Sustainable Consumption ISBN 620-5460-7 - Naturv¥rdsverket

Sustainable Consumption

Research and Policies

REPORT 5460 • MARCH 2005

Sustainable Consumption

Research and Policies

THE SWEDISH ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

Orders Tel: +46 (0)8-505 933 40 Fax: +46 (0)8-505 933 99

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The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency Tel +46 (0)8-698 10 00, Fax +46 (0)8-20 29 25

E-mail: [email protected] Address: Naturvårdsverket, SE-106 48 Stockholm, Sweden

Internet: www.naturvardsverket.se

ISBN 91-620-5460-7.pdf ISSN 0282-7298

© Naturvårdsverket 2005

Digital Publication

Cover photos: © Digital Vision Ltd

T H E S W E D I S H E N V I R O N M E N T A L P R O T E C T I O N A G E N C Y S u s t a i n a b l e C o n s u m p t i o n - R e s e a r c h a n d P o l i c i e s

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Preface Global sustainable development requires wide-ranging changes in the way societies consume and produce, according to the agreement reached at the UN Summit Meeting held in Johannesburg, in 2002. Although this field has assumed significant importance during the past decade, thus far, the conceptual development of sus-tainable consumption has not been translated into practical strategies and instru-ments to the same extent as is the field of sustainable production.

The goal of this study is to describe and analyse recent initiatives of OECD countries in research, policies and other activities addressing sustainable consump-tion. The study also discusses gaps and potential future research needs and policy intervention. These issues are important to understand for policy makers, academia and other relevant actors in order to facilitate the development of a coherent and systematic sustainable consumption strategy.

The report is written for the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency by Dr Oksana Mont and Dr Andrius Plepys, both of whom are with the International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics (IIIEE) at Lund University, Swe-den. The content of the report is solely the responsibility of its authors, and there-fore do not necessarily represent the view of the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency. Stockholm, March 2005 Swedish Environmental Protection Agency


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Content Preface 3 Executive Summary 7 Sammanfattning 11 1 Introduction 15 2 Goals, methods and limitations of this study 17 3 Consumption phenomenon 19 4 Consumption studies in different disciplines 27

4.1 The simple model of neo-classical economics 27 4.2 Modern consumption theories 29 4.3 Environmental research on consumption 39 4.4 Interpretation of main consumption-related research streams 44

5 Stakeholders in the sustainable consumption discourse 49 5.1 Governmental stakeholders 49 5.2 Business organisations 55 5.3 Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) 56 5.4 Interpretation of stakeholders’ roles in sustainable consumption 58

6 Policy role in addressing sustainable consumption 61 6.1 Policy principles 61 6.2 Policies and strategies in the European Union 62 6.3 Instruments 65 6.4 Interpretation of policy instruments – effectiveness vs. feasibility 69

7 Conclusions 73 ANNEX A. Major events and key publications on sustainable consumption 77 ANNEX B. Relevant links 83 ANNEX C. Relevant publications 85 REFERENCES 87


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List of figures Figure 1: Total and per capita energy consumption in 1995………………………………………… 20 Figure 2. Some examples of growing total consumption……………………………………………. 22 Figure 3. Energy consumption trends in OECD since 1970s……………………………………….. 23 Figure 4. The NOA model of consumer behaviour………………………………………………….. 30 Figure 5. Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs………………………………………………………. 31 Figure 6. Thresholds of happiness in different countries…………………………………………….. 35 Figure 7a. Difference between the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW) and GDP in the UK during 1950-1996………………………………………………………………… 35 Figure 7b. Difference between the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW) and GDP in Sweden during 1950-1996 ……………………………………………………………….. 36 List of tables Table 1. Consumer spending and population by region in 2000……………………………………… 21 Table 2. Global annual expenditures on products and investments need for different social goals………………………………………………………………………………….. 21 Table 3. Three domains of consumption with examples of types of indicators………………………. 44 Table 4. Consumption expenditures as shares of GDP in OECD……………………………………. 59 Table 5. EU strategies and polices for sustainable production & consumption………………………. 63 Table 6. Evaluation of effectiveness and feasibility of policy instruments…………………………… 69 Table 7. Timetable of major events and key publications on the issue of sustainable consumption…………………………………………………………………………………. 77 List of abbreviations CP Cleaner Production CSR Corporate Social Responsibility EPDs Environmental Product Information EPR Extended Producer Responsibility ETAP Environment Technology Action Plan GDP Gross Domestic Product GMOs Genetically Modified Organisms ICT Information And Communication Technologies IPP Integrated Product Policy ISEW Index Of Sustainable Economic Welfare LCA Life Cycle Assessment NGOs Non-Governmental Organisations NOA Needs-Opportunities-Abilities POEMS Product-Oriented Environmental Management Systems PSS Product-Service Systems SC Sustainable Consumption SPC Sustainable Consumption And Production WBCSD World Business Council For Sustainable Development WTA Willingness-To-Accept WTP Willingness-To-Pay


