A Need for Sufficiency in the Built Environment: Prospective Life Cycle Assessment of the Austrian Building Stock

Around 38% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are related to buildings. In Austria, most building-related industries designed roadmaps to net zero GHG emissions by 2050. However, there is little evidence whether this will be enough to stay within the climate limits, or if a more drastic approach is needed. In this paper we investigate the potential need for sufficiency in the built environment to stay within the latest 1.5-2°C carbon budget, including expected future technological developments. We implement a set of energy and industry transition scenarios to a building stock model, including an increase in circularity, and compare the resulting carbon emissions (both operational and embodied) with the carbon budget. Results show that, even with ambitious decarbonization pathways for Austrian industry, the projected rates of construction do not allow for staying within the carbon budget. On the contrary, additional sufficiency measures such as slightly reducing the average living area per person are a great lever for reducing GHG emissions and, with carbon removal, might be the only options left to comply with the climate targets.