Sufficiency: the missing third pillar

Sustainable development rests on three equally important principles. Efficiency reduces resource use per unit of output. Consistency aligns production with ecological limits through clean technologies and circular systems. Sufficiency addresses absolute demand: how much consumption is enough for a good life within planetary boundaries? 
Yet sufficiency remains difficult to mainstream. Gollnhofer and Pechmann estimate that 15–20% of people are “eco-enthusiasts” and another 15–20% “eco-sceptics”. The remaining 60% are open to sustainable choices but inconsistent in practice, the familiar attitude–behaviour gap.
Their book, The 60% Potential, identifies an “eco-trap”: sustainability remains niche when it means extra costs, green jargon and inconvenient behaviour. Adoption becomes more likely when price and quality match. Policy should follow the same logic, making sufficient choices affordable, convenient and trustworthy. But adoption is only the means: success depends on reducing absolute resource use and environmental pressure while maintaining well-being. This requires structural changes that go beyond individual consumer choices. 

Environmental sustainability

For Switzerland, reducing unnecessary domestic demand can lower emissions, land use and resource extraction abroad. For the 60%, sufficiency means making lower-resource choices practical and affordable through durable products and longer product lifetimes. Efficiency and consistency matter, but neither guarantees lower total consumption.
The EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) requires companies within its scope to disclose Scope 1–3 emissions, including significant value-chain emissions, and report on targets they have set. Switzerland requires climate disclosures and provides for corporate net-zero roadmaps, but lacks equivalent standardised reporting requirements. Switzerland should therefore require large companies to establish standardised and transparent absolute emissions-reduction pathways across Scopes 1–3, including international value chains, with interim milestones and transparent progress reporting. Such reporting can reveal the overseas impacts of Swiss consumption and help assess whether efficiency gains translate into absolute reductions in emissions and resource use, while providing a basis for policies that address excessive resource demand.

Social sustainability

Sufficiency shifts well-being away from ever-rising consumption towards time, health and relationships. It also raises questions about who bears the costs of Swiss consumption. 
Buying fewer, longer-lasting products can create room for fairer prices but does not automatically improve workers’ livelihoods. Brands may retain savings, squeeze suppliers or reduce orders. Swiss trade policy must complement changing demand with enforceable labour standards and responsible purchasing practices.
Since 2010, EFTA agreements have included sustainability chapters covering workers’ rights. Switzerland should strengthen these provisions and tie tariff concessions to verified labour standards, building on its approach to palm oil from Indonesia. A Swiss forced-labour import ban would help prevent goods excluded from the EU market under its ban, applicable from December 2027, from being redirected to Switzerland. Strengthening corporate due diligence and accountability for labour violations in supply chains would further improve oversight.
The 60% should not have to choose between affordability and responsibility or verify labour conditions product by product. Binding import rules and supply-chain standards can build trust into the market. Switzerland can also expand its support for the ILO’s Better Work programme, which has helped participating factories increase take-home pay while reducing working hours. The goal is to improve workers’ conditions, not simply redirect harmful production elsewhere.

Economic sustainability

Overconsumption generates costs through food waste, traffic congestion and the health costs of overwork. Sufficiency-oriented business models offer alternatives through repair, reuse, sharing and durable products rather than continually increasing sales of new goods.
For the 60%, repair must compete with replacement on price, convenience and reliability. Austria’s repair bonus, covering 50% of eligible repair costs, has funded more than 840,000 repairs. Switzerland should expand repair incentives beyond existing local schemes and align with the EU’s right-to-repair rules and ecodesign regulation. Yet uptake alone is not enough: these policies must extend product lifetimes and reduce demand for new resources, rather than simply adding another layer of consumption.

Making the sufficient choice the easy one

Sufficiency is not about settling for less but making better choices easier. Through trade agreements, binding labour standards and international cooperation, Swiss foreign policy can help make sustainable choices affordable and fair across global supply chains. This could help turn 60% into meaningful change: less waste, fairer trade and a good life within planetary boundaries.