Enough? The role of sufficiency in European energy and climate plans

Carina Zell-Ziegler, Johannes Thema, Benjamin Best, Frauke Wiese, Jonas Lage, Annika Schmidt, Edouard Toulouse and Sigrid Stagl

Energy Policy, 2021, vol. 157, issue C

Abstract: Energy sufficiency is one of the three energy sustainability strategies, next to energy efficiency and renewable energies. We analyse to what extent European governments follow this strategy, by conducting a systematic document analysis of all available European National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs) and Long-Term Strategies (LTSs). We collect and categorise a total of 230 sufficiency-related policy measures, finding large differences between countries. We find most sufficiency policies in the transport sector, when classifying also modal shift policies to change the service quality of transport as sufficiency policies. Types of sufficiency policy instruments vary considerably from sector to sector, for instance the focus on financial incentives and fiscal instruments in the mobility sector, information in the building sector, and financial incentive/tax instruments in cross-sectoral application. Regulatory instruments currently play a minor role for sufficiency policy in the national energy and climate plans of EU member states. Similar to energy efficiency in recent decades, sufficiency still largely referred to as micro-level individual behaviour change or necessary exogenous trends that will need to take place. It is not treated yet as a genuine field of policy action to provide the necessary framework for enabling societal change.

Keywords: Sufficiency policy; Sufficiency measures; Transformation; Energy and climate plans; Long-term strategies; Behavioural change (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:enepol:v:157:y:2021:i:c:s0301421521003530

DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2021.112483

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