Washing with (con)science — Combining psychology and life cycle assessment to better understand the environmental impacts from domestic laundering

Doctoral thesis, 2024

Technological aids often allow us to trade resources for time. Having taken away the tedious work of laundering clothes by hand, the washing machine has allowed people to spend more time on increasing household productivity, leisure activities and education. Unfortunately, behaviours are not static. Reduced costs often lead to increased consumption. Today, people in Europe own more clothes and wash them more frequently than at any other time in history. This extensive consumption also means that the environmental impacts from domestic laundering are higher than at any other time in history. One way to estimate these impacts is through life cycle assessment (LCA). The results from such LCAs can help prioritise interventions and policies that aim to reduce pressures on the environment. Unfortunately, many initiatives that have attempted to curb the environmental impacts of laundry have failed again and again. These failures indicate an incomplete understanding of what motivates consumer behaviours and present a challenge regarding how to appropriately address these behaviours in LCAs. This thesis shows what motivates domestic laundering behaviours psychologically speaking, highlights the uncertainties associated with contemporary LCAs of domestic laundering, and presents a way to expand the LCA methodology. The main message is that laundering our clothes is socially motivated. Therefore, a proper assessment of the environmental impacts associated with laundering behaviours must be based on a social perspective rather than a contemporary technical one.

Since behaviours are adaptive, they need to be treated as systemic components in LCAs rather than as static values. Failing to do so might otherwise result in compensatory behaviours and burden shifting. By using insights from psychology and sociology as a starting point for the analysis, LCAs can offer a more nuanced assessment of the environmental impacts of consumer products and services. A social perspective also permits a more comprehensive assessment of societal trends, such as the rebound effect. With a more holistic understanding of why people engage in certain behaviours, LCAs can better guide interventions and policies towards targeting motivations rather than focusing on the consequences of behaviours. As such, a social perspective in an LCA is critical for the success of any policy or initiative aimed at reducing environmental impacts where the use phase is a significant contributor.