Sustainability strategies are mechanisms that contribute to achieving sustainability and are well-established in the field of sustainability science. Originally, the term centered on a triad introduced by Joseph Huber,[1][2] encompassing efficiency, consistency, and sufficiency. Each of these strategies has since developed its own school of thought, emphasizing different merits and contributions to sustainability.
The main mechanisms can be described as:
Sufficiency focuses on reducing consumption and production without threatening human needs. Sufficiency is often discussed in the context of the degrowth paradigm of sustainability.[3][4]
Efficiency aims to reduce resource use, energy consumption, or pollution per unit of production within existing production and consumption systems. It is often considered to share an elective affinity with the green growth paradigm.[5][6]
Consistency involves shifting to new industrial metabolisms that are more consistent with nature’s metabolism and hence cause less environmental damage.[1][2] This strategy is implicitly advocated by the circular economy approach.
In recent years, scholars have expanded the concept to explore the interrelations, potentials, and limitations of these strategies.[7] A comprehensive conceptual framework was introduced by Eric Hartmann, defining sustainability strategies as mechanisms that help guarantee central human capabilities or limit and reduce environmental impacts, thereby promoting both intergenerational and intragenerational justice.[8] Sustainability, in this view, is achieved when all individuals can satisfy fundamental human needs while environmental impacts remain within safe thresholds. The framework identifies ten sustainability strategies, divided into two categories.
Intergenerational strategies (focusing on reducing and limiting environmental impacts):
Population Reduction: Reducing population growth voluntarily through, for instance, better family planning and reproductive healthcare.[9]
Sufficiency: Consuming and producing less—to cut down on unnecessary environmental impacts without harming central capabilities.[3][4]
Efficiency Increase: Producing a certain amount of goods with fewer resources and less pollution—think improved fuel efficiency in cars or energy-saving appliances.[5]
Capability Empowerment: Targeting essential areas like nutrition, healthcare, and education so that people can live dignified, healthy lives.[11]
Equalization: Ensuring fair access to resources and reducing extreme inequality, so that one group’s overconsumption doesn’t deprive others of the basics.[12]
Eco-Efficiency Increase: Increased possibilities of production and consumption through efficiency, consistency and regeneration may specifically help those in need.[5]
Impact Expansion: Where resources are far below environmental limits, allowing increased production, consumption and environmental impacts to support human development—historically significant but strongly constrained today.[13]
Population Reduction (again): Distributing environmental impacts and produced goods on a smaller population might foster central capabilities.[9]
Together, these strategies form an integrative framework for fostering sustainability in practical implementation. Further research is necessary to understand potentials and limitations of different strategies in diverse areas of sustainability.[8]
^ abcWeizsäcker, E. U., A. B. Lovins, and L. H. Lovins. 1998. Factor Four: Doubling Wealth, Halving Resource Use: A Report to the Club of Rome. Routledge.
^Rudolf, M., and M. Schmidt. 2025. “Efficiency, Sufficiency and Consistency in Sustainable Development: Reassessing Strategies for Reaching Overarching Goals.” Ecological Economics 227: 108426. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2024.108426
^ abHartmann, E. 2025. "Sustainability Strategies: What's in a Name? A Conceptual Restatement of Fundamental Mechanisms Toward Sustainability". Sustainable Development, article sd.3443. https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.3443
^Borowy, I. 2019. “Sustainability and Redistribution.” In What Next for Sustainable Development? Our Common Future at Thirty, edited by J. Meadowcroft, D. Banister, E. Holden, O. Langhelle, K. Linnerud, and G. Glipin, 120–137. Edward Elgar Publishing.
^Brand, U., and M. Wissen. 2017. Imperiale Lebensweise: Zur Ausbeutung von Mensch und Natur in Zeiten des Globalen Kapitalismus. Oekom Verlag.
