Exploring the Use of Virtual Reality to Support Environmentally Sustainable Behavior: A Framework to Design Experiences

Extended reality-based choice experiment to assess the impact of offshore wind turbines in historic center: The case of Manfredonia

This paper proposes a novel four-step methodology to achieve an extended-reality-based choice experiment in historic and touristic centers. The study exploits the case of Manfredonia (a seaside town in southern Italy) to apply the new approach and investigates public attitudes and preferences towards the installation of offshore wind turbines in the area. The novelty of the proposed work is twofold: i) for the first time, a structured methodological approach is defined for the development of a hybrid extended-reality-based choice experiment; ii) the perception of the visual impact of offshore wind turbines is assessed in a touristic and historic city in southern Italy exploiting the proposed approach. Our findings underscore the importance of continuously monitoring public perceptions to maintain and promote support for sustainable energy solutions, particularly in relation to the perception of wind energy's visual impact. In particular, 65% of respondents express their worries about wind power plants impact on the landscape. Moreover, the positive coefficient of the visual impact (0.011) suggests a positive utility of respondents from a higher off-shore turbines' density and a marginal willingness to accept a compensation of about 13€ for the visual impact and of about 33€ for the distance from the shore. In this context the use of extended reality technology in choice experiment scenarios significantly improves the results and enhances the understanding of the landscape impact of offshore wind farms.

Expanding Nature's storytelling: extended reality and debiasing strategies for an eco-agency

Communication in sustainability and environmental sciences is primed to be substantially changed with extended reality technology, as the emergent Metaverse gives momentum to building an urgent pro-environmental mindset. Our work focuses on immersive econarratives, supported by virtual and augmented realities, and their potential to favor an improved relationship with the environment. Considering social aggregation dynamics and cognitive bias, this article intends to (1) make the case for a new environmental narrative; (2) position extended reality as privileged settings to sustain this narrative; and (3) suggest that this storytelling should be informed by Nature's empirical evidence, i.e., ecosystem data. We see this as a chance to think this Metaverse with an embedded environmental consciousness, informed by behavior-change research.

Licensing Effect of Pro-Environmental Behavior in Metaverse

The Metaverse is an important virtual venue in people's daily lives. This study examined whether pro-environmental behaviors in the Metaverse with a self-customized avatar lead to licensing effects, thereby reducing pro-environmental intention in reality. In addition, the study examined the mediating effect of self-presence on the relationship between avatar customization and pro-environmental behavior. A laboratory experiment was conducted using ZEPETO, a Metaverse platform. A total of 60 participants were randomly assigned to the self-customized avatar condition or the assigned avatar condition, and they engaged in pro-environmental behaviors on the Metaverse platform. Participants with self-customized avatars had less intention to engage in pro-environmental behavior in reality after engaging in pro-environmental behavior in the Metaverse than those with assigned avatars. Furthermore, self-presence partially mediated the relationship between avatar customization and pro-environmental intention.

The cultural differences in the effects of carbon emissions - an EKC analysis

The postmodernism stance critiques the current discourse of modern consumption-based societies. These societies legitimize their embedded beliefs and actions based on their lifestyle reflected through their consumption patterns. Their consumption patterns relate to carbon footprints that are yet to be explored in the current body of knowledge at the macro level. The legitimacy of their lifestyle and consumption patterns rely on their conscious efforts in reducing carbon footprints. This study uses the environmental Kuznets curve model and explores the impact of household lifestyle and household consumption patterns on CO₂ emissions across different cultures and societies worldwide. 49 countries were taken to assess how different cultures define consumption patterns related to CO₂ emission. The results showed that the curvilinear relationship between consumption and CO₂ depends on the country's national cultural orientation.

Experiencing a Food Production Site Using Wearable Devices: The Indirect Impact of Immersion and Presence in VR Tours

Virtual reality (VR) is among the main technologies revolutionizing numerous sectors, including tourism. In the latter context, virtual tours (VTs) are finding increasing application. Providing an immersive and realistic human–machine interaction, VR tours can bring visitors to virtually experience destination areas. The proposed research presents a theoretical and empirical investigation of the role played by some technical VR features (i.e., presence, immersion, ease-of-use) on VR visitors’ enjoyment, satisfaction, and, accordingly, on the physical visit intention of the production site and neighboring areas. After having experienced a 360-degree VR tour of a food production site, created specifically for this study, 140 visitors were surveyed online. Results—emerging from a PLS structural equation model—show that immersion and presence both directly impact the enjoyment and indirectly the user’s VR tour satisfaction and visit intention. Further, if the VR tour is perceived as easy to use, it influences visitors’ satisfaction and physical visit intention. This study contributes to the novel VR literature, applied in the tourism sector, evidencing how immersive and enjoyable scenarios, experienced via widespread devices such as smartphones, may impact tourists’ choices. In food tourism, VR technologies can be fundamental in attracting new visitors to the production sites and neighboring areas.