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Executive Summary In recent decades, the focus of environmental approaches has been on pollution control, cleaner production and improving resource efficiency on the production side. At the end of the 1990s, the scope widened to include post consumer waste collection and management with an emphasis on shifting this responsibility to pro-ducers. As a result, some tangible improvements in reducing the consumption of primary resources have been achieved. However, final consumption has been growing alongside increasing populations and affluence, so that efficiency im-provements on a per product basis have been negated by the increased total con-sumption. It became apparent that without addressing patterns and levels of con-sumption, it may not be possible to reach the vision of sustainable development and the debate on the need to address sustainable consumption has gradually entered the political agenda.

Consumption is a sensitive area for debate facing a number of dilemmas, such as the consumer sovereignty principle that questions the right to consume. How much is enough? Does material prosperity provide happiness and can it be bal-anced with environmental goals? Do developing nations have the right to attain life standards enjoyed in the developed countries? Is it moral to question this right? These questions clash with a number of personal, political and economic interests of different stakeholders and are therefore difficult to address. One of the key ques-tions concerns the definition of sustainable consumption – what are the sustainable levels of consumption? The next question is what are the best strategies to reach sustainable consumption without compromising political interests and socio-economic goals?

This study aims to provide a critical overview of the current debate, research trends and their main outcomes relating to the area of sustainable consumption. The study focuses on current research trends and the activities of main stakeholders and discusses the gaps in the existing range of initiatives and policy instruments towards sustainable consumption. The main focus is on research outcomes, policies and practical initiatives in developed countries.

The consumption phenomenon is being studied in a number of key research disciplines, such as economics, psychology and sociology, where the role and mechanisms of consumption are addressed on individual, household and society levels. To a large extent, the disciplines complement each other allowing for a more comprehensive picture of consumption.

Economic studies focus on how general economic forces in society on na-tional, regional or company levels shape consumption levels and patterns. The field of economics has been traditionally dominated by neo-classical views based on assumptions about utility maximisation and the bounded rationality of individuals. These views regard consumers as rational decision-makers immune to external influences with price and income factors as the main factors in consumer decision-making. However, the neo-classical view has been questioned in modern consump-tion theories with contributions from the fields of psychology and sociology.


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Consumer behaviour has been found to be far more complicated than just a rational response to price signals being influenced by different internal and external drivers induced by human psychology, social norms and institutional settings.

Sociological studies focus on how various institutions in society affect con-sumption patterns and investigate the formation processes around consumption practices. The major themes studied are the influences of social culture, social class and family, ethnic and religious groups. Social institutions, social groups, ideolo-gies and behaviours mutually reinforce each other and shape the development of society. Many studies focus on why people buy goods, how products satisfy con-sumer preferences and how products become symbols of meaning in society. Soci-ology proposes that consumer choice is influenced by functional, conditional, so-cial, emotional and epistemic values of products. Changes of values are often ex-plained from evolutionary and generational perspectives.

An important line of sociological research analyses institutional influences, such as family, religion and the education system. Social class also affects con-sumption patterns to a large degree, because people who belong to the same class share similar values, lifestyles and interests. Some fields in sociology focus on the notions of identity, image and lifestyle and study the role of goods in distinguishing between different classes and reinforcing identity within a certain class.

