New European Bauhaus Prizes 2023

Initiative category

Identify the award category for which this initiative is being submitted
Reconnecting with nature

Email user
loly.ferrey@gmail.com

Basic information
Initiative title
Sustainable Hygiene for a clean future

Full initiative Title
Filling in the gap on our education on bathing habits for a more sustainable and healthy future

Please provide a short, catchy description of your initiative to be used in communication towards the public.
After conducting a long research, I found out that there was a gap when it came to education on basic hygiene habits. Not being taught this in the school leaves us unprotected in a world ruled by the media and advertisement, making us vulnerable when making purchasing decisions.
These decisions do not only affect our own health (as we are indeed talking about products that most of us use on a regular basis) but also the environment, as we consume plastics in large amounts.

What was the geographical scope of your intiative?
Cross-border/international

Where was your intiative implemented?
Location 1
Germany

Location 2
Spain

Member State(s), Western Balkans and other countries
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If relevant, insert names of region(s)/municipality(ies) involved
This project was carried out as a Service Design Master Thesis at the Hochschule Lucerne, Switzerland. Despite that, the main author is Spanish and much of the research was caried out in Spain. The user testings were then carried out in Germany.

Does your initiative address mainly urban or rural issues?
Mainly urban

Does your initiative refer to a physical transformation of the built environment or other types of transformations (hard or soft investments)?
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)

Has your initiative benefited from EU programmes and/or funds?
No

Has your initiative won an EU prize with a monetary value awarded?
No

Does your initiative has a minimum level of maturity? The minimum level of maturity is exemplified by stakeholder/ initiative promoter commitment to implement the initiative in practice and a clear methodology /approach.
Yes

On whose behalf are you submitting the application?
As an individual
Please provide the contact details for the intiative promoter (the individual or representative of the organisation authorised to represent the intiative).
- First name: María Dolores
  Last name: Ferreira Herrero
  Gender: Female
  Nationality: Spain
  Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Parque Roma
  Town: Zaragoza
  Postal code: 50010
  Country: Spain
  Direct Tel: +34 622 55 78 97
  E-mail: loly.ferrey@gmail.com
Social Media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc.)
- URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKytvssB6ps
In case my initiative is selected as a finalist of the NEB Prizes 2023, I agree to share the name (individual and/or organisation’s), email address, website and social media accounts indicated above with other NEB Prizes finalists. I also agree to publish the name (individual and/or organisation’s), website and social media accounts indicated above next to the public description of my initiative in the channels of the European Commission.
Yes

How did you hear about the New European Bauhaus Prizes?
University professor

Description of the initiative
Please provide a summary of your initiative
1. This project consisted in a workshop designed for primary school kids to learn the basics about hygiene habits and sustainability (concerning plastic pollution).
This idea was generated after appreciating that there was a gap when it came to education on such matters, leaving the consumer uninformed when making purchasing decisions.
To fill in this gap, a set of prototypes were created. Focusing on the main learnings, a video narrates the story of Sam, a sea turtle which, by accident, ingests plastics that were lingering around at sea. Sam must get a surgical intervention tu survive, and during the process part of his shell is lost. When Sam wakes up, he is explained that that part of his skin is no longer protected and he must now travel to the human world to learn from dermathologists and skin-care experts how to take proper care of it. This video is followed by a set of dynamic activities to help retain the content, and it is all then wrapped up in a solid-soap workshop to allow the students to "see" what a soap must contain and to give them something to take home, where they can continue to apply the learnings.

Please indicate the main themes of your initiative with 5 key words.
Sustainability

Please indicate the main themes of your initiative with key words
Plastics

Please indicate the main themes of your initiative with key words
Pollution

Please indicate the main themes of your initiative with key words
Soap

Please indicate the main themes of your initiative with key words
Habits

Please give information about the key objectives of your initiative in terms of sustainability and how these have been/will be met. Please highlight how the initiative can be exemplary in this context.
2. The key objectives are to teach the importance of bathing habits, especially focusing on the large environmental impact they entail regarding plastic pollution.
Furthermore, as this project's aim is to teach how to take care of our skin and our hygiene, it also has an environmental impact in the amount of chemicals which go down the drain when taking a shower.
To meet such objectives kids will be taught during this workshop the importance of plastic pollution and its consequences (showing in a cartoon video how the main character, a sea turtle, loses part of his shell after ingesting plastics at sea). The education on bathing habits is also covered by this video, following the recommendations of skin-care experts and dermathologists. Finally, the kids will be taught in a solid-soap workshop how to make their own soap, giving them the opportunity to get used to solid alternatives and avoid plastics.

