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This thematic issue focuses on important but understudied connections between cities and climate impacts of long-distance travel. While urbanization and urban density have climate change mitigation potential in short-distance travel (e.g., by reducing car use and supporting public transportation, walking, and cycling), they have been associated with a higher level of emissions from flights. This highlights the role that city-regions could potentially play in reducing climate impacts of aviation. At the same time, the development of airports and flight connections has been an important driver of economic growth at regional scale and a factor contributing to global competitiveness of city-regions. This thematic issue includes seven interesting articles focusing on different aspects of the theme, all of which are briefly presented in this editorial. We also lay down some suggestions for future research directions based on the findings presented in this thematic issue.

This book brings together a number of recent case studies from the broad field of sustainable consumption. As they evaluate the promises, myths, and critiques of sustainable consumption, these essays can also be categorized into a range of different societal perspectives, from the individual to collectivities.The first chapters explore the personal consumer, discussing how individual consumptive choices relate to lifestyle and culture, and how choices are reflected in the carbon footprints of consumers and vehicles like the automobile. The ongoing phenomenon of outsourcing production and thus the emissions of cities--in more affluent countries--and the resulting "low-carbon illusion" of cities is analysed, as is the inefficiency of density policies to mitigate these emissions.The volume then moves on to consider community-based resource sharing, environmental entrepreneurs, spillover effects and learning possibilities. Also investigated are intentional communities born of alternative economic thought, suburban neighborhoods, and questions of whether cultural activities can be considered within the field of sustainability in lower-income city outskirts.The third part of the book analyzes different social movements in sustainability, as well as the limits of policy, government regulation, and the potential for mainstreaming sustainable consumption.In each chapter, scholars explore sustainability, from the individual to the collective, in order to improve understandings of consumer lifestyles and provide critiques of the processes of societal transition toward more sustainable human-environmental life.

Sustainable development and climate change mitigation have become guiding policy principles in many welfare states. However, the traditional role of a welfare state is to guarantee the economic stability, jobs and welfare for its citizens. Sustainable development leans on the idea that we can have economic, social and environmental sustainability at the same time. This would require decoupling of economic growth from environmental degradation. Decoupling should be studied globally, because within nations, the economy can grow while local environmental impacts decrease, but at the same time, global environmental impacts may increase due to international trade. In this study, we examine the consumption-based carbon and material footprints of a Nordic welfare state, Finland. We focus on the environmental impacts of public spending, which has received little attention previously. In welfare states, the reallocation of public funds to services and individuals are at its core. In the study, we examine how this affects the carbon and material footprints of various income groups and household types. We find that the share of public services and investments is 19% of the carbon footprint and 38% of the material footprint per capita. Building of infrastructure plays a major role in composing the material footprint. We also find that the welfare state has important features that improve the carbon equity between the citizens. To achieve absolute decoupling, required to reduce environmental impacts caused by economic activities, we suggest policies promoting public and private green investments. In addition, increased carbon pricing would enhance green investments and drive environmental innovation. ; We would like to thank the following organizations for making the study possible: Aalto University School of Engineering and the University of Iceland's Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering. The views expressed by the authors do not necessarily reflect those of the funders. ; Peer Reviewed

Sustainable development and climate change mitigation have become guiding policy principles in many welfare states. However, the traditional role of a welfare state is to guarantee the economic stability, jobs and welfare for its citizens. Sustainable development leans on the idea that we can have economic, social and environmental sustainability at the same time. This would require decoupling of economic growth from environmental degradation. Decoupling should be studied globally, because within nations, the economy can grow while local environmental impacts decrease, but at the same time, global environmental impacts may increase due to international trade. In this study, we examine the consumption-based carbon and material footprints of a Nordic welfare state, Finland. We focus on the environmental impacts of public spending, which has received little attention previously. In welfare states, the reallocation of public funds to services and individuals are at its core. In the study, we examine how this affects the carbon and material footprints of various income groups and household types. We find that the share of public services and investments is 19% of the carbon footprint and 38% of the material footprint per capita. Building of infrastructure plays a major role in composing the material footprint. We also find that the welfare state has important features that improve the carbon equity between the citizens. To achieve absolute decoupling, required to reduce environmental impacts caused by economic activities, we suggest policies promoting public and private green investments. In addition, increased carbon pricing would enhance green investments and drive environmental innovation. ; Peer reviewed

Environmental assessments have been developed with increasing emphasis since the wide-scale emergence of environmental concerns in the 1970s. However, after decades there is still plenty of room left for development. These assessments are also rapidly becoming more and more crucial as we seem to be reaching the boundaries of the carrying capacity of our planet. Assessments of the emissions from the built environment and especially of the interactions between human communities and emissions are in a very central role in the quest to solve the great problem of sustainable living. Policy- makers and professionals in various fields urgently need reliable data on the current conditions and realistic future projections, as well as robust and scientifically defensible models for decision making. This recognition was the main motivation to call for this Focus Issue, and the published contributions truly highlight the same point. This editorial provides brief summaries and discussions on the 16 articles of the Focus Issue, depicting the several interesting perspectives they offer to advance the state of the art. Now we encourage academics, practitioners, government, industry, individual consumers, and other decision makers to utilize the available findings and develop the domain of environmental assessment of the built environment further. Indeed, we hope that this Focus Issue is merely a kernel of a significantly large future body of literature. ; Peer reviewed

