Devising strategies to reduce consumption-based emissions

The report explores how municipalities can move beyond traditional governance to reduce consumption-based emissions through collaborative, place-based citizen engagement. It introduces a conceptual framework for strategic participation and details a three-stage workshop methodology—exploring sufficiency, visioning sustainable futures, and backcasting—implemented in Malmö. The authors argue that focusing on everyday wellbeing and sufficiency, rather than abstract targets, fosters more inclusive and transformative climate action.

• Municipalities face limits in directly governing household consumption because they often operate at the edges of their formal jurisdiction, necessitating collaborative approaches with businesses, civil society, and residents to achieve systemic change.
• The report identifies three ideal types of collaborative local climate governance: the internal whole-of-government approach (focusing on municipal coordination), the stakeholder partnership approach (focusing on private-sector innovation in high-emission sectors), and the civil society engagement approach (focusing on sustainable lifestyles and behaviour change).
• Effective citizen participation in sustainability transitions should be guided by clearly defined purposes—such as informing policy, fostering empowerment, or enabling local action—rather than using one-size-fits-all models.
• A place-based participatory visioning approach, which asks residents to imagine desirable futures for their own neighbourhoods, is an effective way to uncover local values, strengthen collective agency, and create context-sensitive transition pathways.
• Connecting climate action to everyday wellbeing and shared concerns—such as housing, mobility, and public space—makes sustainability more tangible and inclusive than focusing solely on abstract emission targets.
• The report advocates for a sufficiency-oriented approach to climate action, which shifts the focus from technical efficiency to examining what constitutes a 'good life' within ecological limits and meeting basic needs without excessive resource use.
• The participatory methodology used in Malmö involved three workshops: first, exploring sufficiency and barriers via 'walk-and-talk' activities; second, envisioning futures through 'utopian sketching'; and third, using 'backcasting' to identify the steps needed to realize those visions.
• The study encountered significant recruitment challenges in socio-economically disadvantaged areas, highlighting structural barriers such as lack of time or trust that often hinder the participation of marginalized groups.

APA

Jokiaho, J., & Vanhuyse, F. (2026). Devising strategies to reduce consumption-based emissions. Stockholm Environment Institute. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/strategies-for-reducing-consumption-based-emissions.pdf

Chicago

Jokiaho, Julia, and Fedra Vanhuyse. Devising strategies to reduce consumption-based emissions. Stockholm Environment Institute, 2026. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/strategies-for-reducing-consumption-based-emissions.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Jokiaho |first1=Julia |last2=Vanhuyse |first2=Fedra |title=Devising strategies to reduce consumption-based emissions |publisher=Stockholm Environment Institute |date=April 2026 |url=https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/strategies-for-reducing-consumption-based-emissions.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{jokiaho2026devising, author = {Jokiaho, Julia and Vanhuyse, Fedra}, title = {{Devising strategies to reduce consumption-based emissions}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2026}, month = apr, url = {https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/strategies-for-reducing-consumption-based-emissions.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }