Demand-side solutions to climate change mitigation consistent with high levels of well-being

Abstract

Mitigation solutions are often evaluated in terms of costs and greenhouse gas reduction potentials, missing out on the consideration of direct effects on human well-being. Here, we systematically assess the mitigation potential of demand-side options categorized into avoid, shift and improve, and their human well-being links. We show that these options, bridging socio-behavioural, infrastructural and technological domains, can reduce counterfactual sectoral emissions by 40–80% in end-use sectors. Based on expert judgement and an extensive literature database, we evaluate 306 combinations of well-being outcomes and demand-side options, finding largely beneficial effects in improvement in well-being (79% positive, 18% neutral and 3% negative), even though we find low confidence on the social dimensions of well-being. Implementing such nuanced solutions is based axiomatically on an understanding of malleable rather than fixed preferences, and procedurally on changing infrastructures and choice architectures. Results demonstrate the high mitigation potential of demand-side mitigation options that are synergistic with well-being. Evaluation of mitigation actions often focuses on cost and overlooks the direct effects on well-being. This work shows demand-side measures have large mitigation potential and beneficial effects on well-being outcomes.

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Articles
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01219-y
1Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change, Berlin, Germany. 2Technische Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany. 3Australian
National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia. 4Priestley International Centre for Climate, School of Earth and Environment,
University of Leeds, Leeds, UK. 5University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK. 6Universidad Veracruzana, Veracruz, Mexico. 7Copenhagen Business School,
Copenhagen, Denmark. 8International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria. 9European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Ispra,
Italy. 10University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA. 11IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute, Gothenburg, Sweden. 12Potsdam Institute for
Climate Impact Research, Potsdam, Germany. 13University of Oxford, Oxford, UK. 14National Observatory of Athens, Athens, Greece. 15University College
London, London, UK. 16Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, Kanagawa, Japan. 17Ahmedabad University, Ahmedabad, India. 18York University,
Toronto, Ontario, Canada. 19Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand. 20Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India. 21Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA. 22OpenExp, Paris, France. 23Faculty of Geosciences and Environment, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
24University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands. 25Central European University, Budapest, Hungary. 26These authors contributed equally:
Felix Creutzig, Leila Niamir ✉e-mail: creutzig@mcc-berlin.net
Demand-side mitigation options are increasingly discussed
in the literature—for example, refs. 1–3. However, a consis-
tent evaluation in terms of both their overall potential and
societal implications is lacking. Even for an ambitious 1.5 °C tar-
get, several mitigation strategies are plausible, ranging from high
dependence on new energy infrastructures to low-demand path-
ways4. Evaluation of these options, mostly from a macroeconomic
cost–benefit perspective, is relevant but it fails to reflect the wider
impacts through benefits and costs of mitigation strategies from the
human well-being perspective5.
There are three closely related shortcomings. First, mitigation
options on the demand side—such as choices toward transport
mode for mobility patterns and building design, size and use—
interact with the well-being of end users and citizens. Evaluation of
the marginal monetary costs of these measures, if they can be mon-
etized at all, hardly reflects their full impacts. Second, a focus on
costs leads to a tendency to preferably evaluate those solutions that
have precise direct market cost values attached, neglecting more
systemic or uncertain solutions where market prices are difficult
to evaluate or not relevant6. Third, income and expenditures reflect
only a part of well-being, and monetary cost evaluations, even if
starting from a broader framework, often ignore encompassing
views on multiple dimensions of well-being. This critique is not new
and, on the aggregate scale, there is agreement among economists
and philosophers, and in other disciplines, that metrics such as
gross domestic product (GDP) insufficiently reflect well-being, and
that these must be complemented by more encompassing metrics7.
These considerations motivate two related questions: first, what
is the climate change mitigation potential of demand-side mitiga-
tion options? Second, what are the implications for well-being of
these demand-side mitigation options? In particular, answer-
ing the second question is a considerable challenge because there
is no single straightforward and agreed on metric of well-being.
Well-being can be considered at both the macro level—for example,
in ten country-level well-being domains by the Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development8—and at the micro level,
Demand-side solutions to climate change
mitigation consistent with high levels of
well-being
Felix Creutzig 1,2,26 ✉ , Leila Niamir 1,26, Xuemei Bai 3, Max Callaghan 1,4, Jonathan Cullen 5,
Julio Díaz-José 6, Maria Figueroa7, Arnulf Grubler8, William F. Lamb 1,4, Adrian Leip 9,
Eric Masanet 10, Érika Mata11, Linus Mattauch2,12,13, Jan C. Minx 1,4, Sebastian Mirasgedis14,
Yacob Mulugetta15, Sudarmanto Budi Nugroho 16, Minal Pathak17, Patricia Perkins18,
Joyashree Roy19,20, Stephane de la Rue du Can 21, Yamina Saheb22,23, Shreya Some 17,20,
Linda Steg 24, Julia Steinberger23 and Diana Ürge-Vorsatz25
Mitigation solutions are often evaluated in terms of costs and greenhouse gas reduction potentials, missing out on the con-
sideration of direct effects on human well-being. Here, we systematically assess the mitigation potential of demand-side
options categorized into avoid, shift and improve, and their human well-being links. We show that these options, bridging
socio-behavioural, infrastructural and technological domains, can reduce counterfactual sectoral emissions by 40–80% in
end-use sectors. Based on expert judgement and an extensive literature database, we evaluate 306 combinations of well-being
outcomes and demand-side options, finding largely beneficial effects in improvement in well-being (79% positive, 18% neutral
and 3% negative), even though we find low confidence on the social dimensions of well-being. Implementing such nuanced
solutions is based axiomatically on an understanding of malleable rather than fixed preferences, and procedurally on changing
infrastructures and choice architectures. Results demonstrate the high mitigation potential of demand-side mitigation options
that are synergistic with well-being.
NATURE CLIMATE CHANGE | VOL 12 | JANUARY 2022 | 36–46 | www.nature.com/natureclimatechange
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