Please give information about the key objectives of your initiative in terms of aesthetics and quality of experience for people (through design, positive emotions and cultural benefits) and how these have been met. Please highlight how the initiative can be exemplary in this context.
3. The aesthetics in this project must meet the values of attraction for primary kids. In order to teach these ages, emotions must be evoked to allow them to have a memorable experience which they will be able to recall.
To make this, the video character Sam was designed. The rest of the characters in the video were also created to satisfy this aesthetic style, even having others (like a complaining skin cell that kids named "Mr. Kartoffeln" or "Mr. Potato") that are there to highlight key elements (such as the stress skin suffers when using too much product) by making funny noises that kids laugh at.
The activities that follow the video were also done with different tools typically implemented by schools to help kids learn. Ranging from a kahoot/edpuzzle, a fill-in-the-gaps drawing and even a song to sing to.
Finally, the solid-soap workshop wraps up the main learnings and provides a real hands-on experience to ease the mind and learn from a practical perspective.

Please give information about the key objectives of your initiative in terms of inclusion (ranging from accessibility and affordability for all to inclusive governing systems, design for all principles or new societal models) and how these have been met. Please highlight how the initiative can be exemplary in this context.
4. One of the aspects that was discussed with teachers for the making of this project was the cultural differences that can be found in a classroom, and are many times related to habits and even hygiene. This project aims to teach everyone the expert recommendations for hygiene with no discrimination to gender, age or nationality, but only what our health and planet demands.
Also, in order to make this possible, as habits are not built in a day, this project aims to enhance home-school or teacher-parents collaboration for further check-ups and follow-ups. This can also be seen as a way to bring all parents together in a matter concerning habits that are otherwise left to be taught as something deeply culturally-related.

Please explain the way citizens benefiting from or affected by the initiative and civil society have been/will be involved in the initiative and what has been/will be the impact of this involvement on the initiative
5. The citizens benefitting from this project will enjoy the privilege of being able to make informed purchase decisions of the products that they will use to wash themselves for the rest of their lives. It will allow them to consider the different parameters (solid/liquid products, supermarket/pharmacy product, etc.) to protect themselves and their families.
Furthermore, these citizens will also benefit from the knowledge gained about bathing habits. Knowing already at a young age how many days per week you must shower, in which order you have to do so, which body parts require a daily use of soap and which not, the importance of drying our skin afterwards in a gentle way and to hydrate the skin after a shower with soap are ways to protect themselves from developing contact-dermatitis, skin reactions, allergies, weak hair/hair loss and other skin illnesses.
From a societal perspective, the hospitals and helathcare centers will benefit from a more-informed population that will enjoy a better health.
From an enviromental perspective, the amount of plastic bottles consumed will suffer a high decrease as most citizens will most likely use less soap (in both quantity and frequency) or even change to solid alternatives.

Please explain how different stakeholders at various levels (local, regional, national, European) were engaged in the design and implementation of the initiative.
6. As was already mentioned before, this project was developed as a final thesis for a Service Design Master in Lucerne, Switzerland. The author (María Dolores Ferreira) is from Spanish origin and moved to Switzerland to conduct her studies in this little-common field.
The research to reach this "gap" was done by a set of interviews, surveys, bathroom ethnographies and prototyping carried out in Spain and Switzerland.
Nevertheless, for the final implementation of the project with the final prototypes the formal collaboration with Monica Loste, Spanish citizen now living and working as a primary school teacher in Bremen, Germany, was of vital importance. This way, the findings, research and final products of this project were tested in the Karl Lerbs Ganztag Schule in Bremen, Germany.
To top it all, it is relevant to mention that the faculty members working in the Hochschule Lucerne who supervised this project also come from different places (England, Germany, Switzerland) and live in even different countries (Italy, Germany).

