M-2E - Reducing Overall Demand for Product Services
Reducing the demand for product services involves encouraging behavioural and societal changes that lower the overall consumption of goods and services by promoting sufficiency. Sufficiency strategies emphasise meeting human needs with fewer resources, avoiding overconsumption, and prioritising minimalism or simpler lifestyles. This includes downsizing material needs, reducing unnecessary purchases, and shifting towards lifestyles that require less material consumption. By reducing overconsumption and moving towards less resource-intensive behaviours, industries can lower the demand for new product manufacturing, which in turn decreases the energy and materials required for production, leading to significant reductions in emissions and resource use.
Mitigation Potential¶
TBD.
Mitigation Options¶
Chapter 11 (IPCC AR6 WG3 2022)1 discusses feedstock switching mitigation options for the industry sector which are indexed in the table below.
- Sufficiency – behavioural changes to reduce demand for material stocks: Encouraging changes in consumption habits, such as smaller living spaces, less material-intensive lifestyles, and reduced demand for new products, which lowers the need for new materials
| Index | Title | Section(s) | Sub-sector(s) | TE(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| M-2E.1 | Shift to a sufficiency behaviour | AR5 10.4 | ||
| M-2E.2 | Reducing overall demand for product services | AR5 Box 10.2 | ||
Emissions¶
See TBD.
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IPCC AR6 WG3. 2022. Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Edited by Priyadarshi R. Shukla, Jim Skea, Raphael Slade, Alaa Al Khourdajie, Renée van Diemen, David McCollum, Minal Pathak, et al. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009157926. ↩