Dominant approaches to climate mitigation continue to assume high levels of energy and material demand - a tendency reflected in most transition scenarios, which rely on large-scale technological fixes whose feasibility is increasingly questioned. Shifting the analytical and policy focus towards demand reduction - through efficiency improvements, sufficiency-oriented policies, and structural changes in production and consumption patterns -  is now a necessary step for viable socio-economic trajectories compatible with planetary boundaries.

Lower demand levels offer key advantages : they can expand the feasible space for rapid energy system decarbonization, alleviate material and biophysical constraints, and strengthen macroeconomic resilience by reducing exposure to volatile resource imports and investment bottlenecks. Yet systemic demand reduction raises fundamental questions that remain insufficiently addressed across research communities : What policy frameworks can trigger the structural changes in practices required ? What industrial and sectoral reconfigurations are compatible with - or necessary for - low demand transitions ? What are the macroeconomic and structural implications of systemic changes in production and consumption patterns; of post-growth policies ? How can these transitions support well-being, guarantee social equity, and ensure decent living standards for all ?

This conference aims to bring together different strands of research addressing these questions, to advance a shared understanding of what a transition towards a low demand and high well-being economy could look like. We seek to convene an interdisciplinary group of international researchers working across energy and integrated assessment modeling, industrial ecology, ecological and environmental economics, ecological macroeconomics, and political and social sciences.

We welcome theoretical and applied contributions addressing the following themes:

·        Sufficiency and efficiency (energy, material) policies : policy instruments and evaluation, preferences and conditions for behavioral changes, rebound effects ;

·        Low demand pathways : integrated transformation pathways, supply-demand interactions, material and biophysical constraints, energy transition dynamics, net energy analysis, stock-flow analysis;

·        Macroeconomic and industrial reconfigurations : structural change and employment impacts, growth dynamics, sectoral transitions, industrial policy, quantity-quality transitions, circular economy, post-growth transitions ;

·        Equity, well-being and decent living : distributional impacts, well-being frameworks and co-benefits (including health), decent living standards, consumption corridors ;

This list is not exclusive, and we strongly encourage the submission of contributions dealing broadly with the proposed topics.

-          Simone D’Alessandro (University of Pisa)

-          Frauke Wiese (University of Flensburg)

-          Aude Pommeret (University Savoie Mont Blanc)

-          Milena Büchs (University of Leeds)

Local organizing committee: Julien Lefèvre (CIRED-AgroParisTech), Thomas Le Gallic (CIRED-ENPC), Mathilde Arnaud (CIRED-ENPC), Céline Guivarch (CIRED-ENPC), Florian Leblanc (CIRED-CNRS), Julia Péré (CIRED-CNRS), Mathieu Pierronne (CIRED-ENPC), Kilian Rouge (CIRED-AgroParisTech)

We acknowledge the submission of extended abstracts/short papers up to 2000 words. Papers must be in English and must include a cover page with the following information

- short abstract of up to 200 words, and maximum 5 keywords

- authors’ full name and affiliation

- contact details for the corresponding author

Papers should be submitted electronically as pdf-files to the Conference organizers via this website :

The contributions selected by the scientific committee will be presented in English and exclusively on-site, remote presentations are therefore excluded.

Please note that we will not be able to cover accommodation and travel expenses for accepted paper presenters.

-          Submission : September 13th

-          Acceptance : October 4th

-          Registration : October 25th

Opportunities for further dissemination and valorisation of selected contributions are currently being explored and will be discussed with the authors of accepted submissions.