Unlocking the potential of demand side climate mitigation strategies

Demand-side climate mitigation strategies aim to influence demand for goods and services by end-users
in order to promote low-carbon consumption patterns and lifestyles. They can lead to significant
greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions across all sectors. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) estimates that demand-side mitigation strategies could potentially reduce GHG emissions
in key end-use sectors – buildings, land transport, and food – by 40-70% globally by 2050.
This paper presents work on demand-side mitigation policies carried out by the OECD and IEA over the
2023-2024 biennium. It provides overarching considerations for policymakers considering demand-side
strategies, as well as specific analysis on four sectors key to demand-side mitigation: energy use in
buildings, transport, diets, and waste.
Key messages

• Despite their mitigation potential, demand-side policies remain relatively underutilised to date.
  Encouraging behaviour change towards more sustainable choices is a key component of
  demand-side strategies.
• Policies aimed at low-carbon behaviour change need to take into account the most important
  factors influencing end-users’ decision-making: affordability, availability, and convenience. For
  example, promoting energy conservation through support for household investments in energy
  efficiency can drive demand-side change by addressing affordability concerns. Investing in
  infrastructure can shift transport towards greener options by improving the availability and
  convenience of low-carbon alternatives.
• Empowering people to make sustainable choices relies on providing them with clear and accurate
  information on the environmental impacts (e.g. carbon footprint)1 of goods and services. A variety
  of approaches is available to policymakers to improve the transparency and accuracy of this
  information, including regulation, business guidance, certification schemes, and consumer
  education.
• Policies aimed at extending product lifecycles can help to reduce material consumption and
  associated emissions. This includes measures to strengthen the right to repair and to tackle
  planned obsolescence and other barriers to product durability, reusability, and recyclability.
  Ensuring that products remain safe throughout their lengthened lifecycle is key.
• Behavioural science can enable governments to design and implement more effective
  interventions. Tools such as green defaults, social influences and choice architecture have been
  shown to be effective in promoting behaviour change across sectors.
• Demand-side policies should be tailored to specific sectoral requirements and features, for
  example:
  o Energy use in buildings: Effective demand-side approaches to reduce emissions from energy
  use in buildings require shifts to low-carbon technologies and actions to reduce energy
  consumption. Policy packages comprising financial incentives, information provision.

source:
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