In the field of psychological studies, it has been found that consumer’s pur-chasing decisions are influenced by emotions and habits, which in turn are formed by personal attitudes and motivations. An important component is the feeling of satisfaction, which, according to Maslow’s hierarchy, is achieved by fulfilling a wide range of needs, spanning from material to social and moral needs. Some of the psychological drivers, such as habits, can be shaped by education in a relatively short time, while others, especially those related to societal pressures, are more difficult to change without addressing the issues of social culture. An important question discussed in both psychology and sociology is the notion of happiness and the means of achieving it. Currently, the ultimate measure of happiness is eco-nomic growth and material wealth measured in monetary terms such as gross do-mestic product (GDP) per capita. However, sociologists (e.g Max-Neef) agree that the relationship between GDP and the level of happiness is highly non-linear. Therefore, other indicators, such as the index of sustainable economic welfare (ISEW), are suggested.

If defined as a separate discipline, environmental studies on sustainable con-sumption mainly focus on whether and how environmental considerations are a decisive factor in purchasing decisions, how society can address growing consump-tion levels and whether eco-efficiency strategies are sufficient for the vision of sustainable development. In the past, environmental issues used to be addressed by ecologists, who generally displayed a rather modest familiarity with the complexity of consumer behaviour and the role of economic, psychological and sociological aspects. Recently, however, an increasing number of environmental studies are performed in the spirit of multidisciplinary research by trying to combine the knowledge from different disciplines.


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Important streams of environmental studies focus on accounting material flows and environmental impacts related to product lifecycle. Material flow analysis (MFA), ecological footprint and input-output assessments are useful for analysing consumption issues on an aggregate level. However, all of these suffer from certain methodological drawbacks and are still in the evolutionary stage. For example, LCAs are useful in studying specific products and processes, but involve a lot of subjective decisions. MFA-based tools provide answers for issues only on an ag-gregate level and are not able to adequately capture toxicological impacts. Cer-tainly, some methodological developments, such as hybrid input-output LCAs, are likely to improve these assessment methods to some extent.

Most consumption-oriented environmental studies suggest that technological solutions directed to improving resource productivity are not sufficient in curbing the environmental effects of consumption. Solutions should be based not only on changing consumption patterns, but also on reducing the levels of consumption. The most radical views on reducing the levels of consumption are based on princi-ples of sufficiency. However, most of the activities today deal with changing con-sumption patterns, which is addressed by strategies of material substitution, pollu-tion prevention, consumer information and the optimisation of end-of-life man-agement practices. The concept of dematerialisation and the shift from product- to service-based consumption in the framework of product-service systems (PSS) are among the newest research streams. However, there is still a significant gap in understanding the environmental impacts of alternative consumption systems based on product to service substitution. It is not a given that servicising ultimately leads to lower environmental impacts and it is important to understand what are the main prerequisites on the systems’ level that lower the impacts. Furthermore, little is known regarding the service features and functions that would shift consumer choices towards services as alternatives to the existing products.

The overview of stakeholders in sustainable consumption identified govern-ments, business and non-governmental organisations as the main players. NGOs and inter-governmental organisations are the most active stakeholders in the sus-tainable consumption debate, but they also have varying and vested interests. One of the most profound problems is the prevailing perception by many governments that reducing consumption levels challenges the goals of economic growth, techno-logical innovation and international competitiveness. Therefore, inter-governmental organisations, although advocating the need to reduce consumption levels, often lack initiatives and support in reaching tangible results.

Most of today’s businesses perceive their contribution to sustainable consump-tion in terms of eco-efficiency strategies, which are oriented at improving resource productivity of the supply side. However, this hardly addresses the problem of final consumption, because productivity improvements often lead to rebound effects and backfire in terms of increased consumption of cheaper product or service. Address-ing sustainable consumption requires increasing the resource efficiency of input materials as well as reducing the levels of final consumption. The latter calls for significant commitments from individuals, but there could also be a role for busi-ness actors for which sustainable consumption can imply new business


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opportunities not currently seen by mainstream businesses. For instance, instead of placing the core of profit making on increasing product sales, innovative compa-nies see the development potential in providing alternative service solutions, which simultaneously leads to a reduction in the levels of material goods needed for de-livering service to consumers and users.

