ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINTS AND LIFESTYLE ARCHETYPES: EXPLORING DIMENSIONS OF CONSUMPTION AND THE TRANSFORMATION NEEDED TO ACHIEVE URBAN SUSTAINABILITY

To achieve ecological sustainability, significant and absolute reductions are needed in demand on nature’s services to yield resources and assimilate wastes. Estimates range from a factor of five to ten. This translates to an 80% to 90% reduction in energy and materials flows through the global economy. Urban sustainability literature tends to focus on the built environment as a solution space for reducing energy and material demands; however, equally important is the consumption characteristics of the people who occupy the city. While size of dwelling and motor vehicle ownership are partially influenced by urban form, they are also influenced by cultural and socio-economic characteristics. Dietary choices and purchases of consumable goods are almost entirely driven by the latter. An important question, therefore, is what dimensions of transformation are needed in various forms of urban consumption for cities to become sustainable? I use international field data that document urban ways of living to develop lifestyle archetypes. I then couple this data with ecological footprint analysis to establish consumption benchmarks in the domains of: food, buildings, consumables, transportation, and water that correspond to various levels of demand on nature’s services. I also explore the dimensions of transformation that would be needed in each of these domains for the per capita consumption patterns of urban dwellers to achieve ecological sustainability. While there is tremendous variation across the international socio-economic spectrum, on average the dimensions of transformation needed in urban consumption commensurate with global per capita ecological sustainability include: a 73% reduction in household energy use, a 96% reduction in motor vehicle ownership, a 78% reduction in per capita vehicle kilometres travelled, and a 79% reduction in air kilometres travelled.