Hanna Eggestrand Vaughan, Tim Jackson (Photo: Peter Nygaard Christensen), Eskil Engström
The SCORAI Europe Conference 2025, a major international traveling conference on sustainable consumption, was held this year in Lund. Over four days, more than 500 researchers and other participants attended, making it the largest of its kind.
– Wow, how the world has changed in the past few months. That gives this meeting a new urgency. Matthias Lehner, researcher at Lund university and conference organizer, emphasized the rapidly changing global context in his opening speech.
During the following three days, hundreds of lectures and workshops were held for more than 500 participants, who came primarily from Europe but also from North America, India, and China. Around 30 researchers from the Mistra Sustainable Consumption research program, based at royal institute of technology, KTH in Sweden, gave presentations. One of them was PhD student Hanna Eggestrand, KTH, who spoke about values.
98 ways to reduce emissions
– That so many – including well-known participants – chose to attend, despite it being an early morning session, and then said they were glad they came, feels like a real mark of success to me. Especially considering how many other exciting things were happening at the same time, says Hanna Eggestrand Vaughan.
Another PhD student at KTH, Eskil Engström, gave a presentation on The Emergence of Consumption-based Greenhouse Gas Politics in Sweden. Together with his research colleagues, he has compiled 98 tips on how to reduce emissions in the Nordic countries.
Advisor to Tony Blair
The most well-known keynote speaker was Tim Jackson, economist and professor of sustainable development at the University of Surrey. Best known for his book Prosperity Without Growth (2009) and for having advised Tony Blair’s government, Jackson’s keynote at SCORAI focused on how to integrate care into our economy. “Prosperity is not about wealth, it’s about health” he repeated throughout his speech.
Manisha Anantharaman, assistant professor of sociology and raised in India, used her keynote speech to explore how consumption is intertwined with racism, capitalism, and colonialism.
Other KTH researchers who gave presentations included Mia Hesselgren on sustainable transport, Göran Finnveden and Åsa Svenfelt on what a sustainable society is and how we can achieve it, as well as Karin Bradley and Pernilla Hagbert on what a post-growth society could look like.
WATCH ALL KEYNOTE TALKS HERE:
Manisha Anantharaman
Frank Trentmann
Tim Jackson
FACTS – SCORAI Europe Conference 2025:
Number of participants:
471 in person
82 online
Number of vegan lunches served:
465 portions per day
Carbon emissions:
Just under 200 kg CO₂ per person, of which 80% came from air travel (preliminary figures). This is about 10% of the emissions typically associated with similar international conferences. The difference is mainly due to a significantly lower share of participants traveling by air.
Read more about SCORAI here.