From Data to Action: Empowering Policies for Sustainable Choices
Did you know that the Lifestyle Test:
- started in 8 pilot countries and is now used by citizens across the EU?
- has been taken by 440,000 users? And that 10% of test takers make a plan for change?
- was featured on the BBC as part of their Purchasing Powers series?
Achieving the European Union’s 2050 climate goals requires a collective effort from individuals, policymakers, industries, civil society organisations, and researchers. While systemic change is critical, empowering individuals to make sustainable lifestyle choices is equally essential. The PSLifestyle project has worked to bridge this gap, providing citizens with tools to measure and reduce their carbon footprints while offering policymakers valuable data to inform impactful policies.
After four years of implementation, the PSLifestyle project is coming to a close in 2025. The project has engaged citizens across eight European countries—Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Slovenia, and Turkey—and has co-created the Lifestyle Test, a digital tool that not only supports individual behaviour change but also generates big data insights to guide policy development.
This final event, taking place in Brussels on Tuesday, 13 May 2025, will reflect on the project’s achievements and explore how the Lifestyle Test can continue to advance Europe’s sustainability goals. The event will also feature a high-level EU workshop that aims to foster a targeted dialogue between key actors (policymakers, researchers, industries, and civil society) on sustainable behaviours, their implications for policy and practice and scaling PSL insights and tools in Europe.
The conference will bring together policymakers, researchers, industry and other key stakeholders to foster collaboration and dialogue. Join us to reflect on the lessons learned, celebrate the project’s successes, and envision a future where empowered individuals and informed policies work together to drive meaningful climate action.
Save the date: Tuesday, 13 May 2025, 09:30–17:00, BIP Meeting Centre, rue Royale 2-4, 1000 Brussels.
Programme
Morning: Spotlight sessions and policy insights
9:30 AM – 9:30 AM: Registration and welcome coffee
9:30 AM - 10:00 AM: Opening session - why this, why now?
Speakers: Erwin Goor (Project Advisor, European Commission), Jussi Nevanlinna (Senior Advisor of Marketing, SITRA), Emmanuelle Maire (Head of Unit Circular Economy, Directorate-General for Environment, EU)
10:00 AM - 10:30 AM: Plenary 1 – Decoding sustainable living: key findings from PSLifestyle
Speakers: Jussi Nevanlinna (Senior Advisor of Marketing, SITRA), Luca Coscieme (Programme Lead Sustainable Lifestyles, Hot or Cool Institute)
10:30 AM - 11:00 AM: Coffee break & discovery space
11:00 AM - 11:45 PM: Plenary 2 – Lifestyle change in action: local stories from the ground
Speakers: Alexander Haneng (Director of Innovation and Sustainability, NHO Service og Handel), Meta Pezdir (Stakeholder Curator and Project Manager, Circular Change), Meneviş Uzbay Pirili (Local Coordinator, Zeytince) Gregory Eve (CEO, Green Apes)
11:45 PM - 12:45 PM: Plenary 3: From data to decision: policy that enables change
Speakers: Alison Burns (Policy Officer, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, EU), Fred Dorsimont (Director, Behaven), Alba Godfrey (Senior Project Coordinator, EuroHealthNet), Samuele Tonello (Research Coordinator, EuroHealthNet), Vanessa Timmer (Executive Director, OneEarth Living), Faustine Bas-Defossez (Director for Health, Nature and Environment, EEB)
12:45 PM - 1:45 PM: Lunch break
Afternoon: EU-level workshop
1:30 PM - 1:45 PM: Setting the stage for collaboration
1:45 PM - 3:00 PM: EU-Level workshop – Co-designing the future
3:00 PM - 3:15 PM: Coffee break
3:15 PM - 4:00 PM: Plenary discussion – Scaling solutions across Europe
4:00 PM - 4:30 PM: Final remarks
4:30 PM – 5:00 PM: Closing & networking drinks
Speakers

Alexander Haneng
Alexander Haneng is the Director of Innovation and Sustainability at NHO Service og Handel, which is one of the four organisations involved in the creation of the Norwegian edition of the Lifestyle Test. Alexander is passionate about innovation, technology and sustainability, and is a popular keynote speaker. He was formerly Senior Vice President Digital innovation at Nordic postal service Norway Bring.

Alison Burns
Alison Burns is a Policy Officer at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, where she focuses on the green transition. She previously served as Press Officer at Finance Watch, a non-profit association dedicated to reforming finance in the interest of citizens. Prior to moving to Brussels, she spent several years working in the financial software space in both Paris and London. Alison holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and political science from Trinity College Dublin, and a master’s degree in political communication from the University of Amsterdam.

Faustine Bas-Defossez
Faustine Bas-Defossez is EEB’s Policy Director for Nature, Health and Environment where she leads a large policy portfolio of the organisation: namely biodiversity, water, soil; agriculture and food; chemicals; mercury and air quality and noise and she is part of the senior management team.
Between 2009 and 2018 she was leading the agriculture work of the EEB. Before re-joining the civil society movement, she spent 5 years in leading roles within the sustainability think tanks’ community, as Head of the agriculture and land management program first and then External Impact Director.
At the beginning of her career she also worked for the European Commission Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development.
Faustine is French, has a master’s degree in International and European Law and holds a MSc in European politics from Science Po Strasbourg

Fred Dorsimont
Fred Dorsimont is Co-Founder and Managing Director of Behaven, a B Corp-certified consultancy specialising in behaviour change for sustainability. Behaven helps organisations turn their goals into behaviour change—across products, programmes and policies—by applying behavioural science, marketing and systems thinking. Their work focuses on removing barriers to change and designing solutions that make sustainable choices easy and rewarding. Behaven works with clients across Europe and beyond, including IKEA, WWF, the UK Government, and the Brussels-Capital Region.

