Exploring the potential of Sufficiency scenarios to reach Net-Zero buildings in Swiss municipalities

Abstract

Despite the prioritisation of energy efficiency measures and renewable energy integration for decarbonising the building and construction sector, technology-centric approaches in Swiss national energy strategies have exhibited limitations in curtailing both operational and embodied carbon emissions over the past decade. The absence of defined resource consumption boundaries within the building sector for existing buildings presents a significant challenge not only in Switzerland but globally. This study investigates the implementation of sufficiency principles within the Swiss building sector offering insights highly relevant to the broader European context as a potential mitigation strategy, as also recognised by the IPCC. The impact of various sufficiency and efficiency measures (e.g. promote shared living, renovation of building envelope) is quantitatively evaluated through different scenarios. Principal component analysis (PCA) and k-medoids clustering is applied on a comprehensive dataset encompassing existing building stock characteristics and socio-demographic information across all 508 Swiss urban municipalities. Specifically, the scenarios assess the efficacy of sufficiency-based measures in reducing emissions from the existing residential building stock eligible for renovation until 2050. The findings indicate that while sufficiency and efficiency measures applied in isolation result in only modest emission reductions, a strategically targeted combination of space demand reduction and renovation offers significant potential to lower both operational and embodied emissions helping to close the CO₂ gap and reduce reliance on the uncertain future development of carbon removal and renewable energy technologies. Furthermore, this research derives policy recommendations, informed by the analysed scenarios and complimented with the existing Swiss building policy landscape, to support the development of future cantonal energy and carbon policies.