By Tina Nyfors, tina.nyfors@helsinki.fi
The climate impact of household consumption is significant. It accounts for two thirds of consumption-based[i]greenhouse gas emissions globally (Hertwich & Peters 2009) as well as in Finland (Nissinen & Savolainen 2019). The everyday decisions of households hence play a significant role in addressing climate change. The carbon footprint of an average Finn is about 10 tons carbon dioxide equivalents (tCO2-ekv) per year. This can be viewed in relation to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees as outlined in the Paris Agreement. A report by IGES et al. (2019) estimates that staying on the 1.5-degree pathway would translate into personal carbon quotas of 2.5 tCO2-ekv per year in 2030. This means that the footprint of an average Finn must decrease by more than 70%.
What does this mean in practice? The Finnish Climate Change Panel’s report “The sufficiency perspective in climate policy” (Linnanen et al. 2020) and the subsequent scientific article (Nyfors et al. 2020) outlines how households could reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of their consumption by following the idea of ‘ecological sufficiency’ (hereafter sufficiency). The report also proposes how sufficiency could be implemented in climate policy. The report refers to Gough’s (2017) three-stage strategy for decarbonisation, consisting of (1) ramping up eco-efficiency, (2) an intermediate stage of recomposing consumption and (3) reducing consumption absolutely. The report focuses on recomposing consumption, however this text also brings up elements of reducing consumption absolutely.
One way of addressing emissions from a minimum level of consumption is to calculate the GHG emissions of national reference budgets. It is also a way of scrutinizing dominant consumption practices and structures in society. The reference budgets examine the perceived decent minimum level of consumption at a given time in a given context. Reference budgets are made in several countries including, Finland, Sweden, UK and the Netherlands. In Finland, the reference budget is used, for example, in the process of evaluating levels of basic security benefit.
The Finnish Climate Change Panel report calculated carbon footprints of three types of households (see Figure 1) in the Finnish reference budget which builds on numbers from 2016 (Lehtinen & Aalto 2018). The results show that the carbon footprint of a decent minimum level of consumption in Finland is considerably smaller, about half (49–58%), compared with the carbon footprint of an average Finn. Despite the considerable emission reductions that a decent level of consumption entails, there is a need to reduce GHG emissions further in order to reach the 2030 targets. Compared with a global target of 2.5 CO2e/person per year for 2030, the emissions are twice as high.
Figure 1. Carbon footprint (kg CO2-ekv) per person. The GHG emissions of different households in the Finnish reference budget (the three columns to the left) compared to the average footprint of a person living in Finland and Finland’s goal of reducing emissions by 60% by 2030. The emission reduction goal in line with a 1.5 degree pathway illustrated as personal carbon quotas of 2.5 tCO2-ekv per year in 2030. (Linnanen et al. 2020, translated)
The fact that even households and individuals living on what is perceived to be a social minimum exceeds the ecological maximum level illustrates the magnitude of the emission reduction challenges and points towards the need of coordinated political initiatives.
How to proceed? This text suggests that a sufficiency perspective on household consumption and in climate policy is implemented and advanced. This would include adopting new sufficiency-based guiding principles for households. In other words, systematically shifting the consumption from identified high-carbon options to low-carbon alternatives, as well as consuming less. These processes should be supported by climate policy on different levels so that households are steered to not only consume low-carbon alternatives instead of high-carbon ones, but also steered to not consume.
Since the emissions from household consumption come from mobility (30%), nutrition (20%), housing (25%), and goods and services (25%) (IGES. 2019: 14, Nissinen & Savolainen 2019: 41), these major sectors call for special attention.
Concerning mobility, about 80% (IGES 2019: 21) of the Finnish households’ emissions come from use of private car. Low-carbon options include reducing car travel or living car free, avoiding airplane travel and instead using other modes of transport, including public transport, walking or biking. We could also ask whether mobility is needed in the first place. Do we really have to move so far and so quickly?
In nutrition, high-carbon options include a diet rich in meat and dairy. Low-carbon options include nutritionally adequate vegan or vegetarian diets, or mixed diets including only small amounts of meat and dairy, replacing meat with, for example, legumes. Furthermore, addressing overconsumption of food is associated with both health and climate benefits.
In housing, more than 80% (IGES 2019: 18) of the emissions come from heating and electricity consumption. Low-carbon options include, for example, smaller living space, lower indoor temperature, reducing the use of hot water, shared living space, use of renewable energy and improving energy efficiency. We could also think about the resource intensive living standards. What kind of housing suffices?
Goods and services include a wide range of products and services and the GHG emissions come from several categories. Major sources of emissions are furniture and domestic appliances, clothing, electronic devices as well as leisure activities. Low-carbon options include buying second-hand or low-carbon products of high quality and using them for a long time, sharing, repairing, reusing and refurbishing, and buying low-carbon services. Sufficiency options also include the option of working less to earn less money to buy things, and hence not purchasing at all is also a viable possibility in some cases.
