Abstract: Energy sufficiency is needed to speed up the development of a climate neutral building stock and cities. Apart from technological efficiency and renewable energies and resources, sufficiency tackles over-consumption and tackles the question of “How much is enough?” The talk explains the need for sufficiency and presents examples how sufficiency can be considered as a complementary strategy to efficiency and consistency approaches.

Speaker: Anja Bierwirth is head of the research unit “Urban Transitions” in the research division Energy-, Transport- and Climate Policy at the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy. She studied architecture in Bremen and Cologne and completed her master studies on environmental sciences at the FernUni Hagen. She worked as an architect and in the field of environmental education. Since 2008 she works at the Wuppertal Institute in the fields of local energy and climate action policy, energy efficiency and sufficiency in buildings and sustainable urban development.