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The report finds that while most Swedish municipalities address sustainable consumption within their own operations, few target households or businesses. A significant majority of officials (79%) identify a lack of political support as their primary need. The report recommends systematic tracking of all purchases and investments to calculate environmental impacts and suggests that the government empower county administrative boards to coordinate local efforts.

The Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) Strategy 2020–24 focuses on bridging science, policy, and practice to address global sustainability challenges. The institute identifies three primary impact areas: reducing climate risk, promoting sustainable resource use and resilient ecosystems, and improving health and well-being. To achieve these, SEI employs a theory of change centered on changing agendas, enhancing capacities, and improving decisions. The strategy emphasizes the use of data science, the development of decision-support tools, and the implementation of programmatic hubs called 'Initiatives' to tackle specific issues like carbon lock-in and bioeconomy pathways. Operationally, SEI utilizes a distributed network of centres across five continents to ensure regional relevance and North-South/South-South knowledge exchange. The institute also commits to an environmental policy aiming to reduce its per capita carbon travel footprint by at least 25% between 2017 and 2024.

The report analyzes the efforts of Swedish municipalities to promote sustainable consumption across their own operations, households, and local businesses. While many municipalities work systematically within their own operations—focusing on vehicles, food, and energy—there is significantly less focus on households and businesses. A critical gap exists in monitoring the environmental impact of procurement, with nearly half of the surveyed municipalities performing no such assessment. The report identifies economic motives and national guidelines as primary drivers, while highlighting a severe need for political support, financial resources, and standardized data tools. It recommends that municipalities establish systematic procurement analysis, that local politicians prioritize sustainable consumption, and that the government tasks regional administrative boards (länsstyrelsen) with coordinating these efforts.

African cities face a 'triple challenge' of rapid population growth, urban expansion, and poor waste management, which threatens urban sustainability and marine ecosystems. The report advocates for a transition from linear 'take–make–dispose' models to a circular economy that prioritises resource efficiency and waste removal. Key recommendations include integrating the informal waste sector, implementing municipal composting, and leveraging regional policy frameworks like Agenda 2063 to foster green entrepreneurialism.

The document outlines a review of sustainable consumption drivers, emphasizing that behaviour is shaped by a complex matrix of pricing, technology, social norms, and infrastructure. It argues for a shift from targeting individuals to addressing the 'organization of practices' and whole systems to avoid rebound effects. The report also notes a lack of nuanced research on the intersection of gender and consumption patterns.

The PRINCE project, led by Statistics Sweden with SEI as a key partner, created a tailor-made model combining the EXIOBASE3 multiregional input-output (MRIO) model with Swedish national environmental-economic accounts. This framework allows for detailed tracking of environmental impacts—including greenhouse gas emissions, water use, and hazardous chemicals—linked to Swedish consumption across international supply chains. The model was adopted in 2018 by Statistics Sweden and the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency for national greenhouse gas emissions statistics to support Sweden's 'Generational Goal' of solving environmental problems without exporting them.

The Stockholm Environment Institute has developed a new macroeconomic model to test how different sustainability strategies affect economic stability. Unlike traditional models, this version assumes people act based on past experience rather than optimal future knowledge. Initial experiments show that 'downshifting' (reducing working hours/workforce participation) can slow GDP growth and consumption without causing instability, whereas simply reducing consumption levels while maintaining the workforce can lead to recession and economic instability.

The document introduces SEI-PCS, a modeling tool designed to overcome the limitations of traditional country-level footprinting by providing spatially explicit data on production-to-consumption systems. By integrating subnational production data, domestic trade flows, and international customs data, SEI-PCS allows for the tracing of commodities back to their origin to assess impacts such as carbon emissions, biodiversity loss, and deforestation. The tool is the foundation for the Trase initiative, which specifically monitors deforestation risks associated with agricultural commodities like soy in Brazil, Indonesia, and Latin America, helping companies and governments evaluate the effectiveness of zero-deforestation commitments and identify policy 'leakage' effects.

The Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) collaborated with Umeå municipality to translate a 2018 resident survey into a climate footprint estimation tool. This tool allows the municipality to compare local consumption-based emissions with national averages and identify specific demographic drivers of emissions. Findings revealed that while residents in their 20s have more climate-smart diets, they have higher footprints for furniture, and that higher-income groups generally have larger footprints due to increased consumption of red meat, clothing, and flights.

