Different interpretations of sufficiency in climate-protection strategies
Different interpretations of sufficiency in climate-protection strategies
Governments around the world have responded to the energy crisis at the beginning of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine with various emergency measures to avoid energy shortages. These measures, which were primarily intended for the short term, include activities that save energy by changing social practices. However, sufficiency strategies are extremely unpopular with political actors. Usually, these are only considered in a crisis situation. The authors of the present study argue that the concept of sufficiency can expand the scope for a social-ecological transformation by incorporating societal perspectives on desirable futures. For this reason, they analysed the general meaning and relevance of sufficiency and its typology was examined at the municipal level. The typology revealed four types of sufficiency that can be distinguished. The analysis of 40 masterplan municipalities in Germany also shows that sufficiency appears to be gaining in importance, but it remains to be seen whether and how this trend will continue to develop in view of the fierce conflicts over climate protection in many countries.
Story Highlights
- This study shows that the interpretation of sufficiency is of central interest when it comes to transformative goals and the selection of proposed measures for climate protection strategies.
- Sufficiency strategies can be easily integrated into technology-orientated paradigms. However, this entails the risk that sufficiency is marginalised as a kind of additional strategy, while technological optimisation is retained as the main objective.
- In political understanding and action, sufficiency should be a cross-sectoral and framework-setting guiding principle of climate protection – from which a normative social vision could grow.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND STRATEGY
The concept of sufficiency opens up and expands the space for possibilities for a socio-ecological transformation, as it can also include social perspectives with a consensual desirable future (Beck et al. 2021; Keck and Flachs 2022). However, the transformative power of these ideas depends to a large extent on the importance given to sufficiency and which interpretations of the concept prevail. However, previous studies have not taken into account how different prioritisations and understandings of sufficiency shape concrete policy. The aim of this study was to close this gap by analysing the climate protection concepts of 40 German so-called master plan municipalities. These local pioneers received national funding in two consecutive funding periods from 2012 to 2020 to become role models for municipal climate protection in Germany.
The authors emphasise that such a focus on the local level is of particular relevance. Sufficiency strategies have already been tried and tested at the local level and can be experienced on the ground. (Schneidewind and Zahrnt 2014). While most concepts for mitigating climate change focus almost exclusively on the technological strategies of efficiency and consistency (e.g. renewable energies), sufficiency is increasingly seen as a social-organisational design tool in public policy, especially at the municipal level (e.g. 30 km/h in cities).
References:
Schneidewind, U. and A. Zahrnt (2014). The Politics of Sufficiency: Making It Easier to Live the Good Life., Munich: Oekom.
TYPOLOGISATION OF SUFFICIENCY AND THE IMPLICATIONS FOR CLIMATE POLICY
The study has now identified the central dimensions of sufficiency and used these to carry out a typology that enables a fundamental distinction to be made between four types of municipal sufficiency: technophiles, privatisers, visionaries and framework setters. These represent the predominant interpretations in municipal climate protection concepts in Germany:
- Visionaries expect the "bottom-up approach" to bring about the idea of cultural change, which is initiated by the spread of more sufficient individual lifestyles. Visionaries attach greater importance to sufficiency and regard sufficiency as a central element of social value change. However, these visions are rarely translated into concrete action, and the role of the municipality is usually that of a rather passive, albeit well-meaning, observer of an externally driven change in civil society. Awareness-raising and the promotion of niche actors are at the centre of many of the associated measures.
- Frameworkers see sufficiency as a genuine policy field and focus on reforms to the structural framework conditions in order to better enable sufficiency. Municipalities of this type have anchored sufficiency as a guiding principle in various climate-relevant sectors and implemented it in concrete measures.
- The privatiser is dominated by the image of sufficiency as an individual practice that decision-makers can at best promote through information and appeals. Climate and environmental protection are formulated without the social dimension. The privatisers pass on responsibility and action to individual citizens. There is a lack of normative goals for transformative change; structural measures are not addressed.
- The technophile focuses exclusively on technical solutions. Sufficiency plays no or only a very subordinate role. Although technological strategies can achieve selective savings, there is a risk that these savings will not be sufficient to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the required speed and scale. Rebound and growth effects are not taken into account, meaning that the concepts often have serious gaps.
Related literature:
Spengler, L. (2018). Sufficiency as Policy: Necessity, Possibilities and Limitations., Baden-Baden: Nomos.
Results
The municipal level is an important framework for the negotiation, application and dissemination of sufficiency. However, sufficiency has so far only played a minor role at both municipal and national level. Our analysis of 40 municipalities in Germany shows that sufficiency is becoming increasingly important. However, sufficiency is interpreted very differently, which has an impact on the type of measures selected. Transformative goals are put into political practice by weaving sufficiency into the strategies of various climate-relevant measures. The respective understanding of sufficiency is of central importance in the selection of measures. However, the mere mention of sufficiency in climate policies or as a supplement to technological concepts is not enough to overcome the challenges of climate change with efficiency and consistency strategies alone. The results also show that only a few municipalities are striving for a far-reaching socio-ecological transformation; most municipalities that take sufficiency into account address private households as those responsible for implementing sufficiency. Structural framework conditions are hardly taken into account. In future sufficiency must be given greater consideration in climate protection concepts and lifted out of the niche of an additional strategy.
Funding:
This work was partly funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) within the junior research group “BioKum”. This publication was also supported by funds from the NiedersachsenOpen publication fund, sponsored by zukunft.niedersachsen.
Worth knowing
Sufficiency, as the third pillar of sustainability strategies, on the other hand, is closely linked to social change and requires a minimum level of awareness and responsibility for personal resource consumption or political control of resource consumption through appropriate steering measures (e.g. CO2 pricing). A combination of these bottom-up and top-down measures is also conceivable. However, some scientists consider sufficiency efforts to be futile without fundamental systemic change in society and the economy.
Lage et al. (2022) therefore also differentiate between three different approaches. Firstly, the bottom-up approach focuses "on changes in individual lifestyles, consumption patterns and cultural change" as incremental change (Lage 2022, 7). Secondly, the policy-making approach considers sufficiency to be politically organisable through suitable framework conditions in a reform-oriented manner (Schneidewind and Zahrnt 2014; Spengler 2018). Finally, the social movement approach calls for a more fundamental and disruptive change and describes sufficiency as something "that cannot be realised within the current economic and social system" (Lage 2022, 10). According to Lage (2022), all approaches contain certain potentials and limits. However, considering sufficiency as a political task is seen as an important basis for achieving ambitious climate targets, as the hope of spreading small-scale changes in social practices at the individual level alone is often seen as insufficient to bring about the necessary far-reaching structural, transformative changes (Alfredsson et al. 2018; Winterfeld 2016).