Scenarios for a sustainable Luxembourg

July 2021

How climate change and the need for more sustainable use of water and land can be addressed depends on a place’s social model, governance approach and spatial structure. The current approaches will not manage to sustain global warming below 1.5°C, hence alternatives are needed. To stimulate thinking about possible alternatives, the NEXUS Futures project has developed three thought provoking scenarios. They showcase radical ideas on possible adaptions to climate change by 2045. Each of them presents a coherent, plausible, but also challenging future, and depicts challenges and controversial issues, possible solutions and their potential consequences.

The scenarios focus on the question how to address the expected population growth (from about 630,000 in 2020) in a sustainable Luxembourg, including different governance ideas and their implications for the spatial structure of Luxembourg. Water consumption serves as a common indicator across the three scenarios to illustrate the use of natural resources. Below a few spotlights on the scenarios. The full versions will be published in due time.

Smart sustainability scenario

By 2045 it seems that mankind’s threats to the global ecosystem can be fixed through innovation. The alignment of economic, technological, political and environmental interests has led to the emergence of a highly regulated, interconnected, circular economy. Luxembourg’s economy has developed into a holistic, networked circular economy. Artificial intelligence and virtual technology have become part of every aspect of society and decision making is based on information from sensors and algorithms. In consequence, behavioural patterns did not have to change. People and administrations continue to act as they do in the 2020s.