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An increasing number of studies show that efficiency improvements alone will not be sufficient to attain the substantial emission reductions needed to mitigate global warming to a target of 2 °C. Consumption side changes are likely to be needed to achieve sufficient emission reductions. The United Nations emphasize the importance of developed countries taking the lead in lowering emissions to achieve the sustainable development goals. This paper assess to what extent Norwegian households can lower their carbon footprint consistent with territorial emission reductions towards the 2 °C target of global warming through implementing a set of behavioral actions. We evaluate the efficacy of the set of actions both initially and after considering rebound effects. A multiregional environmentally extended input-output database is linked with the Norwegian consumer expenditure survey to analyze both average and marginal expenditure per unit of increased income. Further, linear programming is applied to examine the changes needed by households to reach different emission reduction targets. We find that households implementing the full set of actions without re-spending can obtain a 58% decrease in their carbon footprint. When accounting for the effect of re-spending, this reduction drops to 24–35%, which is not within the requirements of the 2 °C target. The optimization analysis suggests households can achieve reductions up to 45% by restricting re-spending to specific goods and services. This indicates that curbing the rebound effect is key to achieving real reductions in household carbon footprints. We show that changing consumption patterns can significantly contribute to lowering anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions without compromising the level of economic activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are many opportunities for consumers to design their lives more sustainably. While a rapidly growing body of literature has investigated how consumers can reduce carbon footprints in key consumption areas, such as food, housing and mobility, an overall framework that allows structuring those options across all consumption areas is still missing. Hence, this paper presents a novel and systematic framework to identify improvement options that promote climate change mitigation and structure them based on their primary mode of impact on GHG emissions. The framework targets consumer practices and focuses on ambitious, but technically and socioeconomically feasible strategies for consumers to lower their carbon footprint. Four major categories for reducing consumption-based emissions form the basic framework, which are then subdivided into behavioural strategies and sub-strategies. The practical application of the framework is illustrated by using food consumption as an example. Systematically identifying improvement options can advance a holistic understanding of the range of behavioural strategies targeting consumer choices that operate at different stages in the supply chain. It thus provides a starting point for addressing critical questions related to the role of consumers in supporting climate change mitigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]