Sufficiency as a key driver of domestic and imported emissions reductions in France’s net-zero transition

Sufficiency is increasingly recognized as a core pillar of demand-side climate mitigation, alongside efficiency improvements and end-use electrification. Yet it’s specific contribution to reducing a country’s carbon footprint—including emissions embodied in imports—remains insufficiently understood in national transition scenarios. Here, we quantify the mitigation potential of sufficiency measures across transportation, buildings, food, and other consumption domains in France, and compare their impacts with those of efficiency and electrification in four contrasting societal transition scenarios towards net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050. We identify and isolate measures corresponding to sufficiency, efficiency, and electrification from fully quantified scenarios, and assess their effects on both production- and consumption-based GHG emissions using a national environmentally extended input-output model. Our results show that sufficiency measures alone can deliver up to 25% reduction in both production and consumption-based emissions by 2050 relative to a trend scenario. They also substantially curb imported emissions: for every ton of CO2e avoided domestically, an additional ∼1.40 tCO2e can be avoided abroad, whereas efficiency and electrification measures generate almost exclusively territorial reductions. Sufficiency achieves the largest impacts by reducing emissions from food, road and air travel, and energy use in buildings, while also significantly lowering demand for construction materials and transport equipment. Notably, sufficiency decreases material demand and the related emissions—mostly embodied in imports—at least as much as it reduces emissions from direct energy use in transport and buildings sectors. These findings highlight the importance of adopting a consumption-based perspective to fully capture the contribution of sufficiency in reducing country-driven climate impacts.