In policy making there are numerous ways of steering consumption away from identified carbon hotspots towards low-carbon options (Nyfors et al. 2020). Regulation includes banning or regulating high-carbon options; the obligation to provide low-carbon options and regulating advertising for high-carbon products and services. Economic instruments include addressing high-carbon options through carbon taxes and fees and by removing harmful subsidies, but also supporting low-carbon options, for example, through subsidies and tax exemptions and personal carbon budgets. Nudging includes making low-carbon choices more easily accessible or default options. Cooperation includes different forms of sharing economy, widening social consumption and supporting existing public institutions such as libraries. Information includes, for example, communicating ‘best practice’ sufficiency examples to specific target groups. Information can also be used to increase awareness of the standards of luxury that we have attained and to increase awareness of the mechanisms that stimulate consumption.
Perhaps one of the most radical suggestions of steering would be to set direct caps on consumption, in the form of impact caps or cap-and-trade systems at different levels, including individual level (Spengler 2018). Suggestions include personal carbon quotas, which have been described as, in principle, the ideal policy instrument for realising sufficiency. It could set limits on how much households and individuals could consume on a given time, while at the same time enable different lifestyles within the frames of the allowance or bought allowance. Caps could also be placed on specific products and services with high climate and environmental impact. Furthermore, the caps could include setting limits on how much paid work one can do per week or what is the maximum that can be earned per year.
In industrialized countries, the notion of an absolute reduction of consumption faces strong resistance and is a rather unpopular political topic. This may relate to that sufficiency touches on issues that are sensitive in liberal societies: freedom of choice versus political steering, as well as possible effects of reduced consumption on economic growth. Still, the need to reduce emissions remains. I believe that the fact that effects of climate change become more visible also in wealthy countries in the form of exceptionally mild winters or drought and fires, may alter people’s attitudes towards more radical policy measures. This text suggests that sufficiency policies and a focus on consumption hotspots could offer a more effective approach to climate change mitigation by addressing individual consumption as the main driver of the increase in global greenhouse gas emissions.
Tina Nyfors is a PhD student at the University of Helsinki at the Department of Economics and Management.
[i] Consumption-based emissions accounting = domestic emissions + imports – exports. Compare with territorial (official) emissions accounting, which includes emissions emitted within the territory of a country.
References
Gough, I. (2017) Heat, Greed and Human Need. Climate Change, Capitalism and Sustainable Wellbeing. Cheltenham, Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd.
Hertwich & Peters 2009 Carbon Footprint of Nations: A Global, Trade-Linked Analysis. Environ. Sci. Technol. 2009, 43, 16, 6414–6420. http://hdl.handle.net/10138/300737
IGES (Institute for Global Environmental Strategies), Aalto University, D-mat Ltd. (2019) 1.5-Degree Lifestyles: Targets and Options for Reducing Lifestyle Carbon Footprints. Technical Report. Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, Hayama, Japan. https://www.aalto.fi/sites/g/files/flghsv161/files/2019-02/15_degree_lifestyles_mainreport.pdf
Lehtinen, A-R., Aalto, K. (2018) Mitä eläminen maksaa? Kohtuullisen minimin viitebudjettien päivitys vuodelle 2018.Publications of the Faculty of Social Sciences 2018:101.
Linnanen, L., Nyfors, T., Heinonen, T., Liimatainen, H., Nissinen, A., Regina, K., Saarinen, M., Seppälä, J., Viri, R. (2020) The Sufficiency Perspective in Climate Policy: How to Recompose Consumption. Finnish Climate Change panelreports 4/2020. https://www.ilmastopaneeli.fi/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Sufficiency-in-climate-policy_2020-09-25.pdf
Nissinen, A., Savolainen, H. (eds) (2019) Julkisten hankintojen ja koti-talouksien kulutuksen hiilijalan-jälki ja luonnonvarojen käyttö. Reports by the Finnish Erivonment Institute 15/2019. Finnish Environment Institute, Helsinki. http://hdl.handle.net/10138/300737
Nyfors, T., Linnanen, L., Nissinen, A., Seppälä, J., Saarinen, M., Regina, K., Heinonen, T., Viri, R., Liimatainen, H. “Ecological Sufficiency in Climate Policy: Towards Policies for Recomposing Consumption”. Futura 3/2020. https://helda.helsinki.fi//bitstream/handle/10138/323631/Nyfors_et_al_Ecological_Sufficiency_in_Climate_Policy_version_accepted_author_manuscript.pdf?sequence=1
Spengler, L. (2018) Sufficiency as Policy. Necessity, Possibilities and Limitations. Baden-Baden: Nomos.