Energy sufficiency and recognition justice: a study of household consumption

Abstract

The energy ‘crisis’ in Switzerland during the winter of 2022–23 highlighted the need to integrate the idea of sufficiency into previously efficiency-focused discourses and policies. A mixed-methods approach was used to explore emerging sufficiency practices and energy justice. Qualitative interviews (n = 28) with a diverse range of households and building management companies (‘régies’) in Geneva, as well as a quantitative online survey, were undertaken in 2023. It was found that different measures and recommendations did lead to efforts to reduce energy consumption, but also revealed flaws as practices typically lacked an energy justice perspective. Important discrepancies occurred between low-and high-income groups, tenants and owners, inhabitants of houses and apartments. These included a misrecognition of some residents’ vulnerabilities, their limited agency and a lack of acknowledgment of differentiated responsibilities. This led to a negative impact on the implementation of sufficiency. Some residents were marginalised: feeling anxious, disregarded, powerless, belittled and hence excluded from collective sufficiency efforts.