Low-carbon futures and sustainable lifestyles: A backcasting scenario approach

• The study depicts 4 alternative scenarios on low-carbon futures and lifestyles.
• The study suggests a new backcasting scenario approach.
• The scenarios offer a diverse set of lifestyle patterns despite of a normative approach.
• Links between lifestyle patterns, infrastructure and technological development are in focus.
• We suggest that lifestyle-level scenarios could empower relevant early adopter groups.

This study suggests a backcasting scenario method for understanding the relevance of lifestyle-level changes in low-carbon futures. Even though different scenario approaches to low-carbon futures have emerged in recent years, the main focus has been on macro-level development and the lifestyle-level change has been neglected. Focusing on changing lifestyles and social innovation, the outcome of this study is four scenarios depicting the path towards low-carbon futures. The purpose of the scenario study is to describe links between the significance of emerging lifestyle patterns and infrastructure, policy and technological development. Despite the normative constraint regarding material footprint, the scenarios offer a diverse set of lifestyle patterns. The study answers the following question: what lifestyle-level changes could have potential to drive the transition towards low-carbon futures that are within planetary boundaries. We suggest that lifestyle-level scenarios on low-carbon society could have an impact in empowering relevant early adopter groups to become gatekeepers of low-carbon transition.