Low carbon lifestyles: A framework to structure consumption strategies and options to reduce carbon footprints

There are many opportunities for consumers to design their lives more sustainably. While a rapidly body of literature has investigated how consumers can reduce carbon footprints in key con- areas, such as food, housing and mobility, an overall framework that allows structuring those across all consumption areas is still missing. Hence, this paper presents a novel and systematic to identify improvement options that promote climate change mitigation and structure them on their primary mode of impact on GHG emissions. The framework targets consumer practices focuses on ambitious, but technically and socioeconomically feasible strategies for consumers to their carbon footprint. Four major categories for reducing consumption-based emissions form the framework, which are then subdivided into behavioural strategies and sub-strategies. The practical of the framework is illustrated by using food consumption as an example. Systematically improvement options can advance a holistic understanding of the range of behavioural targeting consumer choices that operate at different stages in the supply chain. It thus provides starting point for addressing critical questions related to the role of consumers in supporting climate mitigation. (authors' abstract)