How do we all get to a shared ambition around sustainable and equitable living?

Most climate campaigns are overly optimistic about what sustainable and equitable living might look like in a climate-constrained future. Many of us are limited by positive visualizations of towns and cities powered by green energy and reduced car use. However, keeping the global temperature rise within 1.5 degrees Celsius requires radical reductions in material consumption, especially for the world’s relatively wealthy. Are we all truly on board for the recalibration of consumption this implies? And – what might we be gaining from this transition?

The Hot or Cool Institute initiated work on the Compass for Sustainable Living to help set the agenda on sustainable and equitable living moving forward. OneEarth Living is one of the key partners, including on communication and messaging.

In 2021, we held two collaborative, interactive events for an invited group of practitioners, researchers and funders working at the cutting-edge of ambition in this area. The Compass Festival resulted in the creation of a shared “compass”: an ambitious statement of beliefs that helps set the agenda and direction for our work on sustainable and equitable living.

By converging on a guiding compass, or baseline of ambition and commitment, the goal is to collectively elevate our work on sustainable living into the mainstream climate discourse, with the highest level of ambition and clarity. The creation of a shared compass enables those working in the area of sustainable and equitable lifestyles to converge on action areas for collaboration, including taking this work deeper into mainstream climate policy processes. 

The Compass derives from the following assumptions:

• Achieving the global goal of staying within 1.5°C necessitates drastic reductions in average household consumption to 2.5 tons per person by 2030 and 0.7 tons per person by 2050.
• Emissions from consumption are unequal within countries and between countries. The top 10% of income earners generate nearly half of global emissions. The top 1% of income earners generates 15% of global emissions, more than double that of the bottom 50%.
• Systemic change is required, including transformational policy progress that creates the social and technical infrastructure for sustainable living, as well as civil society and institutional leadership in shifting norms and practices.

This work is inspired by recent reports on sustainable and equitable living, including the UN Emissions Gap Report’s Chapter 6 on the role of equitable low-carbon lifestyles, which brought mainstream attention to the need for radically reduced consumption, especially by the more affluent parts of society.

The key Compass points are:

1. That deep and rapid change is needed, and possible with a shift in power.
2. Transition will only succeed with equity, justice and commitment at its core.
3. Lifestyles that raise the chances of health and well-being for everyone can be built in many different, creative ways within climate and ecological limits (such as 0,7t CO2e per person annually by 2050).
4. Life is about much more than our material possessions. This simple truth is woven through history, across cultures and is central to many indigenous and marginalised communities. People value relationships, health, trust, meaning, place and belonging, joy and time.
5. Small reforms or isolated behaviour changes are not enough. Transformation arises from citizens working together, collectively for change, enabled by systems designed to support them, backed by business and policymakers.
6. The richest do the most climate damage – the top 10% causing close to 50% of emissions. But the poorest are most vulnerable, so climate action must be fair and recognize our mutual vulnerability and interdependence. This means innovative action for deep change by the wealthy.
7. Momentum for change comes from collaboration and connecting different interests and approaches to reinforce each other.

→ Visit the Hot or Cool project website and the overview of the Compass Festivals