To achieve environmental and social sustainability, profound changes in societies and everyday practices are necessary alongside greener technologies.
Sufficiency is an increasingly used concept to encompass the efforts to rethink our needs in line with planetary limits, and find ways to downshift our lives to rely much less on polluting resources. Its scope is wide as it covers virtually every human activity, from motorised mobility to living spaces, diets, consumption patterns, etc.
Literature on sufficiency is flourishing, in fields as diverse as sustainability, energy modelling, sociology, marketing, philosophy, urbanism, and more. The concept entered the latest IPCC report and some national energy policy plans in Europe.
As the IPCC defines it:
Sufficiency is an increasingly used concept to encompass the efforts to rethink our needs in line with planetary limits, and find ways to downshift our lives to rely much less on polluting resources. Its scope is wide as it covers virtually every human activity, from motorised mobility to living spaces, diets, consumption patterns, etc.
Literature on sufficiency is flourishing, in fields as diverse as sustainability, energy modelling, sociology, marketing, philosophy, urbanism, and more. The concept entered the latest IPCC report and some national energy policy plans in Europe.
As the IPCC defines it:
Sufficiency is “a set of policy measures and daily practices that avoid the demand for energy, materials, land, water, and other natural resources while providing wellbeing for all within the planetary boundaries”.
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