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The Environmental Impact of Green Consumption and Sufficiency Lifestyles Scenarios in Europe: Connecting Local Sustainability Visions to Global Consequences
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The sustainability transformation calls for policies that consider the global consequences of local lifestyles. We used stakeholders' visions of sustainable lifestyles across Europe to build 19 scenarios of sufficiency (net reductions) and 17 of green consumption (shift in consumption patterns). We applied Environmentally Extended Multi-Regional Input-Output analysis to model scenarios by assuming widespread adoption of the proposed lifestyles changes. Finally, we estimate the domestic and foreign implications for land, water, carbon and human toxicity potential. We distinguish the options with most potential from those that are seemingly fruitless or present backfire risks. While our method allows for testing a large number scenarios under a consistent framework, further work is needed to add robustness to the scenarios. However, we do find a range of indicative results that have strong potential to contribute to mitigation efforts. Services: We find that a local and sharing service economy has a maximum reduction potential of 18% of the European carbon footprint (CF). Clothing & Appliances: Sharing and extending lifetimes of clothes and devices could diminish CF by approximately 3%. Transport: Reducing motorized transport by remote work and active travel could mitigate between 9-26% of CF. Food: Vegan diets could spare 4% of the land and reduce up to 14% of CF. Bio-economy: Switching to biomaterials and bioenergy tend to reduce carbon and toxic emissions at the risk of increasing water and land use. Housing: Passive housing and decentralized renewable energy reduces carbon emissions up to 5 and 14%, respectively. We characterize the sensitivity of our results by modelling income rebound effects and confirm the importance of deterring expenditure in resource intensive goods.
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... Therefore, Input-Output models with environmental extensions have been used to analyse several environmental variables, using MRIO and the EXIOBASE database. For example, for the analysis of the footprint of land, water and materials for the countries of the Baltic region , or for the wood analysis in Germany Egenolf et al., 2021) and the EU (Vita et al., 2019). It has been used also in combination with the biophysical trade model LANDFLOW in order to quantifying the global cropland footprint of the European Union's non-food bioeconomy (Bruckner et al., 2019). ...
... Budzinski et al., 2017); EU( Vita et al., 2019) Baltic; Italy(Chen et al.Efken et al., 2016); EU ( Anghel et al., 2019; Asada et al., 2020); Italy (D'Adamo et al., 2020); Sweden (Jonsson et al., 2016); Romania (Mihai & Ingrao, Vandermeulen et al., 2011); Italy (Pergola et al., 2018); USA (Nematian et al., 2021); Slovakia (Bikár et al., 2018); Finland (Eyvindson et al., 2018); UE (Cristóbal et al.Lehtonen & Okkonen, 2013); Netherlands (Heijman, 2016): Ireland ( O'Donoghue et al., 2019): Poland (Loizou et al.,2019); Germany (Jander & Grundmann, 2019); Colombia ( Alviar et al., 2021); USA (Lamers et al.van Meijl et al., 2018); Sweden(Börjesson Hagberg et al., ...
In recent years, the Bioeconomy has gained increasing global attention. It is seen as a chance to focus on a sustainable mode of production and consumption. This new economic paradigm is characterized by economic, environmental, and social challenges and opportunities. Therefore, to implement the Bioeconomy as a strategy, it is necessary to be able to assess its impact. However, when it comes to measuring the bioeconomy, there is a lack of consensus on the methodologies and variables used, which leads to difficulties in its analysis and implementation. To address this issue, this article performs a literature analysis using SCOPUS. The main objective is to analyse the existing methodologies that can adequately measure the bioeconomy social, economic, and environmental impacts. First, a descriptive analysis of publication trends and a relational analysis of keyword networks and authors' collaboration have been carried out. This paper then analyses and classifies the different methodologies used, as well as variables and databases that are considered to measure the bioeconomy impact. The results show that the existing literature has been enriched in the analysis of the environmental and economic assessment, however, there is still a long way to go in the research on the analysis of social impact. It also identifies the variables that have received the most attention and the future lines of work. Therefore, the results are interesting for researchers, businesses, and policy decision-makers to help assess the impact of implementing policies or business case studies and move towards the promotion of the Bioeconomy.
