Integrating sufficiency in the trade and biodiversity agenda of the European Union

In the European Union (EU), the scale of biomass extraction and use—particularly for livestock products, feed crops, and biofuels—overshoots the planetary boundary for biosphere integrity, jeopardizing biodiversity within and outside the EU territory. While EU policy occasionally acknowledges the need for sufficiency measures to limit biomass use, its ongoing trade liberalization agenda incentivizes the production and consumption of critical commodities, such as feed crops, meat, dairy, wood, and ethanol. We argue that the EU’s biodiversity and trade liberalization agendas contradict each other from a sufficiency perspective. Here, we highlight how sufficiency-oriented trade measures—such as quotas and tariffs on critical commodities and sufficiency provisions in trade agreements—could reconcile these agendas. These measures, if paired with fair compensation for affected producers, could reduce trade-induced ecological pressures while avoiding protectionism. Integrating sufficiency in trade policy could substantially reduce global pressures on biosphere integrity and help the EU effectively meet its biodiversity objectives.