Green Ageing
What is Green Ageing?
Green ageing is increasingly recognised as a concept that extends beyond individual health behaviours to include environmental awareness, sustainable daily practices, and collective responsibility. While policy frameworks and academic literature often define green or sustainable ageing in abstract terms, the Body & Earth research highlights the importance of grounding this concept in the lived experiences, emotions, and everyday realities of older adults and adult educators. This section explores how green ageing is understood by participants, how awareness is shaped by personal and environmental change, and how meaning is constructed through daily life.
Findings from both the focus group interviews and the online questionnaires indicate that awareness of green ageing is present but unevenly articulated. Survey respondents in Lithuania, Italy and Greece demonstrated a strong intuitive understanding of the relationship between ageing well and living sustainably, even when they did not explicitly use the term “green ageing”
What are Ecosomatic Practises?
Green ageing is not only a cognitive or behavioural process; it is fundamentally embodied. Ecosomatic awareness, understood as the integration of bodily perception with ecological awareness, offers a conceptual and practical framework for understanding how older adults experience, interpret, and respond to their environments through their bodies. This section explores ecosomatic awareness as a core dimension of green ageing, drawing on BEEPGA research findings and interdisciplinary academic literature.
The term ecosomatic combines soma (the lived, felt body) and ecology (the interrelationship between living beings and their environments). Ecosomatic approaches emphasise that the body is not separate from its surroundings but continuously shaped by environmental conditions such as air quality, temperature, light, sound, and access to natural spaces (Abram, 1996).
In the context of green ageing, ecosomatic awareness refers to the capacity of older adults to: (click on each card)
Empirical Insights from the Body & Earth Focus Groups and Surveys
Body & Earth focus group participants frequently described bodily awareness as central to how they experience both ageing and environmental change. Across Lithuania, Italy, and Greece, participants spoke about “listening to the body”, “feeling changes in the air”, and “adjusting activities according to the weather”. These narratives illustrate a form of embodied environmental literacy developed through lived experience rather than formal education.
What is Digital Literacy ?
Daily digital practices intersect directly with green ageing. Understanding how to maintain a healthy green lifestyle while growing older means understanding green ageing and sustainable living in the context of digitalisation. Literature shows that potential barriers for older people to participate in this transition can include fear of the complex nature of many platforms used to access online resources, as well as privacy concerns related to personal information collected by others. Other health-related factors can also impact older adults’ confidence in using digital technology. These challenges are well documented in broader digital inclusion research and align with the findings of our own survey.
Our research findings indicate that σupport for older adults in their pursuit of digital inclusion through green ageing is most effective when delivered through a multi-actor approach involving adult educators, social workers, and peer mentors.
This shows that it is important to recognise that digital inclusion is not only about increasing skills but also about ensuring that older adults feel comfortable and motivated to participate.
Survey data indicates varying levels of digital confidence, particularly among adults aged 55+, highlighting the importance of moderation and boundary-setting. Sustainable digital practices discussed include (click on each card):
How Environmental Change Affects Daily Life and Well-being?
Environmental change reshapes daily routines and mobility patterns. Extreme temperatures and seasonal instability influence decisions about leaving the house, walking, or engaging in outdoor activities, directly affecting autonomy and daily structure. While the specific challenges varied across partner regions, from prolonged heatwaves to increasing seasonal unpredictability, participants consistently described similar impacts on their daily routines and mobility. Despite regional differences, participants across all countries described a similar need to continuously adapt daily habits in response to changing environmental conditions.Reduced outdoor engagement impacts both physical and emotional well-being. In the questionnaires, more than half of the participants reported limiting outdoor activities during periods of extreme heat or cold. These limitations are associated with increased fatigue, pain, and lower motivation, often accompanied by frustration or discouragement.