... less waste and zero waste, comforting and atmospheric eating, as well as conscious eating or freeganism [5][6][7][8][9]. Another factor related to ecological aspects environment, related to physical features and product attributes [28], the ability to solve problems and the ability to make the right decisions, thanks to the collection of appropriate knowledge and experience [34]. ...
... In this study, more than half of the respondents lived mainly in rural areas and the rest in small, medium and large cities, which could also have an impact on consumer choices and behavior. According to some authors [28,42], the way of life also refers to the choices of various goods and behaviors (life choices), while life chances refer to the probability of making these choices and are related to the life situation of a given person. At the same time, age, sex or race clearly influence both the choices made, which make up the lifestyle, and the specific chances of their implementation [46]. ...
The pandemic brought significant changes to the functioning of society. This article examines the opinion of consumers in south-eastern Poland on lifestyle elements such as shopping preferences, physical activity, holiday preferences and others, against the background of the COVID-19 situation. The aim of this study was to identify the relationship between selected components included in the lifestyle of society in the context of the COVID-19 emergency situation. The research was conducted from 9 November 2020 to 17 January 2021. In order to identify the respondents’ attitudes and their perception of the issues discussed in this study, a questionnaire was created containing a number of theses formulations assessed by the respondents in terms of compliance with their beliefs. The evaluation was carried out using a seven-point bipolar Likert scale with a neutral value. The study was not probabilistic, therefore the inference applies only to the studied group. A total of 737 questionnaires meeting the research assumptions were collected. The form was used to identify ecological attitudes, shopping behavior, food preferences, physical activity and tourist preferences in the COVID-19 situation in which the research was conducted. Also identified were holiday destinations in 2019 and 2020, preferred diet type, and socio-demographic background: sex, age, place of residence and approximate per capita income. The research revealed that the purchasing behavior of the respondents was a predictor of their physical activity and tourist preferences. Studies have also shown that the food preferences of the respondents are an important part of their balanced lifestyle and depend on the sex of the person. The respondents preferred an active lifestyle as a form of pro-health activity when living in the situation of COVID-19. During the COVID-19 pandemic, respondents’ interest in domestic tourism also increased.
... We could not find any environmental issues connected to the reduction of energy service demand (sufficiency). Socio-economic issues related to sufficiency are rebound effects through monetary savings (less energy service demand-related costs) (Sorrell et al., 2020), potentially down-80 shifting impacts on consumption & production levels (Vita et al., 2019) and acceptance issues (Toulouse et al., 2017). Those, and the listed socio-economic sustainability issues for the other options, can partly be minimised or eliminated with adequate political strategies and thus need close attention. ...
... Furthermore, various sufficiency measures will lower expenses of consumers (Creutzig et al., 2016). Due to their mostly non-technical nature, sufficiency options are moreover found to be low-risk regarding potential en-350 vironmental harms (Vita et al., 2019;Grubler et al., 2018) compared to more technology-focused and resource-intensive emission abatement options (see section 2). Sufficiency, furthermore, reduces the risk for not reaching climate goals by decreasing the pressure and cost for pursuing other mitigation options to their maximum. ...
Sufficiency as a term and research field has gained increased attention in recent years. The evolving literature demonstrates various understandings of sufficiency: thought from the concept of consumption corridors, it is a way to mitigate climate change but it also is a more general approach to reach various dimensions of ecological and socio-economic sustainability and well-being for all. In relation to the potential that sufficiency seems to have for simultaneously alleviating various sustainability problems that societies are facing, it has been represented surprisingly rarely in the literature and political debate so far. Instead, efficiency and consistency strategies dominate the debate on how to deal with environmental challenges such as climate change. These strategies have received a lot of attention in the past, leading to a broad knowledge of their potentials and benefits. Sufficiency and its potentials, in contrast, are not widely known. In this respect, the literature lacks a review and synthesis of the various potentials and benefits of sufficiency. Reviewing literature from various disciplines, this paper gives insights into the main benefits of sufficiency as a political strategy and structures them comprehensibly. In summary sufficiency has important environmental benefits, contributing to climate mitigation, keeping within other planetary boundaries such as biodiversity loss and limiting resource consumption. Further, sufficiency can enable justice, health, quality of life and resilience. Relative to technical approaches, sufficiency moreover can be a fast and safe option, that also bears a potential for deeper systemic changes.