Please explain which disciplines and/ or knowledge fields were reflected in the design and implementation of your initiative. Please explain how representatives of these different fields interacted with each other, and what the added value of this process was
7. This project was mainly carried out as a design exploration, implementing different design methods and techniques to gather the initial data. Nevertheless, the collaboration with a skin-care expert (Victor Alcalde, Spanish dermathologist) as well as the participation of primary teachers (Laura Amezqueta (Spain), Monica Loste (Germany) and Janick Gsponer (Switzerland)) were needed to fulfill the project's requirements.
Furthermore, to investigate the basics of soap composition the help of Vicente Ferreira, world-known wine enologist and chemist was also crucial.
Another collaborations such as the participation of Dolores Herrero, University full-professor in Zaragoza, Spain, designers from other fields of expertise such as Christoph Zoels, packaging designer, Sabine Jugenginger, conversation designer or NGO such as greenpeace's head of the Circular Consumption department in Switzerland, Florian Kasser, were required to reach the project's scope definition and to allow it's correct development.

Please highlight the innovative character of the initiative, when compared to mainstream actions in the field of the initiative
8. As was said before, this project aims to protect the future generations from the mainstream media which misinform us in order to gain more profit.
Education on bathing habits is something that, as far as could be researched, has not yet been done formally in the European Union, as it is regarded as a controversial topic which depends on culture and traditions. Nevertheless, as was proven during the research, it is something that must be touched in the schools from a neutral perspective, to learn the importance of a good hygiene and the consequent environmental impact of these habits.
As a key example: in television and advertisements we are always taught to use soap and shampoo producing a lot of foam. Checking this with dermathological and medical sources, we were able to prove that it is actually the opposite. A good soap does not necessarily produce much foam, and more foam does not make us more clean. It is the way the companies working in the beauty industry sell us more products and teach us to need more quantities.

Please describe which elements of your initiative could be replicated or transferred to other places, groups of beneficiaries and contexts. This may involve, for example, aspects of the methodology, technology, processes, products, learnings, etc.
9. The development of this project could be easily transferred to any other design-related master or bachelor thesis. The methodology implemented for the research is made up by a set of design tools which are of great help when trying to collect qualitative data to develop user-centered projects.
The techology used for the video implementation is yet again something that is very easily applied to any other field of expertise as means to teach people, creating a memorable experience by evoking emotions and allowing the students/users to enjoy a moment of peace.
The methodology used for the "learning by doing" activities is also something that could be replicated to any teaching activity, and the solid soap workshop could also be taken and copied as a "hands-on" activity to complete a teaching and learning process.
Finally, the parent-school collaboration could be replicated in any other project with the different stakeholders that it might involve, as real changes are most of the times made by different individuals in different power positions working together.

Please describe the methodology or approach used in your initiative.
10. The approach was mainly service-design focused. The main yardstick of this project was to develop a service to allow future generations to live in a more sustainable and healthy way.
The research was then conducted trying to reach a big-scope, to then get a view of the overall picture. From here, decisions were taken to focus on education, and then again the research done at this stage tried to collect as much data as possible from this field. Finally, by prototyping and user testings the main project and outcomes were created, to finally be tested among real students. -In other words, the UK Council Double-Diamond structure was implemented.

Please explain what kind of global challenges the initiative addresses by providing local solutions
11. Aiming to reach an impact in our plastic pollution, this project focused on the single-use plastic bottles that are daily consumed for shower gel and shampoo.
The main contribution to this world-scale issue is done by teaching the importance of a little use of this products and with the explaining and "seeing" or "testing" the advantages of a solid soap instead of a liquid product.
The solid soaps can many times be done at home or purchased from local producers, which will arguably have an impact in local commerce.
Finally, this initiative could be slightly modified in content regarding the population it is directed to, allowing local governments to decide at which age will this information be taught and for how many academic years will this workshop be happening.

