why humanity must get on board with the concept of ‘sufficiency’

Humanity’s rapacious consumption is more than Earth and its climate can handle, which is driving an ecological crisis. Australians are the worst offenders per person due to our excessive resource use.

At the same time, people in some parts of the world lack the material goods to meet their basic needs, while many people in wealthier societies have more than enough to live comfortably.

That’s where the concept of “sufficiency” can help. It’s a policy approach gaining momentum around the world. It aims to avoid demand for energy, materials, land and water, and ensure wellbeing for all humans, while staying within planetary boundaries.

What does this mean in practice? Workplaces closer to homes, public transport systems that everyone can access and afford, and reducing cars on the road. Sharing building spaces. Providing enough housing, goods, clothing and food to meet our needs, but not exceed them.

Sufficiency involves, among other things, reducing cars on the road. Shutterstock

What is ‘sufficiency’?

Sufficiency is a whole-of-government approach that aims to create the structural change needed for societies to consume less overall. It also seeks to ensure wellbeing for all people, not just the affluent.

It requires reassessing our needs and the ways they can be met. It requires policies with firm targets and supporting infrastructure, to foster change in individuals and businesses.

Sufficiency is not the same as efficiency, which is about producing more of a good or service with less energy, time or materials – often achieved through technological innovation.

Unlike sufficiency, efficiency does not avoid or reduce overall demand to a point where humanity is operating within Earth’s limits. Nor does it explicitly focus on reducing inequality.

Most governments around the world are yet to adopt sufficiency as a defining policy feature. But progress is being made.

A concept gaining momentum

In 2022, a major report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change highlighted the need for sufficiency measures in the built environment sector, to contain global warming to 1.5°C.

It said up to 61% of global building emissions could be mitigated by 2050 if a range of measures were implemented, including “[s]ufficiency policies that avoid the demand for energy and materials”.

France enshrined sufficiency in its energy law in 2015. French energy authorities say sufficiency measures, such as lower energy use in households and less travel, may enable emissions cuts of 10% by 2030.

And in March this year, 83 organisations in Europe released a manifesto urging the European Union to make sufficiency central to its agenda.

I co-founded the Paris-based World Sufficiency Lab, which researches and promotes the sufficiency concept. Here, I outline how sufficiency policies could be applied in Australia in three key areas.

The IPCC says sufficiency policies avoid the demand for energy and materials. Shutterstock

1. Clothing

Australians are the world’s biggest textile consumers, buying an average 56 new items per person each year.

In response, the federal government’s Seamless scheme has proposed a levy of 4 cents per item applied to clothing importers and Australian manufacturers. The money would be spent on measures to reduce clothing waste.

The scheme falls far short of measures in some other jurisdictions.

The EU’s much stronger textile strategy, for example, aims to ensure that, by 2030, all clothes for sale are long-lived and recyclable. It would also make producers responsible for a product over its entire life, including when it becomes waste.

This strategy is moving closer towards a sufficiency approach, and the goal of reducing the overall production and purchase of clothes.

2. Food

Each year, Australians waste around 7.6 million tonnes of food, equal to around 312 kilograms per person.

The National Food Waste Strategy aims to halve food waste by 2030, largely by focusing on food rescue.

But these policies are not strong enough to tackle the scale of the problem. A German study last year found limiting global warming to 1.5°C requires limiting the carbon footprint of our diets by 84% by 2050.

A sufficiency approach would go further to tackle over-consumption – perhaps even through direct government intervention.

For example, in 2020, China brought in anti-food waste laws. Under the measures, restaurants can charge an extra fee to customers leaving excessive uneaten food. Restaurants that consistently waste large quantities of food may also be fined.

Australians waste around 7.6 million tonnes of food a year. Shutterstock

3. Transport

Transport was responsible for 21% of Australia’s emissions last year.

A sufficiency policy in transport would aim to bring about structural change. For example, it would shift thinking away from the traditional assumption that mobility equates to wellbeing.

It would embrace digital alternatives to travel, such as online meetings. It would also ensure urban planning that locates people and places closer together – and provides good public transport infrastructure.

As the European sufficiency manifesto has outlined, governments should also tackle aviation emissions by, for example, prohibiting air travel where there is a train alternative and introducing a frequent flyer levy.

In line with the sufficiency concept, efforts to reduce transport emissions must prioritise affordable, accessible transport systems for the disadvantaged and vulnerable.

Making sufficiency mainstream

Sufficiency is about more than saving the planet. It can tackle global inequality, improve our wellbeing and reduce the cost of living.

But many countries, including Australia, are yet to include sufficiency as a mainstream policy lever.

This must change. Time is running out to address many of Earth’s most pressing problems. But creating societies with sufficiency at their core means getting governments on board.

The author gratefully acknowledges Brooke Ferguson for her substantial contribution to this article.