Sobriété

Understanding applications of energy and materials sustainability as sobriété: reflecting across two generations of écoquartiers in Paris

By Chloé Repka, Master of Resource Management (Planning) student at Simon Fraser University; Meg Holden, Professor in Urban Studies and Resource and Environmental Management, Simon Fraser University; Cedissia About, Research Associate at Lab'URBA, Université Gustave Eiffel, and Chief Architect and Head of Sustainable Building R&D at the City of Paris

In English, the word “sobriety” has no place in discussions on sustainable development. However, in France, sobriété is a sustainable development concept that has existed for decades. The concept first came about as an energy conservation measure in response to the oil shocks of the 1970 and was conceptualized in 2001 by the négaWatt Association, an energy transition think tank. Sobriété is one of the three fundamental pillars of the energy transition approach promoted by négaWatt, alongside efficiency and renewable energy, and is defined as a moderation approach to the services provided by energy consumption as opposed to overconsumption, constitutes both a necessity and an opporunity¹ (Association négaWatt, 2016). When applied to energy, sobriété énergétique places an explicit value on using energy responsibly overall, including by reducing overall energy use where necessary for the greater social good, beyond privileging more efficient technologies and equipment (Bourliaguet, 2025).

Sobriété in the context of sustainable development is a term that is specific to French, but the concept behind it holds international significance across languages. A similar term in English would be “sufficiency”, and related concepts include “frugality”, “simple living” or “downshifting” (Cézard & Mourad, 2019). In other languages, similar terms include suffizienz or ausreichend in German, sufficienza or consumo critico in Italian, and tiltstrækkelighed or bæredygtighed in Danish, which all centre around the concept of what is enough; the terms “sobriety”, Nüchternheit, sobrietà, and ædruelighed are rarely used outside of contexts referring to the limitation of alcohol and drugs in these languages. However, each of these terms hold their own meaning and connotations that are different from one another, and none carry the same connotations as sobriété in French (Flipo, 2024). In English, for example, sufficiency is not a perfect translation because it does not carry a connotation of intentional behaviour change, maturity, or even necessarily a desirable reduction of excess, whereas all three of these connotations are carried by the word sobriété in French.

Sobriété is more than just energy conservation. Where energy conservation means using less energy through behaviour changes such as turning off lights, lowering the thermostat, or taking shorter showers, sobriété expands on this by intentionally reducing demand to what is actually needed. This includes energy conservation measures, but it also includes changing norms about what is enough and redesigning how services are provided. Bourban (2022) specifically calls attention to the importance of understanding sobriété as a virtue, rather than a sacrifice, an understanding which “is based on the ethical principle of self-limitation that guides every day choices” (Bourban, 2022, p. 19).

In addition, the distinction of sobriété from the notion of efficiency is important to note. Energy efficiency, commonly used in discourse related to energy sustainability in English, is about doing more with less by putting a premium on the goal of increasing the value of the service provided for each unit of energy. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change defines this as “the ratio of output or useful energy or energy services or other useful physical outputs obtained from a  system, conversion process, transmission or storage activity to the input of energy” (IPCC, 2022, p. 1801). It emphasizes using technology, materials, and design to reduce the energy input per unit to deliver the same service (e.g., heating and cooling).

By contrast, sobriété seeks to normalize reducing demand so that people use only what they really need, and is focused on more qualitative, social elements such as habits, practices, wellbeing, ecological limits or justice (Bourliaguet, 2025). However, this does not mean that one concept should be used over another. While efficiency can reduce environmental impacts, it may not be enough on its own because improvements in efficiency can sometimes lead to rising energy consumption – a phenomenon called the rebound effect or Jevons paradox (York et al., 2022). Sobriété can attenuate this effect by directly addressing demand/consumption, rather than just the means by which that demand is met. In France, it is understood at a national level that both approaches should be used as complements in the country’s energy transition pathway towards carbon neutrality, through selected savings rather than forced cuts, in a context of opening up one’s way of thinking about climate action and intentional behavioural change (Cézard & Mourad, 2019; Gouvernement de France, 2022).

