Assessing Lifestyle Transformations and Their Systemic Effects in Energy-System and Integrated Assessment Models: A Review of Current Methods and Data

Abstract

Achieving the ambitious climate targets required to limit global warming to 1.5 °C requires a deep transformation of the supply-and-demand side of energy–environmental–economic systems. Recent articles have shown that environmentally sustainable consumer behaviors driven by lifestyle changes can significantly contribute to climate-change mitigation and sustainable development goals. However, lifestyle changes are not adequately captured by scenarios developed with integrated assessment and energy-system models (IAMs/ESMs), which provide limited policy insights. This article conducts a systematic review of the IAM and ESM literature to identify the most important lifestyle changes in current mitigation pathways for the residential and transport sectors, review the employed state-of-the-art modeling approaches and scenario assumptions, and propose improvements to existing methodological frameworks. The review finds that mode shifts towards public transport and active transport modes, shared mobility, and eco-driving have the greatest impact in the transport sector, while actions that reduce space and water-heating requirements and the circular economy are the most effective practices in households. Common modeling approaches lack sophistication as they omit (1) the dynamics and costs of demand-side transitions, (2) the heterogenous responses of different consumer groups, and (3) the structural effects of lifestyles on the macro-economy. New approaches employing innovative methodologies combined with big data collected from users offer new avenues to overcome these challenges and improve the modeling of lifestyle changes in large-scale models.

Carbon Neutral Lifestyles and NDCs: Advice and Policy Perspectives

“…To successfully pursue this important mission, it is essential to uptake and disseminate circular economy practices, given that through this model it is possible to increase the efficiency of resources, without compromising the level of services provided (Andreas Andreou, 2022). In fact, today, with the growing globalization and the availability of low-cost raw materials, the manufacturing industry is highly resourceintensive and makes extensive use of primary raw materials; meanwhile, consumers are increasingly driven to adopt non-sustainable consumption practices, leading to a very short product lifetime and sales prices that do not embody environmental costs: all this results in an unmanageable quantity of waste, high rates of pollution and the impoverishment of the quality of the soil, deprived of its resources.…”

“…In this regard, it is fundamental to inform policy makers and the society, which constitutes the ultimate stakeholder of the implemented policies, on the importance of incorporating lifestyle advice into the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) of the countries adhering to the Project, to highlight the feasibility and potential impact that these policies would have in selected sectors 3 . In fact, it is now known that consumer-led transitions positively contribute not only to the reduction of greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions, but also to the achievement of wider Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (Andreas Andreou, 2022), and therefore it turns out to be essential to operationally improve the contribution that citizens can have to reach the climate and sustainability objectives.…”

Endogenous simulation of low-carbon lifestyle change in global climate mitigation pathways

“…IAMs do not directly model behaviour nor its cognitive drivers which presents a unique challenge to endogenizing low-carbon lifestyles [49,50]. Exogenous 'work-arounds' use qualitative scenario narratives of lifestyle change translated into exogenously-imposed quantitative changes in energy service demands (activity levels like passenger kilometres of mobility) or other demand-related parameters within the IAM [10,36].…”