Merging Sustainability Strategies of Efficiency, Consistency and Sufficiency with Corporate Climate Protection Measures

Abstract

The amended Climate Protection Act in Germany sets a target of greenhouse gas neutrality by 2045 and a 65% emission reduction by 2030 compared to 1990 levels. These stringent targets have prompted significant questions from businesses participating in the publicly funded applied-research project KliMaWirtschaft about the feasibility of aligning absolute reduction goals with corporate growth. One solution to align corporate growth and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is integrating the sustainability strategies of efficiency, consistency, and sufficiency within a climate protection toolbox consisting of a catalogue of over 80 categorized and filterable corporate climate protection measures previously developed. The measures were clustered to analyze combination effects and priorities inside the climate protection toolbox. Furthermore, it provides a detailed look at different climate protection measures within the framework of sustainability strategies and discusses the practical application of this division for small and medium-sized enterprises. The findings suggest that clustering climate protection actions using efficiency, consistency, and sufficiency approaches can be highly effective, allowing for a more strategic view on climate protection measures and highlighting the necessity of enterprises implementing the sustainability strategies to reach climate protection targets.