FRESCO

Inspiration

A significant portion of a country’s carbon emissions results from the production of goods and services that are then consumed by citizens or businesses. This includes emissions associated with the production of imported goods as well as emissions associated with the domestic production of goods consumed by other countries. 

However, common production-based accounting overlooks these consumption-related emissions, limiting a country’s decarbonation potential. Understanding the impact of final consumption and designing reduction targets is therefore essential. This need aligns with the UN Sustainable Development Goal 12: Responsible Consumption and Production, particularly target 12.8, which calls for ensuring people everywhere have the information and awareness for sustainable development and lifestyles.

Innovation

Reaching a consumption-based emission target requires a specific combination of economic strategies and end-use policies while accounting for changes in the surrounding economy in the medium-term. Flexible tools are therefore needed to analyze the potential consequences of economic, energy, technological, social and behavioural measures and policies.

FRESCO aims at proposing a flexible and user-friendly framework for countries to analyze policies from both a consumption perspective (households’ and administrations’ consumption patterns) and a production perspective (economy, industry, agriculture and service sectors) to reach consumption-based emission targets. Finally, the researchers will exemplify the framework by applying it to two different countries, Sweden and Luxembourg, to demonstrate flexibility and usability.

Impact

By providing a tool to explore the consequences of different policy measures, FRESCO has the ambition to support countries in achieving their consumption-based emission targets. The framework allows policymakers to understand how changes in consumption and production, as well as broader economic and technological developments, influence carbon footprints, enabling informed decision-making and effective strategies to reduce emissions.