The Mistra Sustainable Consumption programme concludes in 2025. As scientific publishing takes time, several academic articles will be published after the programme has ended. We also expect that a number of doctoral candidates who have been active within the programme will defend their PhD theses in the coming years. In addition, several researchers involved in the programme have secured funding for projects that wholly or partly build on the programme.
Below is a selection of these projects, with the responsible principal investigator listed for each:
Strong policy instruments for aviation and food
The policy instruments analysed include, among others, taxes on air travel and red meat, combined with the use of revenues either earmarked for climate investments or redistributed so that everyone receives an equal per-capita rebate. The analyses focus on the economic effects on different income groups as well as on public acceptance of various policy designs.
Project Manager: Jörgen Larsson, Chalmers University of Technology
Post-growth entrepreneurship – exploring the role of firms in an economy beyond growth
The project Post-growth entrepreneurship – exploring the role of firms in an economy beyond growth aims to develop and concretise a new research field on post-growth business models. It seeks to produce theoretical, methodological and practical tools for understanding how firms can operate and thrive within planetary boundaries without being dependent on economic growth. The project will also map empirical examples of such business models and identify institutional enablers of transformation.
Project Manager: Oksana Mont, Lund University
Project link: https://postgrowthbusiness.blogg.lu.se/
Decarbonisation through digitalisation? Understanding and improving the climate impacts of digital lifestyles
This project investigates the impacts of digitalisation on greenhouse gas emissions, with a focus on consumption patterns. It aims to analyse how digitalisation currently affects emissions and to use these data to predict future impacts.
Project link: https://portal.research.lu.se/sv/projects/decarbonisation-through-digitalization-understanding-and-improvin/
Project Manager: Matthias Lehner, Lund University
Exnovation for sufficiency: Exploring pathways towards future low-carbon consumption
Efforts to promote sustainable consumption often focus on introducing innovations. However, this risks overlooking the need to phase out unsustainable structures, policy instruments, practices and products. This project therefore questions whether innovation—the introduction of something new—is the only pathway towards a sufficiency-oriented society, and explores how exnovation—the removal of existing elements—can contribute to future consumption aligned with climate targets.
Project link: https://www.ri.se/sv/expertisomraden/projekt/framtida-konsumtion-med-lag-klimatpavekan
Project Manager: Sara Renström, RISE
Behaviour, culture and climate: Exploring drivers of climate-friendly behaviour to strengthen policy and planning
This project examines the drivers of climate-friendly behaviours among households in Sweden by combining consumption data with register and neighbourhood-level data. The researchers analyse how local environmental norms, identity and area-specific conditions relate to sustainable lifestyle choices, and how these are connected to mobility patterns and childhood variables. The results will identify conditions that enable more sustainable lifestyles and the factors influencing them.
Project Managers: Göran Finnveden, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, and David Andersson, Chalmers University of Technology
Forward-looking evaluation of sustainable consumption
There is a need to develop a knowledge base for monitoring the impacts of final consumption and for designing and implementing reduction targets. This project aims to propose a flexible and user-friendly framework for countries to analyse policies that can be implemented on both the consumption and production sides in order to achieve consumption-based targets. The framework is illustrated through applications to two different countries, Sweden and Luxembourg, to demonstrate its flexibility and usefulness.
Project link: https://www.vr.se/swecris.html?project=2024-00165_Formas
Project managers: Thomas Gibon, Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology, and Göran Finnveden, KTH Royal Institute of Technology
Policy-relevant calculations of the environmental impacts of consumption
The overall aim of this project is to improve data and methods for calculating consumption-based emissions and to test these in policy-relevant future scenarios. The project will increase the level of detail in food-related data, improve data on emissions from aviation and from the use of biofuels, and test a model currently being developed by Eurostat for potential continued use in official statistics. Furthermore, methods for integrating future scenarios into the methodology currently used by Statistics Sweden (SCB) will be developed and tested across several types of scenarios.
Project link: https://www.kth.se/seed/forskning/alg/pagaende-forskningsprojekt/policyrelevanta-berakningar-av-konsumtionens-klimatpaverkan-pram-seed-1.1417658
Project manager: Göran Finnveden, KTH Royal Institute of Technology
Negotiating pathways to achieve the Paris Agreement
To what extent can a radical climate transition be achieved through different forms of societal transformation, and what would this entail for different groups in society? Through economic modelling combined with policy analysis and participatory processes at multiple levels—from households and local communities to the societal level—researchers at IVL, Chalmers University of Technology, KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Uppsala University explore sustainable consumption corridors that meet the goals of the Paris Agreement.
Project manager: Mikael Malmaeus, IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute
Demarketing Agency – Communication for reduced consumption
To transition towards a more sustainable world, consumption must decrease. This involves practising what is sometimes referred to as sufficiency—being content with less. In this project, students at Berghs School of Communication, together with the project team at KTH, develop advertising campaigns aimed at reducing consumption. These campaigns will then be used by, for example, the Gothenburg Region, which is a co-applicant and actively involved in designing several campaigns, films and graphic materials. The background is that Swedish municipalities are legally required to work towards minimising waste generation, i.e. reducing new consumption.
Project manager: Karin Bradley, KTH Royal Institute of Technology
Action-oriented reflexive trust: A collaborative project to strengthen sustainability communication and reduce knowledge resistance
The aim of this project is to develop and test new ways of communicating and engaging with sustainability knowledge, in order to reduce the gap between scientific evidence and people’s actual behaviour. The project addresses climate, food and chemicals issues and builds on previous studies showing that people need both trust in science as a process and socio-cultural and identity-based recognition in order to translate knowledge into action. The project is a collaboration between Lund University and the non-profit organisation Vetenskap & Allmänhet (Public & Science). Together, the partners co-create, test and study methods through workshops and pilot activities within V&A’s ongoing initiatives. The outcome will be a “toolbox for reflexive trust in science”, a practice-oriented book and scientific articles, all aimed at strengthening future sustainability communication.
Project manager: Mikael Klintman, Lund University, in collaboration with the organisation Vetenskap & Allmänhet