We are very excited to start our newsletter series on the Horizon 2020 funded EU 1.5° Lifestyles project. From today onwards, we will inform you about all relevant news and insights regarding the mainstreaming of sustainable lifestyles in the European Union and beyond.
We know that to meet the 1.5° target of the Paris Climate Agreement lifestyles must change fundamentally. This primarily concerns the resource-intensive consumption areas of mobility, housing, food, and leisure. To help mainstream 1.5° lifestyles, our project connects an analysis of individual lifestyle perspectives with an investigation of structural influences on lifestyle choices and impacts. On that basis, we develop recommendations and tools for political decision-makers, households and intermediary actors. Prevalent behaviour-based approaches tend to make individual consumers responsible for addressing the climate crisis and meeting the 1.5° target, while neglecting the effects of politico-economic, societal and technological structures. At the same time, we do not sufficiently know which changes in everyday life are most impactful in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Combined with a low societal acceptance of drastic changes in lifestyles, this knowledge gap has led to uncoordinated and inefficient policy responses to date. Against this background, the EU 1.5° Lifestyles project quantifies lifestyle options and identifies necessary changes in relevant structures to enable impactful lifestyle changes.
We kicked our project off in May and are looking forward to sharing insights through this newsletter, our social media channels and our new website, that will all keep evolving as we progress with our research.
All the best,
Doris Fuchs and the entire EU 1.5° Lifestyles team