Mainstreaming 1.5 Degrees Lifestyles

There is no doubt we need to change our lifestyles and re-evaluate what resources we use and how we consume them. The Paris Agreement and the EU Green Deal have set up a collection of climate targets, with 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial temperatures as the climate goal. This requires action from various stakeholders, from politicians and entrepreneurs to individual consumers.

Obstacles to lifestyle changes and how to overcome them

Lifestyle choices affect our carbon footprint. And political, economic, and social contexts enable or constrain sustainable lifestyle options. This project aimed to connect an analysis of individual lifestyle perspectives, on household level, with policies and socio-economic structures, on all levels from international to local.
It addressed three issues which have hampered previous attempts to realise lifestyle changes: 

• limitations in quantitative data on how different lifestyles could mitigate climate change;
• a lack of evidence of public acceptance of drastic changes;
• past policies that promoted individual behaviour changes but forgot to address structural constraints.

A team of nine partners from Germany, Sweden, Finland, Latvia, Spain, the Netherlands and Hungary were working together in this EU-funded project.

How does the team work?

The aim was to provide policies and tools for mainstreaming 1,5 Lifestyles. The broad approach is outlined in this infographic. 

First, the climate and health impacts of shifting our lifestyles were quantified. In addition, a qualitative analysis on low-carbon transformative strategies for households was conducted. Constraints and barriers to sustainable lifestyle changes were analysed and potential risks of lifestyle changes to economic and welfare systems were assessed. Finally, the aim was to communicate and engage with actors in order to help them adopt transformative approaches to achieve 1.5-degree lifestyles.