In the wake of Europe’s heavy dependence on resources, which poses a threat not only to the climate but also to its own sovereignty, EERA, together with more than 80 European organisations, co-signed a manifesto for sufficiency in Europe, notably calling for sufficiency policies to be urgently integrated as a cornerstone of the new EU strategic agenda.

Sufficiency is essential for boosting the continent’s resilience to various risks, reducing costs, enhancing competitiveness, ensuring the attainment of key climate and energy objectives, and contributing to a more sustainable society.

Against this backdrop, with the upcoming European elections quickly approaching in June, along with the EU Council discussing the post-election strategic agenda in a few weeks’ time, EERA has joined a coalition spanning civil society, academia, local governments, businesses, and public operators in urging the next EU mandate to tackle Europe's resource dependencies with sufficiency to address pressing security, climate, and social challenges.

Sufficiency remains a key priority for the EERA research community. Namely, EERA’s recently published report on Energy Demand Reduction asserts that the most effective methods to reduce energy demand in the long term, which remains essential for meeting key EU targets of the energy transition, climate mitigation, and strategic autonomy, incorporates a combination of three key demand reduction strategies, namely energy sufficiency, along with behavioural change and energy efficiency. In this regard, energy sufficiency seeks to guarantee a sufficient level of well-being throughout the process of reducing the absolute number of resources used for producing energy services.

In a broader context, this timely manifesto signifies a clear call to action for lawmakers: Europe’s demand for resources needs to be structurally transformed, and sufficiency strategies are key to drive this transformation.

Download the full Sufficiency Manifesto, co-signed by EERA, here.

Discover the press release here.