Voluntary social movements and sufficiency policies for climate change adaptation

In the environmental policy discourse, we can notice how concepts such as ‘consumption’, ‘lifestyles’ and ‘green growth’ are gaining ground. This reflects the mounting concerns that we cannot solve our global sustainability challenges merely through strategies based on growth, even when the growth is perceived to be ‘green’. Indeed, the evidence is mounting that our desire for increased consumption levels will constantly outpace improvements in socio-technical systems, and that this state of affairs is not likely to change. ¹ Thus, whatever is achieved by efficiency and decoupling approaches will be negated by increasing consumption volumes due to direct and indirect rebound effects. ²