Vanessa Timmer
Dr. Vanessa Timmer is the Executive Director of OneEarth Living (https://www.oneearthliving.org/), a nonprofit ‘think and do tank’ advancing sustainable everyday living around the world, with partners including IKEA, C40 Cities, UN Environment, and the Hot or Cool Institute. She is a member of The Earthshot Prize Advisory Panel, advises the United Nations Sustainable Lifestyles and Education Programme, and received the YWCA Women of Distinction Award in Environmental Sustainability. She holds a Doctorate and is a Senior Research Fellow at Utrecht University, having studied at Queen’s University, Oxford, UBC, and Harvard. Vanessa presents internationally, including at the World Circular Economy Forum, and co-hosted the award-winning sustainability television show The Sustainable Region for ten years. She is an expert on social change, sustainability and systems thinking.

Alba Godfrey
Alba is a Senior Project Coordinator at EuroHealthNet, the European Partnership for Health, Equity and Wellbeing. She focuses on environmental health and health equity, helping to translate cutting-edge research into policy and practice and advocate for a green and just transition. Alba leads EuroHealthNet’s contribution in a number of EU research projects, including PSLifestyle, as well as BEST-COST (on improving methodologies for the socio-economic cost assessment of environmental stressors such as air pollution), and BlueAdapt (on adapting to climate-change induced changes in our waters in ways that reduce health impacts). In PSLifestyle, EuroHealthNet focuses on ensuring equity dimensions are taken into account in project activities, as well as on linking the research with EU and national policy agendas. Alba holds a BA in History from the University of Cambridge, and a Masters in International Relations from the University of Amsterdam. She is French and British.

Gregory Eve
Gregory Eve holds a Master’s degree in Environmental Engineering (University of Florence, Italy) and an MSc in Environmental Management and Policy (Lund University, Sweden). As GAPES CEO, he is responsible for the institutional relations of the company. Gregory also closely follows the development of GAPES products and services, taking care of translating sustainability topics in engaging features and accessible content. In the PSLifestyle project, he coordinates the team activities.

Jussi Nevanlinna
Jussi looks after the LifestyleTest app and its future evolution at Sitra, the Finnish Innovation Fund.
The LifestyleTest inspires people to move towards positive and sustainable lifestyles, with the goal of addressing climate change both on individual level and across society. Previously, Jussi has held senior marketing leadership roles at Qualcomm, Microsoft, and Nokia.

Luca Coscieme
Luca Coscieme leads the Sustainable Lifestyles Programme at the Hot or Cool Institute, focusing on the intersection of individual behaviour and systemic change to accelerate transitions toward sustainable societies. His work bridges science and policy, with a particular emphasis on climate action, biodiversity, and the role of economic systems. He is actively engaged in policy advocacy, interdisciplinary research, and the transformation of economic thinking beyond growth, with expertise in EU and global environmental governance and the management of international research projects. Hot or Cool contributed to the data and calculations behind the Lifestyle Test and is analysing user results for informing transformative polices, innovative business models, and civil society initiatives.

Meta Pezdir
Meta Pezdir creates content, moderates workshops, and manages circular projects at Circular Change Institute. Currently, she is acting as one of the PSLifestyle project leads in Slovenia. Prior to joining the Circular Change team, she worked as a business consultant at Deloitte and Cedars, where she mostly worked on sustainability-related topics. Meta holds an MSc in Entrepreneurship from the University of Amsterdam and Vrije University, where she researched the social impact of social enterprises. She is also a Global Shaper (WEF initiative), a trained teacher of CoRT 1-4 methods by de Bono, and a curator of the Raz(no)glednice project (an initiative that promotes creative writing of short stories on postcards). She loves hiking and dancing Cuban salsa.

Meneviş Uzbay Pirili
PSLifestyle Local Coordinator, Assoc. Prof. Meneviş is an academic, and has taught sustainable development, ecological economics, economic growth courses at undergraduate and graduate levels. She is currently a faculty member at Yaşar University. She has been a founding member of Zeytince E.Y.D.D. since 2018. For her pioneering work in eco-literacy training in Izmir, she was awarded the 2022 Woman of the Earth award by the YVES ROCHER Foundation. She is one of the executive board members of Izmir Sustainable Urban Development Network, within the scope of this task she maintains strong networking and co-operation relationships with city stakeholders such as local municipalities, business associations, universities etc, who share the goal of transforming Izmir into an inclusive and beautiful city that is also in harmony with nature. She is the local coordinator of two international projects that aim to inspire citizens to adopt positive, sustainable, and healthier lifestyles.

Samuele Tonello
Samuele joined EuroHealthNet in 2021 and he is now Research Coordinator in EuroHealthNet research platform. He is focused on strengthening the capacity of EuroHealthNet research platform to enhance associate members’ knowledge related to EU policy processes and instruments, while also cooperating with the Policy platform to help ‘translate’ EU policies into researchable actions and to facilitate scientific excellence of EuroHealthNet’s outputs. Before joining EuroHealthNet, Samuele worked as a Researcher in Political Science and as a Lecturer Assistant at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, where he focused on democratic theory, social and economic inequalities, and class conflict. He holds a B.A. and a M.Sc in Sociology from the University of Trento, Italy, and a PhD in Political Science at the Victoria University of Wellington.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101037342.