Becoming nature: effects of embodying a tree in immersive virtual reality on nature relatedness

The potential of using immersive virtual reality (iVR) technologies to enhance nature relatedness by embodying non-human beings, such as plants or animals, is only sparsely researched. To contribute to this emerging research field we conducted an experimental study (N = 28) that compared the effects of the viewing condition (iVR or desktop) while embodying a tree on nature relatedness, perspective-taking and, as a control, on perceived immersion. A mixed-method approach employing quantitative and qualitative questions was used. Our results showed that irrespective of condition allocation, the more immersed participants felt in their experience, the greater they reported increased levels of nature relatedness (r = 0.42, p < .05). While our quantitative data did yield a difference in immersion levels between the viewing condition (iVR vs. video, t(26) = 2.05, p = .05, d = .50) that did not translate into a stronger experimental effect of the iVR condition on nature relatedness (F_Interaction(1,26) < 1). Regarding perspective taking, no significant differences between both groups emerged in the number of users who self-reported having fully taken on the perspective of the tree, (χ²(1) = 2.33, p = .127). However, only participants from the iVR group described their experience from a first-person perspective, suggesting a higher level of identification with the tree. This matches the observation that only those participants also reported self-reflective processes of their own role as a human being towards nature. Our results support previous research suggesting that experiencing nature via immersive VR in itself does not seem to suffice for creating an effect on nature relatedness. However, we observed that a higher perceived level of immersion for participants experiencing the embodiment of a tree in the iVR condition provoked reflective processes on one's own role towards nature more strongly. We discuss the role of immersion and further factors to explain these differences and suggest steps for future research settings to help understand the beneficial potential of using immersive VR for nature relatedness.

Development of an affective database made of interactive virtual environments

Despite the great potential of Virtual Reality (VR) to arouse emotions, there are no VR affective databases available as it happens for pictures, videos, and sounds. In this paper, we describe the validation of ten affective interactive Virtual Environments (VEs) designed to be used in Virtual Reality. These environments are related to five emotions. The testing phase included using two different experimental setups to deliver the overall experience. The setup did not include any immersive VR technology, because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, but the VEs were designed to run on stereoscopic visual displays. We collected measures related to the participants’ emotional experience based on six discrete emotional categories plus neutrality and we included an assessment of the sense of presence related to the different experiences. The results showed how the scenarios can be differentiated according to the emotion aroused. Finally, the comparison between the two experimental setups demonstrated high reliability of the experience and strong adaptability of the scenarios to different contexts of use.

Visualizing a New Sustainable World: Toward the Next Generation of Virtual Reality in the Built Environment

What is the future of virtual reality (VR) in the built environment? As work becomes increasingly distributed across remote and hybrid forms of organizing as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a need to rethink how we use the set of collaborative technologies to move toward a sustainable world. We propose a new vision of VR as a discipline-agnostic platform for an interdisciplinary integration of the allied design, social, and environmental disciplines to address emerging challenges across the building sectors. We build this contribution through the following steps. First, we contextualize VR technologies within the changing digital landscape and underlying tensions in the built environment practices. Second, we characterize the difficulties that have arisen in using them to address challenges, illustrating our argument with leading examples. Third, we conceptualize VR configurations and explore underlying assumptions for their use across disciplinary scenarios. Fourth, we propose a vision of VR as a discipline-agnostic platform that can support built environment users in visualizing preferred futures. We conclude by providing directions for research and practice.

Affective Virtual Reality: How to Design Artificial Experiences Impacting Human Emotions

Computer graphics is-in many cases-about visualizing what you cannot see. However, virtual reality (VR), from its beginnings, aimed at stimulating all human senses: not just the visual channel. Moreover, this set of multisensory stimuli allows users to feel present and able to interact with the virtual environment. In this way, VR aims to deliver experiences that are comparable to real-life ones in their level of detail and stimulation, intensity, and impact. Hence, VR is not only a means to see, but also to feel differently. With the spreading of VR technologies, there is a growing interest in using VR to evoke emotions, including positive and negative ones. This article discusses the current possibilities and the authors' experience collected in the field in trying to elicit emotions through VR. It explores how different design aspects and features can be used, describing their contributions and benefits in the development of affective VR experiences. This work aims at raising awareness of the necessity to consider and explore the full design space that VR technology provides in comparison to traditional media. Additionally, it provides possible tracks of VR affective applications, illustrating how they could impact our emotions and improve our life, and providing guidelines for their development.

Future perspectives on progressive farming with adoption of virtual reality technology for sustainable quality in agriculture

Purpose

The paper aims to evaluate how progressive stakeholders view the adoption of contemporary techniques such as virtual technology in driving sustainable quality in an emerging economy context.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors adopted a systematic literature review to develop the theoretical framework for virtual reality (VR) technology adoption in sustaining quality in agriculture production. The framework was refined after discussion with a panel of academic experts. The refined theoretical framework was further empirically validated using Partial Least Square Structure Equation Modelling.

Findings

The study focuses on the future perspective of the perception for progressive farming with the adoption of VR technology in an emerging economy. The data were collected from the stakeholders (farmers, collectives, cooperative, etc.), for their future perspectives for the adoption of VR technology and sustainable quality agriculture production. The study may help build up VR technology in emerging economies which may take years to be established.

Research limitations/implications

The perception of the future perspective of VR technology study conducted has limitations. The findings are well established on technology adoption; however, the technology used will take many extra years to find its application in the agriculture sector. The study offers insightful theoretical, managerial and policy implications for sustainable quality in agriculture production through the adoption of virtual reality (VR) technology. The authors found very few works that focused on VR technology adoption.

Originality/value

The study discusses VR, which has an impact on sustaining the quality of agriculture production. The study has notable managerial and policy implications that suggest the future perspective for VR technology in agriculture production. The study is an unexplored area that needs research to capture future perspectives.