An analysis of initiatives that enable lifestyle change and how the sufficiency thrust can be further strengthened.

It has become cold! This is not only evident from the thickly wrapped people on the street, but especially clear in the fields. Tomatoes have long since stopped ripening here by the kilo per day and the variety has declined. It is the time of cabbage, carrots and beetroot. The members of the solidarity-based farming initiative “Meh als Gmües” are often in the fields to help produce their vegetables. One of them is Désirée. She knows exactly what winter means for the choice of vegetables on the plate and therefore evaluates the diverse and colourful offer in the supermarkets – we still find it there – very critically. “Meh als Gmües” has a lot to do with sufficiency. This is about a less resource-intensive consumption and lifestyle (regional, seasonal and organic cultivation of vegetables) – while maintaining or even improving the quality of life. The vegetables are simply more beautiful in an individual way and taste particularly intense. The joy of vegetables is just as important to Désirée as the contribution she can make to climate protection. The initiative is just one of around 200 examples that the Risk Dialogue Foundation, together with CDE researchers from the University of Bern, investigated throughout Switzerland and Europe as part of the “Energy Research in the City of Zurich” programme. The aim was firstly to analyse how such initiatives promote sufficiency behaviour at the individual level, secondly to identify which initiatives are particularly interesting in order to win more people over to a sufficiency lifestyle, and thirdly to find out what the public sector can contribute.

The study shows that the use of these offers and initiatives can bring about behavioural changes among members in the direction of a more resource-efficient lifestyle. Solidarity-based agriculture (see introductory example) in particular strengthens resource-conserving food consumption, while sharing, swapping and repairing significantly increases the use and lifespan of objects. The more people participate, the greater the overall social impact on reducing energy and resource consumption. But this is easier said than done, because it can be difficult for individual initiatives to do justice to so many different interests. Some, for example, find repairing fun and appreciate the social exchange, others are happy about sustainable shopping opportunities with a high shopping experience, like ReTuna in Sweden enables, or they value good availability of cargo bikes. For this very reason, there is a need for a concentration of attractive, easily accessible services and initiatives that can be integrated into everyday life in order to attract additional users. The diversity of the different offers and initiatives is important in order to enable many different people to live more resource-efficient lifestyles.

However, the challenges that an initiative faces are numerous. They range from diverse administrative and organisational activities, such as finding premises, to communication and member acquisition – mostly in the context of voluntary work. Initiatives are therefore dependent on support from networks, platforms and umbrella organisations, both in their foundation and in their further development. These can provide assistance to individuals, strengthen synergies between different initiatives and raise public awareness of the issue. Successful support is provided, for example, by Repair Cafe Switzerland with a starter package to facilitate start-ups in particular, or the Solawi Cooperation Office with its workshops for initiators and public information events (see current event).

For cross-thematic networking and support between initiatives, again APRES GE offers an attractive proposition. The potential leverage of networks, platforms and umbrella organisations is thus great. The city of Zurich also has various measures open to it to promote such initiatives even more. Among other things, it can support initiatives in making their ideas known to the public. However, the strategic promotion of initiatives with the thrust of sufficiency requires political legitimacy, which should be clarified. The study provides numerous examples of exciting initiatives, insight into the needs of users and the challenges faced by initiatives. It also discusses starting points for how the public sector or third parties, e.g. foundations, can already support services and initiatives that promote sufficiency.

Analysis of voluntary offers and initiatives related to sufficiency behaviour.

Moser S., Schmidt S., Bader Ch., Mack V., Osuna E., Holenstein M. 2018. Analysis of voluntary offers and initiatives related to sufficiency behaviour. A research project within the framework of Energieforschung Stadt Zürich. Report No. 52, Research Project FP-1.18.