Non-governmental consumer organisations (NGOs) seem to be the most pro-found actors in the sustainable consumption debate by challenging the current eco-nomic premises and calling for sufficiency approaches. Most of their campaigns deal with changing consumer behaviour and/or raising awareness. Unfortunately, NGOs lack the power of international governmental organisations and business actors to have a wide outreach and make a significant impact on actual improve-ment. Therefore, combining inter-governmental, business and NGO activities could be an effective strategy for shifting towards more sustainable consumption.

Policy makers seem to be the most relevant actors to mediate the change to-wards more sustainable consumption. However, in dealing with sustainable con-sumption there is a noticeable lack of strategies that challenge the assumptions of economic systems based on material growth and that could conceive ways of shift-ing from material-intensive consumer culture to a society with less materialistic aspirations. Certainly, such strategies should address not only the production side, but also the consumption dimension, propagating not only efficiency approaches, but also sufficiency strategies. Sufficiency strategies, increasing awareness and supporting citizen actions of private consumers are components of an ultimate preventive strategy that can lead to the reduction of aggregate environmental im-pacts. To provide a fruitful ground for sufficiency strategies, governments need to change the institutional frameworks in society and create conditions in which pro-ducers would be interested in finding new business centres using less resource-intensive products and services.

Obviously, no single tool or approach can change the framework conditions in society. Therefore, a national sustainable consumption strategy could be the first step to a more integrative approach in dealing with consumption-related problems. Policy interventions combined with other instruments can facilitate the creation of economic frameworks for new business strategies to emerge.

Furthermore, international dialogue is needed. A dialogue on the EU level can provide a forum for finding potential solutions. Finally, the shift towards sustain-able consumption has to emerge in industrialised countries that will inspire the rest of the world to lead a less material intensive existence.


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Sammanfattning Under de senaste årtiondena har fokus för miljöåtgärder framför allt varit kontroll av utsläpp av föroreningar, renare teknik och förbättrad resurseffektivitet på pro-duktionssidan. I slutet av 1990-talet breddades fokus även till insamling och han-tering av konsumtionsavfall med bland annat syftet att öka ansvaret hos producen-terna. Detta har inneburit framsteg i form av minskad förbrukning av vissa råvaru-resurser. Konsumtionsnivån har dock samtidigt ökat med ökad befolkningsmängd och ökat välstånd, och effektivitetsförbättringar på produktnivå har ätits upp av den ökade totalkonsumtionen. Det har visats sig att det inte är möjligt att uppnå visio-nen om hållbar utveckling om inte våra konsumtionsmönster och konsumtionsni-våer adresseras, och debatten om behovet av hållbar konsumtion har stegvis tagit plats på den politiska agendan.

Konsumtion är ett känsligt debattområde med ett antal svåra frågeställningar, till exempel principen om konsumentens suveränitet och ifrågasättandet av rätten att konsumera. Hur mycket är tillräckligt? Är materiellt välstånd nyckeln till lycka och går det att balansera med mål för miljön? Har utvecklingsländer rätt att uppnå den levnadsstandard som industriländer åtnjuter? Är det moraliskt att ifrågasätta denna rättighet? Dessa frågor kolliderar med ett antal personliga, politiska och ekonomiska intressen hos olika intressenter och är därför svåra att hantera. En av nyckelfrågorna rör definitionen av hållbar konsumtion – vilka konsumtionsnivåer är hållbara? Nästa fråga är vilka de bästa strategierna är för att uppnå hållbar kon-sumtion utan att ge avkall på politiska intressen och socioekonomiska mål?

Denna studie syftar till att ge en kritisk översikt över den aktuella debatten, forskningstrender och dess huvudsakliga slutsatser inom området hållbar konsum-tion. Studien fokuserar på aktuella forskningstrender och viktiga intressenters akti-viteter, samt diskuterar brister bland befintliga initiativ och strategiska instrument för att uppnå hållbar konsumtion. Huvudfokus är forskningsresultat, policys och praktiska initiativ i industriländer.

