Projects results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• A broader range of policy options that reflect different visions of sustainability and resilience based on alternative economic, technological and societal futures and reflecting different perspectives from economics, (other) social and natural sciences.
• Assessment of long-term feasibility of reconciling economic growth with climate and other environmental objectives and consequences for mitigation pathways.
• More comprehensive understanding of the implications of Paris Agreement-aligned transformation for other (than climate) environmental thresholds and social outcomes, including equity, fairness and justice, as a basis for fostering synergies between climate action and other policy goals such as those embedded in the Sustainable Development Agenda.
• Increased diversity of frameworks and scenarios used in climate change mitigation modelling.
• Enhanced assessments of 1) energy and material demands and their links to the macro-economy, 2) behavioural and lifestyle changes, including sufficiency measures and their representation in integrated assessment models and 3) circular economy approaches to decrease the use of energy and materials.
• Development of knowledge to inform future major international scientific assessments such as reports by IPCC and IPBES.

There is an urgent need for a new paradigm that reconciles continued development of human societies with the maintenance of the Earth system in a resilient and stable state. Meeting the ambitious goals of the Paris Agreement while simultaneously respecting other environmental and social constraints would require not only rapid reductions of GHG emissions and other climate forcers, but also decoupling of economic output from material throughput, pollution and biodiversity loss. However, empirical evidence demonstrates a strong relationship between economic growth (expressed in GDP terms) and GHG emissions, energy use, demand for raw materials, land and other natural resources, as well as pollution. Projections indicate that, with existing growth trajectories, absolute decoupling on the scale required could prove extremely challenging.

Actions should advance knowledge on the feasibility of the green growth paradigm in the context of transition to climate neutrality, including improved understanding of underlying challenges and opportunities, and by building on the latest scientific evidence. They should explore alternative (to growth-oriented) socio-economic scenarios (such as, but not limited to, degrowth, postgrowth, or “Doughnut” economic models) which could support the transition to climate neutrality. Research should look well beyond general concepts and explore (where possible quantified) the practical implications, benefits, barriers, conditions for delivering strong social outcomes and feasibility of pursuing such alternative options as a viable policy choice within the EU and beyond. In their work, actions should examine the role of emerging/potential trends (such as digitalisation, circularity, structural changes in the economy, relocalisation of value chains), geopolitical events and shifts in societal values (e.g. COVID related) in shaping future socio-economic development and assess their impacts on the achievement of climate policy objectives. The analysis should also account for the accelerating impacts of climate change and embrace interlinkages with other policy goals, notably biodiversity, resource conservation and human development related. Building on these results, actions should draw conclusions for Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and long-term strategies under the Paris Agreement.

Actions should address some of the following aspects in their research:

• Improve the understanding of the dynamics between economic growth and energy, materials’ use, pollution and land demand. This could include assessing whether shifts within a GDP-based system, such as a greater share of services and recognition of household labour in national statistics, affect the degree of compatibility of economic growth with climate and biodiversity goals.
• Advance knowledge about the role and potential of lifestyle changes and sufficiency-oriented measures in the overall strategies towards climate neutrality and in the context of other environmental goals, improve their quantification and representation in modelling frameworks and explore the socio-economic, cultural, institutional, infrastructural, regulatory and other conditions for scaling-up.
• Identify and explore the main barriers to adoption of alternatives to growth-based economic models. For example: How plausible is it for policy makers to embrace them? Are there real-world examples? Can a region such as Europe pursue alternative approaches unilaterally?
• Assess the relationship between continued economic growth and societal well-being. Investigate alternative approaches to delivering social progress and evaluate the well-being outcomes of measures to transform societies towards climate-neutrality, taking into account distributional and equity related considerations as well as a broad range of well-being indicators and differences between social and economic groups.
• Investigate how alternative economic approaches could be explained to and accepted by citizens and businesses concerned about both climate and their livelihoods/operating conditions. For example, which concrete day-to-day changes would be required? What are the implications for living standards? How would professions work? What dis/-incentives would firms face to compete, expand and innovate?
• Assess the risks of disruption to energy, food and other key commodity markets based on alternative future transition pathways and development paradigms.
• Explore potential future development paradigms in both high-income and developing economies, taking into account fairness dimension, and evaluate implications for the transition process towards climate neutrality.

The projects are expected to take a truly interdisciplinary approach, leveraging natural, economic and other social sciences to inform policies capable of delivering on multiple environmental, economic and social objectives simultaneously while taking into account constraints related to feasibility and acceptability.

When dealing with models, actions should promote the highest standards of transparency and openness, as much as possible going well beyond model documentation and extending to aspects such as assumptions, code and data that is managed in compliance with the FAIR principles^[1]. In particular, beneficiaries are strongly encouraged to publish data and results in open access databases and/or as annexes to publications.

Successful proposals should establish synergies with the projects resulting from the topic HORIZON-CL5-2021-D1-01-02: Modelling the role of the circular economy for climate change mitigation^[2] as well as with the future project resulting from the topic “HORIZON-CL5-2024-D1-01-06: The role of climate change foresight for primary and secondary raw materials supply” as regards implications for resource demand and the associated GHG emissions.

This topic requires the effective contribution of SSH disciplines (e.g. sociology, economics, behavioural sciences, gender studies, etc.) and the involvement of SSH experts, institutions as well as the inclusion of relevant SSH expertise, in order to produce meaningful and significant effects enhancing the societal impact of the related research activities.

[1] FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable).

[2] https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/opportunities/topic-details/horizon-cl5-2021-d1-01-02