Research increasingly shows that energy and resource efficiency and technological innovation alone cannot solve our climate and environmental crises. Major actors like the IPCC and the EU Horizon Programme are therefore turning their eyes towards how resource demand can be reduced, while ensuring that everyone’s needs are met. A new NetZeroCities report by partner Demos Helsinki takes a deeper look at what sufficiency policy could mean for cities, especially when it comes to housing, mobility and food.  

‘Sufficiency’ has gained attention in recent years as a way of decreasing emissions and reducing environmental footprints while securing sustainable wellbeing for all.  

A key takeaway of our report is that sufficiency offers cities a necessary complement to efficiency and technological innovation. Adopting sufficiency principles can guide cities to design fair and effective policies that reduce emissions while improving social equity. We recommend that municipalities begin by embedding sufficiency thinking into their governance to start asking new questions about necessity, need satisfaction, and equitable resource use.  

Read the full deep dive here.

What is sufficiency? 

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) considers sufficiency “a set of measures and daily practices that avoid demand for energy, materials, land, and water while delivering human well-being for all within planetary boundaries.” The UN Environment Programme adds a just transition perspective and notes that sufficiency is about the need to increase resource use in low-development contexts to enable dignified living while reducing consumption of populations whose consumption is well above the planetary capacity. 

Sufficiency focuses on meeting people’s needs while staying within ecological limits, and on wellbeing and preconditions for a good life. As illustrated by the UNEP definition mentioned above, sufficiency also underscores the need for a fairer distribution of resources.  

How can sufficiency principles help EU Mission Cities? 

The emergence of sufficiency as a hot topic is particularly timely for the EU Cities Mission. Mission Cities and their climate mitigation efforts could benefit from sufficiency-oriented approaches to tackle consumption-based emissions, strengthen social justice, and close the gap between current trajectories and climate goals.  

As cities carry responsibilities for both the environment and social wellbeing, embedding sufficiency as a guiding principle can be a way of integrating local environmental and social equality efforts and finding co-benefits and synergies between them. While the concept brings together these different fields, it also has the potential to unite sectors and bring more municipal departments and new stakeholders on board to create visions and measures for the future. 

What are sufficiency policies? 

Sufficiency policies address production and/or consumption and go beyond technological improvements to redefine and explore how human needs can be met in more sustainable ways. 

Successful sufficiency policy relies on both phasing in more sustainable practices and phasing out unsustainable ones. The French ban on short flights, for example, both phases out unsustainable options (air travel) and supports sustainable options by investing in train infrastructure. It is important to integrate both approaches, instead of focusing on individual, siloed policies.  

Policy and planning approaches to promote sufficiency could include:  

  • Land lease regulations (e.g., favouring developments that include shared spaces or co-housing solutions)  
  • Practical and financial support for elderly looking to downsize within their local neighbourhood 
  • Council tax surcharge for un-used or under-used apartments 
  • Progressive property taxes based on per capita living area 
  • Prioritising walking and biking in infrastructure and urban planning 
  • Setting up a zero new land-take goal for roads 
  • Communication of co-benefits (for instance health benefits of active mobility) 
  • Supporting local community initiatives 
  • Integrating sufficiency principles in public procurement (e.g. setting requirements on repairability and durability, and only procuring when critical or something needs to be replaced) 

Please see our report for more examples of sufficiency policies and governance. 

Where can cities start? 

The report emphasises that while many municipalities already implement measures aligned with sufficiency (e.g. Zürich and Grenoble), few have yet developed comprehensive strategies guided by sufficiency principles. Moving from isolated actions to integrated policy mixes is a central challenge. Successful implementation requires coordination across departments, alignment between policies, and a combination of both ’pull’ measures that enable sustainable practices and ‘push’ measures that limit unsustainable ones. Experimentation, evaluation and adaptation to local conditions are also crucial to understanding what works. 

Citizen participation and cooperation with stakeholders are also identified as essential elements of sufficiency-oriented policies. Deliberative citizen panels are highlighted in research as particularly suitable tools. The new report highlights the importance of ensuring that costs and benefits are distributed in a just manner. Further, it notes that local governments need to collaborate with civil society, companies and social movements, and support bottom-up initiatives aligned with sufficiency.