How Municipalities can Support Local Sufficiency Initiatives

In the FULFILL project, the Wuppertal Institute, together with European partner organisations, is researching civil society initiatives that advocate for sufficiency lifestyles. In a new policy brief, the researchers outline how such initiatives can be supported politically. The paper is based on an analysis of 50 local initiatives in five EU member states and India. It contains suggestions for short-, medium- and long-term measures:

• In the short term, strategic niche management (SNM) can help, that is, creating spaces in which alternative lifestyles can be developed and tested – and where sufficiency initiatives would be temporarily protected from prevailing selection pressures within growth-oriented, unsustainable urban systems.
• In the medium term, metrics and indicators for climate-neutral satisfaction of human needs can enable targeted, evidence-based development of sufficiency governance.
• In the long term, a change in framework conditions is necessary to enable the emergence and stabilisation of sustainable urban structures and practices.

The policy brief and a one-page executive summary are available for download free of charge via the link below.

FULFILL has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.