Konsumtion som fenomen studeras i ett antal nyckeldiscipliner inom forsk-ningen, som ekonomi, psykologi och sociologi, där konsumtionens roll och meka-nismer behandlas på individuell nivå, hushålls- och samhällsnivå. De olika disci-plinerna kompletterar varandra i stor utsträckning, vilket ger möjlighet till en mer mångsidig bild av konsumtionsfrågan.

Ekonomiska studier fokuserar på hur allmänna ekonomiska drivkrafter i sam-hället påverkar konsumtionsnivåer och konsumtionsmönster på nationell, regional och företagsnivå. Det ekonomiska området har traditionellt dominerats av det neo-klassicistiska synsättet, baserat på antaganden om nyttomaximering och individers rationella beteende. Detta synsätt betraktar konsumenter som rationella beslutsfat-tare som är opåverkbara av externa influenser och där pris och inkomst är huvud-faktorer i konsumenternas beslutsfattande. Det neo-klassicistiska synsättet har dock ifrågasatts i moderna konsumtionsteorier efter inspel från psykologin och sociolo-gin. Konsumenternas beteende har visat sig vara mycket mer komplicerat än bara en rationell reaktion på prissignaler, och påverkas av olika interna och externa


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drivkrafter föranledda av psykologiska faktorer, sociala normer och institutionella ramar.

Sociologiska studier fokuserar på hur olika institutioner i samhället påverkar konsumtionsmönster och undersöker processen kring hur konsumtionsvanor ska-pas. Huvudsakliga teman som studerats är inverkan av social kultur, socialgrupp och familj, etniska och religiösa grupperingar. Sociala institutioner, socialgrupper, ideologier och beteende förstärker varandra ömsesidigt och skapar samhällsutveck-lingen. Många studier fokuserar på varför människor köper varor, hur produkterna tillfredsställer konsumenternas preferenser och hur produkterna blir symboler för meningsfullhet i samhället. Sociologin menar att konsumenternas val influeras av funktionella, villkorliga, sociala, emotionella och kunskapsteoretiska produktvär-den. Förändringar i värderingar förklaras ofta från ett utvecklings- och genera-tionsperspektiv.

En viktig linje inom sociologisk forskning analyserar institutionell påverkan, till exempel familj, religion och utbildningssystemet. Socialgrupp påverkar också konsumtionsmönster i hög grad, eftersom människor som tillhör samma klass delar liknande värderingar, livsstilar och intressen. Vissa fält inom sociologin fokuserar på begreppen identitet, image och livsstil och studerar varornas roll vid identifie-ring med olika klasser och vid förstärkning av identiteten inom en viss klass.

I psykologiska studier har det framkommit att konsumenternas inköpsbeslut påverkas av känslor och vanor, som i sin tur skapas av personliga attityder och motivation. En viktig komponent är känslan av att vara nöjd som, enligt Maslows hierarki, uppnås genom att tillfredsställa ett brett urval av behov som sträcker sig från materiella till sociala och andliga behov. En del psykologiska drivkrafter, till exempel vanor, kan skapas via utbildning inom relativt kort tid, medan andra, sär-skilt de som kan hänföras till tryck från samhället, är svårare att förändra utan att adressera sociokulturella frågeställningar. En viktig fråga som diskuteras inom både psykologin och sociologin är lyckobegreppet och sätten att uppnå lycka. För närvarande är det dominerande måttet på lycka ekonomisk tillväxt och materiell välfärd, som till exempel mäts i bruttonationalprodukt (BNP) per capita. Sociologer (till exempel Max-Neef) är emellertid överens om att förhållandet mellan BNP och lyckonivå inte alls är linjär. Därför föreslår man andra indikatorer, till exempel Index of sustainable economic welfare (ISEW).

Miljöstudier avseende hållbar konsumtion, om det definieras som en separat gren, fokuserar huvudsakligen på om och hur miljöaspekter är en avgörande faktor vid inköpsbeslut, hur samhället kan ta itu med växande konsumtionsnivåer och huruvida strategier för eko-effektivitet är tillräckliga för visionen om en hållbar utveckling. Tidigare brukade miljöfrågor hanteras av ekologer som i allmänhet visade sig vara ganska okunniga om komplexiteten hos konsumenternas beteende samt de ekonomiska, psykologiska och sociologiska aspekternas roll. På senare tid har dock miljöstudier i tvärvetenskaplig forskningsanda ökat genom att försöka förena kunskap från olika discipliner.