While sobriété is not free of criticisms, such that it fails to consider distributive equity among different socioeconomic groups and that low-income households already practice and have practiced sobriété principles for economic reasons (Flipo, 2024), it provides value as a term of transition because it provides a holistic and deliberate framing for change. The term is also useful because transitions are not only technical; they are social and moral as well. Compared to other similar terms in other languages, sobriété is unique in that it is the only one of the terms which is firmly positioned in a country’s social and political debate across different academic, expert, and philosophical backgrounds (Flipo, 2024). Sobriété was inscribed in the Energy Transition Law in 2015, and, more recently, in the national Energy “Sobriety” Plan (Plan de Sobriété Énergétique) in 2022. The economic shocks related to the onset of the Russia-Ukraine war and United States-Israel (US-Israel) war on Iran (France 24, 2026) has led to a warning from the head of the International Energy Agency that the world is currently facing an energy crisis more severe than the oil shocks of the 1970s (France 24, 2026), providing further justification for the need for approaches focusing on reducing energy demand.  

Interest in sobriété as a term of transition has led to research that investigates how this concept is applied in practice across two generations of écoquartiers (ecodistricts or econeighbourhoods) in Paris, France. The City of Paris has achieved remarkable acceleration of its climate and ecological transition actions in recent years, drawing the attention of sustainability advocates, researchers and practitioners (About et al., 2024; Holden et al., 2021). Through comparative interpretive analysis, this research examines shifts in the use of French language terminologies to advance sustainable urban development from a first generation écoquartier project, Clichy-Batignolles, initiated in 2002, to a second generation écoquartier project, Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, currently in development. Rather than examining the merits of sobriété or the écoquartiers in question, this research identifies the types of energy and materials sustainability strategies they apply and how and if these have changed as a result of increasing promotion of a sobriété in French law and policy over the last decade. This offers direct implications for understanding the evolution of policy and planning tools toward greater contextual effectiveness in guiding change, revealing the importance of some untranslatable concepts centering on the concept of sobriété.

Through a translanguaging process, this research also demonstrates the value of examining sustainable development approaches beyond English in order to expand our repertoire of social and political levers for ecological transition. This offers researchers and practitioners interested in understanding the cultural aspects of more and less appealing urban change proposals a new lens with potential for better insight, as the need for climate safe and more sustainable development pathways becomes more urgent.

For more information on this research, please watch the 3-minute video below.

¹ "une démarche de modération sur les services rendus par la consommation d’énergie à l’opposé de la surconsommation, constitue à la fois une nécessité et une opportunité" (Association négaWatt, 2016, p.12).

References Cited

About, C., Doussard, C., & Holden, M. (2024). (Re)Penser la ville du XXIe siècle. https://www.dunod.com/sciences-techniques/repenser-ville-du-xxie-siecle-20-ans-d-ecoquartiers-dans-monde

Association négaWatt. (2016). Qu’est-ce que la sobriété? https://negawatt.org/telechargement/Presse/1601_Fil-dargent_Qu-est-ce-que-la-sobriete.pdf

Association négaWatt. (2018). La sobriété énergétique: Pour une société plus juste et plus durable. https://negawatt.org/IMG/pdf/sobriete-scenario-negawatt_brochure-12pages_web.pdf

Bourban, M. (2022). Ethics, Energy Transition, and Ecological Citizenship. In T. Letcher (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Comprehensive Renewable Energy (2nd ed.). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-819727-1.00030-3

Bourliaguet, B. (2025). Rethinking the energy transition: Sufficiency and the French strategy. Energy Research & Social Science, 124, 104055. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2025.104055

Cézard, F., & Mourad, M. (2019). Panorama sur la notion de sobriété – définitions, mises en oeuvre, enjeux (ADEME) (p. 52). ADEME. https://www.ademe.fr/panorama-notion-sobriete

Flipo, A. (2024). Ce que la sobriété veut dire: Pratiques et représentations de la sobriété en Europe. Lien social et Politiques, (93), 379–398. https://doi.org/10.7202/1115804ar

France 24. (2026, March 25). Governments move to shield consumers from soaring energy costs due to Mideast war. France 24. https://www.france24.com/en/economy/20260325-governments-move-to-shield-consumers-from-soaring-energy-costs

Holden, M., About, C., Doussard, C., Rochard, H., Airas, A., & Poiroux, A. (2021). Off-cycle: Comparing model sustainable neighbourhoods in France and Canada. City, 25(5–6), 671–697. https://doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2021.1988346

IPCC. (2022). Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change - Working Group III contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (P. R. Shukla, J. Skea, R. Slade, R. Fradera, M. Pathak, A. Al Khourdajie, M. Belkacemi, R. van Diemen, A. Hasija, G. Lisboa, S. Luz, J. Malley, D. McCollum, S. Some, & P. Vyas, Eds.). IPCC. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGIII_FullReport.pdf

York, R., Adua, L., & Clark, B. (2022). The rebound effect and the challenge of moving beyond fossil fuels: A review of empirical and theoretical research. WIREs Climate Change, 13(4), e782. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.782