Energy de-escalation as a pathway to sufficiency: perspectives from infrastructures in a university campus

Abstract

This research examines energy sufficiency in the built environment, understood as the reduction of energy consumption through changes in social practices and infrastructures, among other factors, as a key objective for remaining within planetary boundaries.We draw insights from seven heterogeneous energy infrastructures (buildings, data centre, geothermal power plant, etc.) located in the university campus Cité Descartes in the Paris region. These cases show sufficiency processes are underway, but their pursuit is not straightforward, and must negotiate with material and immaterial legacies and paths of dependency. Building on both the literature and the case study, we introduce the concept of energy de-escalation that by focusing on embodied energy and on processes rather than fixed targets, may offer a useful framework for addressing energy consumption reduction in urban environment.