... This could be achieved especially if decent living standards for shelter (including space heating), mobility, and other needs are secured in the decarbonization policy context [72]. In addition to the aforementioned measures, recycling and other actions aligned with the circular economy model, such as the re-use and extension of product lifetimes [73,74] can also have an important indirect effect on industrial energy demand and production and associated emissions. ...
Achieving the ambitious climate targets required to limit global warming to 1.5 °C requires a deep transformation of the supply-and-demand side of energy–environmental–economic systems. Recent articles have shown that environmentally sustainable consumer behaviors driven by lifestyle changes can significantly contribute to climate-change mitigation and sustainable development goals. However, lifestyle changes are not adequately captured by scenarios developed with integrated assessment and energy-system models (IAMs/ESMs), which provide limited policy insights. This article conducts a systematic review of the IAM and ESM literature to identify the most important lifestyle changes in current mitigation pathways for the residential and transport sectors, review the employed state-of-the-art modeling approaches and scenario assumptions, and propose improvements to existing methodological frameworks. The review finds that mode shifts towards public transport and active transport modes, shared mobility, and eco-driving have the greatest impact in the transport sector, while actions that reduce space and water-heating requirements and the circular economy are the most effective practices in households. Common modeling approaches lack sophistication as they omit (1) the dynamics and costs of demand-side transitions, (2) the heterogenous responses of different consumer groups, and (3) the structural effects of lifestyles on the macro-economy. New approaches employing innovative methodologies combined with big data collected from users offer new avenues to overcome these challenges and improve the modeling of lifestyle changes in large-scale models.
... In this case, the energy and electro-mobility transition are both top-down agendas expected to improve the climate performance of all productive sectors. However, a consumption perspective can complement these efforts, making visible how lifestyle choices of food, transport, housing and products and services in households can reduce their impacts, not only of climate but also water, land, toxicity, etc. (Vita et al., 2019). ...
Household consumption drives more than 65% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Nevertheless, most governments plan to meet the Paris Agreement based on production-based accounting (PBA), neglecting lifecycle emissions embodied in trade and consumption, as well as socio-spatial inequalities. This is a sub-city consumption-based accounting (CBA) analysis of Guadalajara Metropolitan Area (MAG), grounded on Environmentally Extended Multi-Regional Input-Output using EXIOBASE 3.8.1, combined with Mexico's 2018 Consumer Expenditure Survey. The main objective is to explain the CO2e footprint of MAG's households, identifying emission hotspots and socio-spatial inequalities. This household CBA estimate shows MAG emitted a total of 23.35 MtCO2e during 2018, at least 26.6% higher than the local Climate Action Plan (CPA) territorial PBA estimate, and 121% higher for food. The average per capita footprint is 4.52 tCO2e, 40% higher than the average Mexican and 61% higher than the recommended level of 2.8 tCO2e/cap-yr to align with 1.5 °C pathways by 2030. However, 26% of the MAG population, mostly low-income households, is below this level. Conversely, highest incomes and per capita CO2e footprints are concentrated in Zapopan and Guadalajara, with 64% of total emissions despite hosting 55% population together. Further, income decile X reach 35% of the total emissions with 13% of the population. If left unchecked, MAG's footprints might increase with the trends of urbanization, inequality, higher consumption, and smaller households, as we find larger households associate with lower footprints. We confirm the need to complement CAP with CBA approach and increase socio-spatial resolution to unlock demand-side solutions that leverage on the interplay between urban, socioeconomic, and technical factors.
Cities consume almost 80 percent of world’s energy and account for 60 percent of all the emissions of carbon dioxide and significant amounts of other greenhouse gases (GHG). The ongoing rapid urbanization will further increase GHG emissions of cities. The quantification of the environmental impact generated in cities is an important step to curb the impact. In fact, quantifying the consumption activities taking place inside a city, if differentiated by socioeconomic and demographic groups, can provide important insights for sustainable-consumption policies. However, the lack of high-resolution data related to these activities makes it difficult to quantify urban GHG emissions (as well as other impacts). This paper presents a methodology that can quantify the carbon footprint of households in cities using consumption data from a national or European level, where the resource consumption is linked to socioeconomic attributes of a population. The methodology is applied to analyzing the environmental impact by household resource consumption in the city of The Hague in the Netherlands. The key insights reveal potential intervention areas regarding resource consumption categories and demographic groups that can be targeted to reduce GHG emissions due to consumption-driven activities in the city.
