• Energy Research

For educating a wide audience on the environmental impact of their daily life decisions, the Eco-Confessional has been developed as an interactive exhibit and a serious game. In this, the effectiveness of promoting sustainable lifestyles through life cycle thinking was explored. Based upon life cycle assessments, the eco-confessional reveals the environmental impact of eco-sins and good deeds performed in everyday life in a playful way. As the Eco-Confessional was being exhibited, it was evaluated to measure the impact of the new communication format. The goal of the project was to increase sustainable behavior by influencing both the desire and the ability to make sustainable decisions. The evaluation revealed that these goals were mostly achieved. By combining life cycle data with gamification elements, the Eco-Confessional succeeded in implementing a new scientainment approach to environmental education, which promotes life cycle thinking among the public.

Coffee, cashew and avocado are of high socio-economic importance in many tropical smallholder farming systems around the globe. As plantation crops with a long lifespan, their cultivation requires long-term planning. The evaluation of climate change impacts on their biophysical suitability is therefore essential for developing adaptation measures and selecting appropriate varieties or crops. In this study, we modelled the current and future suitability of coffee arabica, cashew and avocado on a global scale based on climatic and soil requirements of the three crops. We used climate outputs of 14 global circulation models based on three emission scenarios to model the future (2050) climate change impacts on the crops both globally and in the main producing countries. For all three crops, climatic factors, mainly long dry seasons, mean temperatures (high and low), low minimum temperatures and annual precipitation (high and low), were more restrictive for the global extent of suitable growing regions than land and soil parameters, which were primarily low soil pH, unfavourable soil texture and steep slopes. We found shifts in suitable growing regions due to climate change with both regions of future expansion and contraction for all crops investigated. Coffee proved to be most vulnerable, with negative climate impacts dominating in all main producing regions. For both cashew and avocado, areas suitable for cultivation are expected to expand globally while in most main producing countries, the areas of highest suitability may decrease. The study reveals that climate change adaptation will be necessary in most major producing regions of all three crops. At high latitudes and high altitudes, however, they may all profit from increasing minimum temperatures. The study presents the first global assessment of climate change impacts on cashew and avocado suitability.