Betydelsefulla inriktningar på miljöstudier fokuserar på redovisning av materi-alflöden och miljöpåverkan som hänför sig till produktens livscykel (miljöräken-skaper). Materialflödesanalyser (MFA), ekologiska fotavtryck och input/output-


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analyser är användbara vid analys av konsumtionsfrågor på en aggregerad nivå. Alla dessa har dock vissa metodologiska brister och är fortfarande på utvecklings-stadiet. Livscykelanalyser är till exempel användbara vid studier av specifika pro-dukter och processer, men inbegriper en mängd subjektiva beslut. MFA-baserade verktyg ger endast svar på frågor på en aggregerad nivå och tar inte hänsyn till toxikologisk påverkan på ett tillfredsställande sätt. Viss metodutveckling, till ex-empel kombination av traditioenlla livscykelanalyser och makroekonomiska kaly-ler/räkenskaper av in- och utgående material (hybrid input-output LCAs), kommer troligen att förbättra dessa bedömningsmetoder i viss utsträckning.

De flesta konsumtionsinriktade miljöstudier hävdar att tekniska lösningar som riktas mot att förbättra resursproduktivitet inte är tillräckliga för att hantera miljöef-fekterna från konsumtionen. Lösningar bör inte bara baseras på förändrade kon-sumtionsmönster utan även på att minska konsumtionsnivåerna. De mest radikala uppfattningarna avseende minskade konsumtionsnivåer baseras på principer om tillräcklighet (sufficiency). I dag handlar dock de flesta aktiviteter om förändring av konsumtionsmönster med hjälp av strategier om materialutbyte, förhindrande av föroreningar, konsumentinformation och bästa möjliga slutliga omhändertagande av produkterna. Konceptet dematerialisering och övergången från varu- till tjäns-tebaserad konsumtion inom ramverket för varu/tjänstesystem (PSS – Product Ser-vice Systems) är en av de nyaste strömningarna inom forskningen. Det finns emel-lertid fortfarande en betydande kunskapsbrist att förstå miljöpåverkan av alternati-va konsumtionssystem som baseras på övergång från varor till tjänster. Det är inte givet att tjänster alltid leder till lägre miljöpåverkan och det är viktigt att förstå viktiga förutsättningar på systemnivå för att påverkan ska minska. Vidare är kun-skapen låg om de egenskaper och funktioner hos tjänster som skulle kunna ändra konsumenternas inställning så att de väljer tjänster som alternativ till befintliga varor.

I översikten över intressenter inom hållbar konsumtion identifierades stat, före-tag och frivilliga icke-statliga organisationer (NGO – Non Governmental Organisa-tions) som huvudaktörer. NGOs och mellanstatliga organisationer är de mest aktiva intressenterna i debatten om hållbar konsumtion, de har också olika intressen och utgångspunkt i frågan. Ett av de mest djupgående problemen är den hos många statliga aktörer rådande uppfattningen om att minskade konsumtionsnivåer utmanar målen för ekonomisk tillväxt, tekniskt nyskapande och internationell konkurrens-kraft. Det saknas därför ofta initiativ och stöd hos mellanstatliga organisationer för att åstadkomma påtagliga resultat, även om de förespråkar behovet av att minska konsumtionsnivåer.

Majoriteten av dagens företag ser sina bidrag till hållbar konsumtion inom ra-men för strategier för eko-effektivitet som är inriktade på att förbättra resurspro-duktiviteten på utbudssidan. Detta synsätt inriktar sig dock knappast på problemet med slutlig konsumtion, eftersom effektiviseringar i produktivitet ofta leder till återverkande effekter som slår tillbaka i form av ökad konsumtion av billigare varor eller tjänster (rebound effects). Åtgärder för en hållbar konsumtion krävs avseende såväl ökad resurseffektivitet av ingående material, som minskade kon-sumtionsnivåer. Det senare förutsätter ett starkt engagemang från enskilda perso-


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ner, men det kan också finnas en roll för näringslivets aktörer för vilka hållbar konsumtion kan innebära nya affärsmöjligheter som traditionella företag ännu inte har insett. Exempelvis kan ett nyskapande företag, i stället för att tjäna mer på ökad produktförsäljning, se en utvecklingspotential i att tillhandahålla alternativa tjänste-lösningar som samtidigt leder till minskning av den mängd material som krävs för att leverera tjänsten till konsumenter och användare.

