Ökotopia - Online training for a climate friendly society

Raising awareness for climate change and climate-friendly behaviour currently mainly focuses on two aspects: knowledge and threatening messages. It is well known in environmental psychology and pedagogy that this procedure is not viable. Knowledge alone is not sufficient for behaviour change. Threatening messages often lead to paralyzing feelings of powerlessness. The project “Ökotopia” tackles this problem by offering a positive vision for the future.

“Ökotopia” is an online trainer for teenagers and students. They can enter a utopian world online: In “Ökotopia” we find individual emissions trading – i.e. every product and every service must be paid both in conventional currency and carbon credits. The participants can perform different tasks in “Ökotopia” and thus learn how their decisions in daily life have impact on the climate. Teenagers learn playfully – without any moral threats – how a climate friendly society can work. The game will be distributed both by social media and teachers – accompanied by educational material.

The aim of the project is to let young people experience a sustainable society within realistic conditions, and to present essential elements of a sustainable economy in an easily understandable and visually appealing way.

“Ökotopia” is being realised by SERI in cooperation with Denkstatt, Kepion and the interdisciplinary design agency En Garde. It will go online in June 2013.

3 reasons for the project:

• The users keep the faith that a climate-friendly society can indeed become reality

• They learn about correlations between economy, society and ecology in a playful way (Carbon Footprint, economic winners and losers in climate-protection, lifestyle etc.)

• They experience self-efficacy (“I can do something against climate change!”) and reflect on a sustainable lifestyle