How to live on a shared and finite planet? A new booklet by Friends of the Earth Europe explores this question in relation to the vision of 'sufficiency'. This implies a new direction for society, in which a reduction in resource use among affluent countries opens up the opportunity for the global poor to obtain their fair share of the global commons.
To revert the current ecological overshoot and build a sustainable society, we have to collectively engage in changing our economic model. “Sufficiency: moving beyond the gospel of eco-efficiency” suggests introducing hard limitations to unsustainable trends—in particular to overconsumption—and putting emphasis on distributional justice.
Seven chapters written by sustainability and economics experts plus a foreword by Janez Potočnik (Co-chair of the International Resource Panel and former European Commissioner for the Environment) shed light on different angles of sufficiency and formulate concrete recommendations to EU policy makers. The booklet ends with a discussion of several eco-social policies that can start the transition towards an "economics of enough".
Many new ideas for an economic paradigm shift have been developed and discussed at the academic and grassroots levels in recent years. The aim of this booklet is to build on a rich body of knowledge and bring these ideas to the attention of engaged citizens and policy makers in order to advance the debate on how to implement sufficiency.
To download the booklet as a PDF, visit: http://www.foeeurope.org/sufficiency
Original source / Image credit: Friends of the Earth Europe