Scenarios and modeling

négaWatt’s expertise lies first and foremost in its comprehensive modeling capacities.
The Association has been publishing a complete energy transition scenario for France for now 20 years, the négaWatt scenario being the first to achieve climate neutrality, and its approach based on sufficiency, efficiency and renewables being then by public players such as Ademe and RTE. The latest edition included a complete materials flow analysis as well as an analysis of France’s GHG and materials footprint and thus formed the basis for the Association’s work on materials.

In 2023, it published CLEVER, a Collaborative Low Energy Vision for the European Region, the result of 5 years of technical and policy dialogue with partners from 26 European countries.

Currently négaWatt builds upon this work to contribute to debates such as those around an EU 2040 climate target.

Current EU activities on scenario and modeling

négaWatt has been building upon the négaWatt and the CLEVER scenarios to publish scenario analyses at the EU level :

An analysis of the European Commission’s proposals on a 2040 climate target “Choosing climate ambition, resilience and savings” ►, February 2024
A comparison of major EU climate and energy scenarios, “Balancing ambition and feasibility” ►, May 2025
The Association is also currently working at a macro-economic analysis based on the CLEVER scenario, with first results to be published at the beginning of 2026.

CLEVER : a Collaborative Low Energy Vision for the European Region

CLEVER proposes an ambitious and realistic decarbonisation pathway for Europe.
It has been developed through a bottom-up approach that starts with the national trajectories constructed by 26 national partners from the academic world, research, or civil society under the leadership of the négaWatt association. The scenario presents a pathway that reconciles the long-term climate and sustainability imperatives with the short-term energy security constraints and practical feasibility of such a transformation.

CLEVER evaluates the potential of energy demand reduction (sufficiency and efficiency) and renewable energy development at the national and European level, reaching GHG neutrality in 2045, a 100% renewable energy mix by 2050.

Detailed analysis and results on the CLEVER website ►.

The négaWatt 2050 energy scenario

First issued in 2003, and updated several times since then, the négaWatt 2050 energy scenario for France is now a well acknowledged and recognised thorough piece of work to discuss the country’s energy future, and options to engage in a sustainable energy transition.
The scenario is supported by a large number of civil society organisations, and has been considered in official assessment studies and national energy debates.

Covering all sectors (buildings, transport, industry, agriculture…) through thousands of parameters and assumptions, it shows how France could shift to a climate-friendly, nuclear-free, and sustainable energy future through an approach based on :

energy sufficiency : favouring low energy services and lifestyles,
energy efficiency : ensuring that energy is used in the most productive way,
renewables : developing first the greenest forms of energy for our supply.

The 2017 edition of the négaWatt scenario’s Executive Summary ► was translated into English.

The latest edition in 2022 included a complete materials flow analysis as well as an analysis of France’s GHG and materials footprint, and thus formed the basis for the Association’s work on materials. Négawatt’s modeling on Agriculture, Forestry and Land Use issues is based on the AFTERRES scenario of the Solagro association ►.