Please detail the scope of progress in the implementation of the initiative. This can include already demonstrated results/outputs related to the chosen Prizes category, and the already achieved benefits from the initiative for direct and indirect beneficiaries. This can also include a development plan of the initiative, with a particular attention to the steps envisaged in the year following the application, and including envisaged results and benefits from the initiative
12. This project is the result of a complete master thesis. This means that the theoretical research and academical requirements have been met.
Nevertheless, as was mentioned before this project counted with the collaboration with a real primary teacher in Bremen, who allowed this prototypes to be tested with over 100 kids from ages 5 to 9. The results were very positive, and even the head or principal of the school in which it was tested pointed out the great work and will now prepare an introduction to the parents and families in the next official meeting.
Despite that, it is important to mention that one part of the activity (the parent-school collaboration) or follow-ups has not yet been implemented, due to time constraints. A "hygiene-passport" was suggested as an idea to keep track of the kid's bathing routines, helping parents and teachers be part of the process.

Please provide documents that demonstrate the maturity level of the initiative and commitment to implement the initiative in practice (e.g.: evaluation report, final or mid-term initiative report, certification, publications, building permit, grant agreement, letter of support, partnership agreement, etc.)
Web link
Web link
- https://youtu.be/FKytvssB6ps
If relevant, please describe how your initiative contributes to developing new competences, especially in the context of the European competence framework on sustainability.
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Please attach at least 6 high resolution images or visual representations of your initiative to your application.
If you would like to upload additional documentation, please upload or write below.
- Maria Dolores Ferreira_Thesis ppt_compressed.pdf
By submitting your application you confirm that you are the copyright owner of the images provided and that they can be used by the European Commission for the purposes of promoting the New European Bauhaus on all platforms (websites, print, social media and other).
Yes

By ticking this box, you declare that you are not in in one or more of the exclusion situations foreseen under Article 136 of the Financial Regulation.
Yes

By submitting this application, I declare that I am not related to the entities subject to EU restricted measures under Article 29 of the Treaty on the European Union (TEU) and subject to Article 215 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU)1, and entities covered by Commission Guidelines No 2013/C 205/05), which are not eligible to participate in any capacity.
Yes

By ticking this box, you declare that all the information provided in this form is factually correct, that you assume sole liability in the event of a claim relating to the activities carried out in the framework of the contest, that the proposed initiative has not been proposed for the New European Bauhaus Prizes in any other category or strand and that it has not been subject to any type of investigation, which could lead to a financial correction because of irregularities or fraud.
Yes

By submitting your application, you guarantee that you are the author or have the rights to proceed with the application and to authorise the use of the initiative and that you have obtained any necessary consents, licenses or assignments from third parties and included copyright notices when necessary
Yes

By submitting your application, you understand that all the applications that meet the eligibility requirements will be shared for the purposes of the selection processes, and notably published on the secured platform prizes.new-european-bauhaus.eu and for the purposes of the promotion of these on the New European Bauhaus website and/or other European Commission communication channels. In this sense, the applications would be widely available. Applicants should ensure that they present their initiatives, initiative, in such a way that they could be shared without giving rise to intellectual property related concerns. If your submission is selected as one of the finalists, it will additionally be shared for the purpose of the public vote that will take place. The European Union is granted a licence to use and share your application with the general public and the official external experts for the purposes of the selection process, including the voting. The European Union has the right to use the images and visual materials and the description provided in the application for communication purposes related to the contest and beyond. Rights granted comprise the right to store, reproduce, display, publish and communicate or distribute copies in electronic or digital format, including, but not only, through the internet. Unless you have disclosed your name, the European Commission has no obligation to share your name when using or disseminating your contribution to the public. The European Union cannot be held responsible in case any submitted initiative, initiative is found to infringe third party’s rights. The European Union shall be neither responsible for the use that third parties may do of the applications or related content.
Yes

By submitting your application, you acknowledge that you read and understand that the ‘Guide to Applicants’ of the NEB Prizes 2023, available online in the website of the NEB Prizes 2023, is an integral part of this application form and that it must therefore be observed when completing and submitting your application.
Yes