The notion of sufficiency has gained considerable traction in many social sciences as well as in environmental and energy policy. However, sufficiency is not widely discussed in economics, most likely because it is seen as being hard to identify or uninteresting in the context of the standard model of rational choice. In this paper, we introduce a concept of sufficiency, which we define as a change of lifestyle that reduces environmental externalities without compromising individual well-being. We advance a framework of individual choice, where individuals select lifestyles and face uncertainty regarding their preferences in hitherto not experienced lifestyles. We show that changes towards sufficiency are feasible in this setting but, although they can be beneficial to the individual, they might require policy support.
Wirkketten werden in vielen verschiedenen Forschungsfeldern angewandt, um die Effekte einer Aktivität aufzuzeigen und das System zu visualisieren, in das die Aktivität eingebunden ist. Ein spezielles Konzept für Wirkketten von Energie-Suffizienzpolitiken fehlt bislang. Wir entwickeln ein solches basierend auf aktuellen Evaluierungsansätzen, erweitert durch qualitative Elemente wie Erfolgsfaktoren und Barrieren und wenden es in zwei Fallbeispielen zusammen mit den verantwortlichen Klimaschutzmanager*innen an. Zudem beschreiben wir Optionen, wie diese Wirkketten in verschiedene existierende Energiemodelle integriert werden können, die Schlüsselelemente der Politikberatung sind.
The paper provides energy system-wide estimates of the potential and impacts of final energy demand reductions based on behavioral changes in different sectors. Behavioral changes are for example adjusting thermostats or replacing business flights with telemeetings. By reducing demand, behavioral changes are a potentially decisive but seldomly considered factor to support the transformation towards a decarbonized energy system. Therefore, this paper addresses the following question: What is the potential of behavioral changes and what are the impacts on the supply side of a 100% renewable energy system? For this purpose, an extensive literature review is conducted to obtain estimates for the effects of different behavioral changes on final energy demand in Germany. The impact of these changes on the supply side and system costs is quantified using a bottom-up planning model of a renewable energy system. Results indicate that final energy could be reduced by up to 20.5% and as a result, renewable capacity reductions between 13.6% to 30.6% are conceivable. The greatest potential for behavioral changes was identified in the heating sector.
Meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement requires absolute reductions of consumption levels, which implies changing consumption behavior toward more sufficiency-oriented practices. So far, these practices have mostly been researched in the areas of mobility and household-related activities. Therefore, this paper reviews sufficiency-oriented practices in other areas of consumption. A configurative literature review rendered eight relevant studies investigating nine different sufficiency-oriented consumption practices, seven of which related to clothing consumption. By aggregating and structuring the practices’ elements, insights into the materials, competences, meanings, and rules connected to sufficiency-oriented lifestyles could be made. In the area of clothing especially, high quality, durable, and repairable products as well as the ability to reflect critically on one’s consumption behavior are the basis for engaging in sufficiency-oriented practices. Tools and shared spaces as well as community events facilitate practices that encourage modal shifts of consumption or contribute to product longevity. The meanings behind these practices stretch from altruistic, environmentally conscious motivations such as a great concern for the environment to more egoistic or economic-related motives such as saving money. First implications of using social practice theory as a heuristic to research consumption behavior indicate that sufficiency-oriented practices offer various angles and opportunities, not only through consumer education but also by providing the right materials, spaces, and skills, to support more environmentally friendly “Lifestyles of Enough”.
A desirable future critically depends on our ability to ensure the supply of key resources while simultaneously respecting planetary boundaries. This paper looks at the potential implications of living within the “safe operating space” for people, business and the economy. It develops a positive vision of the future based on three pillars: a safe and fair use of global resources, a sustainable society, and a transformed economy.We review and build on recent sustainability visions to develop a holistic reflection on what life in 2050 could look like, and explore the key changes in the economy needed to get there. In particular we show that resource efficiency requires a systemic shift in values, innovation, governance and management regimes. We present a bold vision for Europe underlined by indicators and targets, explore transition challenges to getting there and conclude with a list of key policies needed for overcoming challenges and reaching the vision.
