferences

Claudia Rebeca Binder Signer, Livia Bianca Fritz, Ralph Hansmann, Vincent Kaufmann, Anna Pagani

During the first wave of COVID-19, residents’ health and well-being were challenged as residential environments suddenly had to accommodate most of the functions of an urban system. Although scholars and practitioners have proposed reconsidering dwelling requirements, their top-down approach overlooks the agency of residents whose preferences might have changed during the confinement. This paper investigates the effects of the first wave of COVID-19 on residential preferences in Switzerland. Adopting a systems perspective, we use an online survey of residents (N = 5378) to explore the extent to which the functions assigned to ideal dwellings have changed during the pandemic and relate these shifts to socio-demographic characteristics, changes in leisure activities, and respondents’ environment conditions. Results indicate that at least one ideal function changed in importance for 60% of the respondents. The desire for a place for self-representation increased, whereas a place for meeting basic needs evinced the largest loss in importance. Our regression models enable us to identify two profiles of residents who responded differently to residential stress. We argue that housing owners, practitioners and policy-makers should empower inhabitants to respond to current and future challenges by acting on and changing their residential environment for their health and well-being.

2021

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2021

Increasing the relevance of science for practice and practice for science: Quantitative empirical insights

Claudia Rebeca Binder Signer, Livia Bianca Fritz, Ralph Hansmann

We present results of a survey conducted with researchers and practitioners involved in a Swiss National Research Programme on steering energy consumption. We analyse what motivates practitioners and researchers to engage in a collaborative research project, their perception of the collaboration intensity (here defined as the frequency of contact) in different project phases, and the extent to which the research project provided useful results for practitioners. Our analyses demonstrate that the intensity of collaboration is a key driver of successful collaboration as it fosters trust between researchers and practitioners. Thereby, it increases the usefulness of the research project for practitioners and their perceived contribution to the success of the research project. Research programmes should thus (1) foster trust through incentivising collaboration between research and practice; (2) facilitate the development of a shared understanding of researchers’ and practitioners’ respective roles; and (3) support the inclusion of practitioners in the project development phase through financial support during the proposal-writing phase.

2021

Reducing personal air-travel: Restrictions, options and the role of justifications

Claudia Rebeca Binder Signer, Ralph Hansmann

An integrative environmental behavior model was applied in an online survey to investigate the determinants of intentions to reduce personal air travel and corresponding perceived restrictions and options among participants in Switzerland (N = 1206). Flying habits emerged as the most powerful predictor of air travel intentions, followed by prescriptive social norms, general environmental attitudes, flight-specific personal norms, and acceptance of general justifications for environmentally negative behavior. The overall model achieved substantial explanative power (multiple R = 0.75). Availability of alternative means of transportation was most frequently mentioned as requirement for reducing personal flights, and participants proposed replacing physical business meetings with online formats. Trains were often proposed as alternative transportation mode; however, concerns regarding travel duration and price constrain their use. Faster connections, attractive pricing, and measures facilitating the enjoyment of lengthier travel times could help reduce the number of flights and contribute toward deceleration of life.

2021

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With increasing urbanisation, new approaches such as the Circular Economy (CE) are needed to reduce resource consumption. In Switzerland, Construction & Demolition (C&D) waste accounts for the largest portion of waste (84%). Beyond limiting the depletion of primary resources, implementing recycling strategies for C&D waste (such as using recycled aggregates to produce recycled concrete (RC)), can also decrease the amount of landfilled C&D waste. The use of RC still faces adoption barriers. In this research, we examined the factors driving the adoption of recycled products for a CE in the C&D sector by focusing on RC for structural applications. We developed a behavioural framework to understand the determinants of architects’ decisions to recommend RC. We collected and analysed survey data from 727 respondents. The analyses focused on architects’ a priori beliefs about RC, behavioural factors affecting their recommendations of RC, and project-specific contextual factors that might play a role in the recommendation of RC. Our results show that the factors that mainly facilitate the recommendation of RC by architects are: a senior position, a high level of RC knowledge and of the Minergie label, beliefs about the reduced environmental impact of RC, as well as favourable prescriptive social norms expressed by clients and other architects. We emphasise the importance of a holistic theoretical framework in approaching decision-making processes related to the adoption of innovation, and the importance of the agency of each involved actor for a transition towards a circular construction sector.

2021

Determinants of Different Types of Positive Environmental Behaviors: An Analysis of Public and Private Sphere Actions

Claudia Rebeca Binder Signer, Ralph Hansmann

A survey of 1206 participants investigated determinants of positive environmental behaviors (PEBs) in Switzerland. Based on a principle component analysis on data for 23 different PEBs, three behavior types were distinguished: (i) public sphere PEBs with politically mediated impacts; (ii) socially salient private “lighthouse” PEBs that convey a pro-environmental message; and (iii) less socially salient private PEBs. An environmental behavior model identified general environmental knowledge and attitudes as the strongest predictors of PEBs, followed by green self-identity, justifications, assumed consequences, prescriptive social norms, gender, age, and perceived behavioral control (PBC), respectively. To promote sustainability-oriented behaviors and achieve corresponding societal and economic changes, the identified psychological factors need to be promoted by education and communication strategies as well as complementary measures ranging from policy changes to technology development and systems design. Green self-identity turned out to be significantly more influential for private PEBs than for public sphere PEBs, whereas prescriptive social norms and environmental knowledge were more important for public sphere PEBs. These findings indicate that promoting different types of sustainability-oriented behaviors may require distinct strategies. Public sphere PEBs may be enhanced well by conveying social practices and norms, whereas the promotion of a pro-environmental green self-identity may increase private sphere PEBs effectively.

2020