Sufficiency gains limited attention in Finnish climate policy on household consumption

Abstract

The affluent lifestyles of the Global North are pushing the carrying capacity of the Earth to its limits. Despite technical improvements in energy efficiency and decarbonation, the carbon footprint of an average Finn continues to exceed the sustainable level. To critically assess both social and ecological aspects of overconsumption in households, sufficiency has gained attention in the research and policy fields. However, there is limited research into the ways in which sufficiency has been implemented in national climate policies guiding household energy consumption. In this article, I analyse the presence of sufficiency politics and policies in the Finnish Medium-term Climate Change Policy Plans of 2017 and 2022. The aim of the study was to find out whether the plans include references to deeper transformation of the socio-political and economic system towards sufficiency and in what ways the plans expect to steer or influence carbon-intensive household consumption in housing, mobility and nutrition. A close reading of the plans was conducted by utilising a modified version of the analytical framework created by Callmer and Bradley (2021). The findings show that sufficiency has not yet gained ground in Finnish climate policy. The sufficiency politics and policies found in the plans were not well-articulated and relied mostly on voluntary change. The macro-level conditions for and the potential macroeconomic impact of voluntary consumption reduction are largely ignored. This highlights the tendency of Finnish public policy to normalise unsustainable ways of consuming energy by disregarding the role of markets and economic growth in accelerating climate change.