The EU Carbon-CAP project assembled a comprehensive portfolio of consumer initiatives in order to assess the potential total impact of consumer options on national carbon footprints. Existing evaluations of behavioural change have focused primarily on direct energy reductions, typically in households and buildings. However, changes in consumer demand have deeper impacts via their upstream supply chains. The consumer behaviour options considered in the portfolio focus on green household initiatives. Combining existing micro-level studies with a multiregional input-output economic model, we estimated the potential efficacy and uptake of each behaviour across the European Union (EU). The results suggest that adopting these consumer options could reduce carbon footprints by approximately 25%. While 75% of this is delivered as reductions in emissions within Europe, one-quarter of the effect is delivered as a reduced imported carbon footprint, due to changes in the composition of imports.
Key policy insights
• Consumer initiatives can have a big effect on embodied carbon imports, in addition to domestic impacts
• We connect a portfolio of ∼90 green behaviour changes to a global supply chain database to model impacts holistically
• We estimate that with reasonable levels of adoption green consumer actions can reduce the EU CO2 footprint by 25%
• A quarter of this effect is delivered in the form of reduced embodied emissions in imports
Changes in national and global food demand are commonly explained by population growth, dietary shifts, and food waste. Although nutrition sciences demonstrate that biophysical characteristics determine food requirements in individuals, and medical and demographic studies provide evidence for large shifts in height, weight, and age structure worldwide, the aggregated effects for food demand are poorly understood. Here, a type–cohort–time stock model is applied to analyze the combined effect of biophysical and demographic changes in the adult population of 186 countries between 1975–2014. The average global adult in 2014 was 14% heavier, 1.3% taller, 6.2% older, and had a 6.1% higher energy demand than the average adult in 1975. Across countries, individuals’ weight gains ranged between 6–33%, and energy needs increased between 0.9–16%. Noteworthy, some of the highest and lowest increases coexist within Africa and Asia, signaling the disparities between the countries of these regions. Globally, food energy increased by 129% during the studied period. Population growth contributed with 116%; weight and height gains accounted for 15%; meanwhile, the aging phenomenon counteracted the rise in energy needs by −2%. This net additional 13% demand corresponded to the needs of 286 million adults. Since the effect of biodemographic changes are cumulative, we can expect the observed inertia to extend into the future. This work shows that considering the evolving individual biophysical characteristics jointly with sociodemographic changes can contribute to more robust global resource and food security assessments. Commonly used static and homogenous caloric demand values per capita might lead to misrepresentations of actual needs. What previous analyses could have estimated as increased food availability, sufficiency, or surplus waste might actually be energy sequestered by the mass of the human lot. Based on the discovered trends, feeding nine billion people in 2050 will require significantly more total calories than feeding the same people today.
While quality of life (QOL) is the result of satisfying human needs, our current provision strategies result in global environmental degradation. To ensure sustainable QOL, we need to understand the environmental impact of human needs satisfaction. In this paper we deconstruct QOL, and apply the fundamental human needs framework developed by Max-Neef et al to calculate the carbon and energy footprints of subsistence, protection, creation, freedom, leisure, identity, understanding and participation. We find that half of global carbon emissions are driven by subsistence and protection. A similar amount are due to freedom, identity, creation and leisure together, whereas understanding and participation jointly account for less than 4% of global emissions. We use 35 objective and subjective indicators to evaluate human needs satisfaction and their associated carbon footprints across nations. We find that the relationship between QOL and environmental impact is more complex than previously identified through aggregated or single indicators. Satisfying needs such as protection, identity and leisure is generally not correlated with their corresponding footprints. In contrast, the likelihood of satisfying needs for understanding, creation, participation and freedom, increases steeply when moving from low to moderate emissions, and then stagnates. Most objective indicators show a threshold trend with respect to footprints, but most subjective indicators show no relationship, except for freedom and creation. Our study signals the importance of considering both subjective and objective satisfaction to assess QOL-impact relationships at the needs level. In this way, resources could be strategically invested where they strongly relate to social outcomes, and spared where non-consumption satisfiers could be more effective. Through this approach, decoupling human needs satisfaction from environmental damage becomes more attainable.