While buildings are often credited as accounting for some 40% of the global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the construction phase is typically assumed to account for only around one tenth of the overall emissions. However, the relative importance of construction phase emissions is quickly increasing as the energy efficiency of buildings increases. In addition, the significance of construction may actually be much higher when the temporal perspective of the emissions is taken into account. The construction phase carbon spike, i.e. high GHG emissions in a short time associated with the beginning of the building's life cycle, may be high enough to question whether new construction, no matter how energy efficient the buildings are, can contribute to reaching the greenhouse gas mitigation goals of the near future. Furthermore, the construction of energy efficient buildings causes more GHG emissions than the construction of conventional buildings. On the other hand, renovating the current building stock together with making energy efficiency improvements might lead to a smaller construction phase carbon spike and still to the same reduced energy consumption in the use phase as the new energy efficient buildings. The study uses a new residential development project in Northern Europe to assess the overall life cycle GHG emissions of a new residential area and to evaluate the influence of including the temporal allocation of the life cycle GHG emissions in the assessment. In the study, buildings with different energy efficiency levels are compared with a similar hypothetical area of buildings of the average existing building stock, as well as with a renovation of an area with average buildings from the 1960s. The GHG emissions are modeled with a hybrid life cycle assessment. The study suggests that the carbon payback time of constructing new residential areas is several decades long even when using very energy efficient buildings compared to utilizing the current building stock. Thus, while increasing the overall energyefficiency is important in the long term, the construction of new energy efficient buildings cannot be used as a means to achieve the short term and medium term climate change mitigation goals as cities and governments often suggest. Furthermore, given the magnitude of the carbon spike from construction and its implications, the climate change mitigation strategies should set reduction targets for the construction phase emissions alongside the ones for the use phase, which currently receives almost all of the attention from policy-makers. ; Peer reviewed

A compact urban form has shown many benefits in efficiency. Yet multiple studies have found that residents of urban, dense, and centrally located areas travel more frequently than those living in suburbs, small towns, or the countryside. As air travel is already causing more emissions than ground transport in many affluent urban locations and is predicted to increase, this pattern could undermine efforts in climate change mitigation. Explanations of these patterns and motivations for long-distance travel connected to the built environment have been examined quantitatively before, but with inconclusive answers. We studied this topic qualitatively in Reykjavik, Iceland, offering an in-depth perspective through semi-structured interviews. Results showed various links between the urban environment and long-distance travel. Some indications of compensatory travel behavior emerged, particularly connected to a lack of quality green areas, hectic urban life, and commuting stress. Compensatory trips were typically domestic. Furthermore, residential preferences seemed connected to leisure travel preferences - living in green neighborhoods was connected to more domestic travel to nature. The results show there are more factors for 'escape' trips than urban density and lack of green spaces. Examples of car-free lifestyles hindering domestic leisure travel were also found. Our study shows how a qualitative approach offers nuanced insight into the travel motivations of urbanites. Considering our results and travel motivation literature, the compensation hypothesis appears to be an overly narrow theoretical framing. Our study supports the conclusion that planning policies should aim at reducing car-dependence. Further research is needed for specific policy recommendations.

Human economic activities and following carbon emissions have been recognized to be a real threat to the environment. The current levels of consumption-based carbon footprints in all developed economies grossly exceed the sustainable level. Scientists have concluded that in addition to technological solutions, downscaling of consumption and far-reaching changes in lifestyles will be needed to achieve environmental sustainability. In this study, we provide a tangible real-world example that reveals the scale of the needed change from a perspective of a European welfare state citizen. Universal basic income (UBI) represents an income that is just enough to fulfil basic needs, such as food, shelter, and medication. In our case country, Finland, UBI is in practice at the same level as the income of the lowest income decile. The purpose of this study is to present and analyse the carbon footprints at a consumption level that corresponds to UBI. We compare the carbon footprints at this low-income level to average Finnish carbon footprints and discuss their sustainability in the light of global carbon budgets. We use an input-output approach based on the Finnish ENVIMAT model. The average carbon footprint at the UBI level is 4.8 tCO2-eq and it focuses on necessities. It's significantly lower than the average carbon footprint in Finland, 9.4 tCO2-eq, but still far from the level compatible with the current climate change mitigation targets. The results emphasize how challenging it is to find true low-carbon solutions for living in affluent countries. Lifestyle changes and technological leaps need to be combined and fostered by legislation. ; Peer reviewed