The project aimed to address knowledge gaps regarding consumer food waste by leveraging citizen science to gain insights into behaviors and decision-making. Key activities included a literature review, the identification of network members, and a workshop in Geneva on 6 June. The resulting network connects researchers, experts, and practitioners to foster collaborative research proposals.

The document explains that consumption-based emissions inventories (CBEIs) capture the full carbon footprint of a city by including emissions from goods and services produced outside city borders. It identifies that for wealthy, industrialized cities, CBEIs are often significantly higher than territorial inventories. The guide details three main estimation approaches: spending data with input-output models, physical data with life-cycle analysis, and hybrid methods. It advises city planners to align their choice of methodology with their specific goals, such as resident education, peer comparison, or local policy design, while emphasizing the importance of detailed categorization to identify high-leverage areas for emissions reduction.

The report analyzes the consumption-based greenhouse gas emissions of Umeå residents, finding an average footprint of 9.77 tonnes CO2e per person for survey participants (aged 20-84), which scales to 7.6 tonnes CO2e per person for the total population. Travel, particularly aviation and car use, is identified as the primary emission source, followed by food. The report identifies 'hotspots' including meat consumption, aviation, and housing energy, and recommends administrative, economic, and informative policy tools to reduce these impacts.

The report analyzes consumption-based emissions in Sweden, highlighting that emissions generated abroad for Swedish consumption have increased by nearly 50% since the early 1990s. It identifies meat consumption and air travel as critical 'hotspots' due to their high climate impact per unit and high frequency of use. The authors argue that current policy instruments are insufficient and recommend a shift toward transformational changes, such as establishing a vegetarian norm in the public sector and investing in high-speed rail, alongside the creation of national consumption-based emission targets for 2030 and 2045.

The document argues that South Africa must shift from a carbon-intensive export model to low-carbon manufacturing to avoid international trade barriers and leverage a global market for low-carbon products estimated at US$5 trillion. It details several technical approaches to achieve this, including eco-design, material substitution, additive manufacturing, and remanufacturing, while highlighting the systemic challenges of R&D, cost, and technological lock-in.

The guide argues that traditional business models focused on increasing sales are unsustainable given growing global populations and industrialization. It proposes a three-step analytical process: conducting a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to identify environmental hotspots, multiplying these impacts by projected demand growth to 2030, and analyzing the broader industry context, including competitors and community needs. The author suggests that companies must either innovate their products or shift their paradigms toward services—such as mobility services instead of just selling cars—to meet sustainability targets and avoid obsolescence.

The authors caution CEOs that current business models based on increased consumption are unsustainable given that the global middle class is expected to grow by 3 billion people between 2009 and 2030. They argue that while efficiency helps, companies must shift toward sharing, repair, and service-based models to avoid exceeding the planet's capacity to provide raw materials, energy, and water.

The paper examines the conflict between the projected growth of the global middle class and the finite capacity of Earth's natural systems. It argues that 'business growth predicated on consumption is the new elephant in the corporate boardroom,' as traditional 'take-make-waste' models risk overshooting planetary boundaries. Using cars, beef, and apparel as case studies, the authors demonstrate that incremental efficiency gains are insufficient to offset the volume of increased demand. The document recommends that companies 'do the math' on their resource dependencies, lead industry-wide conversations on consumption, and transform their core business models toward circularity and service-based value propositions to ensure long-term viability.

The document outlines a step-by-step process for schools to perform food waste audits, including planning, data collection through student interviews and weighing, and a list of evidence-based prevention strategies to reduce waste and improve student nutrition.

The Carbon-CAP project assesses the effectiveness and feasibility of consumption-based carbon accounting (CBCA) and demand-side policies to address emissions embodied in trade. By analyzing sectors such as food, buildings, and transport, the report identifies a suite of promising policy instruments—ranging from regulatory standards to carbon-intensive material charges—that could potentially reduce the EU's carbon footprint by up to 48% theoretically, or 4-10% when accounting for realistic behavioral responses by 2050. The study emphasizes that while production-based policies are standard, CBCA provides a critical macro-level indicator of an economy's carbon intensity and the responsibility of consuming nations for global emissions.

The report examines the transition of the carpet industry toward a circular economy, focusing on the French and European markets. It finds that the vast majority of carpets end up in landfills or incinerators, with actual recycling rates for industry leaders like Interface and Desso being significantly lower than their public commitments. The document specifically highlights the 'scandal' of single-use carpets in the French events sector and provides recommendations for manufacturers, policymakers, and consumers to implement closed-loop systems and eco-design.