Assessing progress towards environmental sustainability requires a robust and systematic knowledge base. Economy-wide material flow accounting (ew-MFA) is an established method to monitor resource use across scales and its headline indicators are widely used in policy. However, ew-MFA is currently limited by its empirical focus on annual flows of material and energy, because it neglects the pivotal role of in-use material stocks of manufactured capital. Explicitly integrating in-use stocks enables new insights into a range of Ecological Economics' topics, such as the biophysical assessment of socioeconomic systems, the circular economy and stock-flow consistent scenarios. Herein, we conceptually and practically expand the ew-MFA framework towards jointly addressing material flows, in-use stocks of manufactured capital and waste, using a fully consistent dynamic model of Material Inputs, Stocks and Outputs (MISO-model). We review the stock modelling literature, propose a novel distinction of stock-driven versus inflow-driven approaches and situate the MISO-model as the latter. We then investigate the global dynamics of socio-metabolic flows and in-use stocks from 1900 to 2014, explore model sensitivities and quantify and attribute uncertainty. Two exemplary scenarios are presented. Through these innovations for ew-MFA, we enable a dynamic and comprehensive assessment of resource use, stocks and all wastes in the socioeconomic metabolism.
Participatory modeling engages the implicit and explicit knowledge of stakeholders to create formalized and shared representations of reality and has evolved into a field of study as well as a practice. Participatory modeling researchers and practitioners who focus specifically on environmental resources met at the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) in Annapolis, Maryland, over the course of 2 years to discuss the state of the field and future directions for participatory modeling. What follows is a description of 12 overarching groups of questions that could guide future inquiry.
Scenarios have supported assessments of the IPCC for decades. A new scenario ensemble and a suite of visualization and analysis tools is now made available alongside the IPCC 1.5 °C Special Report to improve transparency and re-use of scenario data across research communities.
Nearly 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions are associated with the production of capital goods. Consumption-based emission calculations based on multi-regional input-output (MRIO) models allocate emissions occurring in the production of intermediate goods to the final goods produced in an economy. Like intermediate goods, capital goods are used in production processes; yet the emissions associated with their production are not allocated to the industries using them. As a result, the carbon footprint of final consumption as well as emissions embodied in trade are currently underestimated. Here, we address this problem by endogenizing capital transactions in the EXIOBASE global MRIO database, thereby allocating emissions from capital goods to final consumption. We find that endogenizing capital substantially increases the carbon footprint of final consumption (by up to 57% for some countries), and that the gap between production-based and consumption-based emissions increases for most countries. We also find that the global emissions embodied in trade increase by up to 11%, and that current patterns of bilaterally traded emissions are amplified. Furthermore, endogenizing capital leads to a threefold increase in the carbon footprint of certain product categories. The results suggest that our approach constitutes an important improvement to current input-output methodology.
The COP21 summit in Paris led to a policy commitment of limiting the global temperature increase to 1.5–2.0 °C and this can be translated to a global annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emission budget that is shrinking rapidly throughout the 21st century. Here, we estimate the reductions in GHG emission intensities of technologies that will be required for the embedded GHG emissions of a developed nation to stay within its fair share of a global emission budget in the year 2050. The estimates are made for different conceivable developments in consumption patterns in the case of Denmark, based on a large survey of current consumption patterns. To evaluate whether the required emission intensity reductions are likely to be met, they are compared to historic time series of emission intensities and to projections for 2050, based on policies currently in place, for ten technologies that have a high contribution to current GHG emissions. We estimate that emission intensities must be reduced by factors of 2–12 and 5–14, depending on the development in consumption, for the 2.0 and 1.5 °C climate goals, respectively. Of the ten selected technologies, only electricity supply is projected to, partially, meet the most strict reduction target, applying to a scenario where all inhabitants in 2050 consume as the most consuming inhabitants today. The results indicate that both a change in “consumption as usual” and in “business as usual” is needed for developed nations to meet equitable climate targets. This has implications for national and international policies targeting GHG emission intensities and may require a new orientation of policies to consider the societal structures around consumption.
