8 ton society Sweden : Assessing the material footprint of sharing and circular lifestyles in housing,mobility and food

• The average Swedish household throws away 480 kg of solid garbage per year. But this amount of material is only a small share of the resource consumption that our lifestylegives rise to. Our homes need to be built, goods produced, we are transported,and food is produced. In today's linear consumption society, every individual inthe EU is estimated to have a material footprint of 29 tons/year on average – afootprint that needs to shrink to 8 tons in order to stay within “planetaryboundaries”. In a circular system, products are recycled and shared leading toless resources and materials needed, but do we know how much? Which resourceand material consumption is generated in Sweden? What could we achieve througha transition to a sharing and circular economy, and how would our consumptionpatterns look like within a sustainable material lifestyle? The goal of thisstudyis to assess the material footprint of sharing and circular lifestyles inhousing, mobility and food system. "8 ton society" takes athree-level method approach: (1) National: assessing the material footprint ofsharing and circular lifestyles in housing, mobility and food systems on anational level. (2) Municipal: Mapping material and waste streams at municipallevel (for the three Swedish municipalities Göteborg, Malmö och Umeå), by whichmunicipalities can identify opportunities for a circular society, for exampleby supplementing existing climate strategies and waste plans with circularaction plans. (3) Household: Combined with a household level analysis ofmaterial footprints, the project contributes to behavioral change at householdlevel as well as strengthened decision making and innovation at national andmunicipal level. The results of the study are material footprints and scenariosthat are used as basis for the development of reduction measures. The scenariosdescribe potential “8t societies” for Sweden, meaning potential policy andsocietal innovations that allow for a drastic reduction of material footprint.These include sharing and circular solutions. Additionally, the project willcontrast the Swedish results to similar projects that have been carried out in Finland and Germany.

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap -- Miljövetenskap (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Earth and Related Environmental Sciences -- Environmental Sciences (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap -- Tvärvetenskapliga studier inom samhällsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences -- Social Sciences Interdisciplinary (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

material footprint

houseold

lifestyle

sharing

cirkular

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