NGOs på konsumentområdet verkar vara de mest insiktsfulla aktörerna i debat-ten om hållbar konsumtion genom att utmana dagens ekonomiska antaganden och efterlysa tillvägagångssätt baserade på tillräcklighet (sufficiency approaches). De flesta av deras kampanjer handlar om att ändra konsumenternas beteende och/eller öka medvetenheten. NGOs saknar tyvärr styrkan som internationella statliga orga-nisationer och näringslivsaktörer har som innebär möjlighet att nå många och att ha en betydande inverkan på pågående insatser/framsteg. Det kan därför vara en effek-tiv strategi att kombinera aktiviteter i mellanstatliga organisationer, näringsliv och icke-statliga organisationer i övergången till en mer hållbar konsumtion.

Policyskapare är förmodligen den mest betydelsefulla aktören för att förmedla övergången till en mer hållbar konsumtion. Det finns dock en påtaglig brist på strategier som utmanar de ekonomiska systemens antaganden baserade på materiell tillväxt och som kan formulera tillvägagångssätt för att växla från en materialinten-siv konsumtionskultur till ett samhälle med mindre materialistiska strävanden. Sådana strategier skall inte bara omfatta produktionssidan utan även konsumtionen, och inte bara propagera för effektivisering utan även för tillräcklighet (sufficiency strategies). Tillräcklighetsstrategier, ökad medvetenhet och stöd till insatser av privata konsumenter är delar i en avgörande förebyggande strategi som kan leda till minskad total miljöpåverkan. För att tillhandahålla en fruktbar bas för tillräcklig-hetsstrategier (sufficiency strategies) behöver statsmakterna ändra samhällets insti-tutionella ramverk och skapa förutsättningar för tillverkare att intressera sig för att hitta nya affärsidéer för varor och tjänster som är mindre resursintensiva.

Ett enskilt verktyg eller tillvägagångssätt kan självklart inte ändra de grund-läggande förutsättningarna i samhället. En nationell strategi för hållbar konsumtion kan därför vara första steget mot ett mer integrerat tillvägagångssätt vid hantering av konsumtionsrelaterade problem. Initiativ på policynivå i kombination med andra initiativ och instrument kan underlätta skapandet av ekonomiska ramverk så att nya affärsstrategier kan utvecklas.

Det krävs dessutom en internationell dialog. En dialog på EU-nivå kan vara ett forum för att finna potentiella lösningar. Slutligen, övergången till hållbar konsum-tion måste utvecklas i de industrialiserade länderna som sedan inspirerar resten av världen att leva ett liv som är mindre materialintensivt.


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1 Introduction The technological and economic development of society is not only linked to in-creasing levels of affluence, but is also inevitably accompanied by environmental problems. During the last decade, the concepts of sustainable production and con-sumption have increased in importance. Since the early 1990’s, significant progress in the eco-efficiency movement, which aims at improving the environmental pro-file of production processes and products, has taken place. A majority of develop-ment strategies were designed to increase the efficiency of existing production processes, and later products, but very few have actually addressed consumption issues. While it was hoped that technical solutions would allow us to solve envi-ronmental problems, due to the constantly increasing population and affluence levels the eco-efficiency improvements, although very important and effective in tackling specific problems, have failed to reduce the aggregate impacts of increas-ing consumption. This calls for new strategies to address environmental and growth-related problems.

The notion of sustainable consumption (SC) is often used as an umbrella term for issues related to human needs, equity, quality of life, resource efficiency, waste minimisation, life cycle thinking, consumer health and safety, consumer sover-eignty, etc. Many of these issues have conflicting aims, which make them not eas-ily compatible in the strategic shift towards sustainable consumption and points to the complexity of the subject. There is still no consensus regarding the definition of sustainable consumption. Some actors treat consumption as a production issue and suggest that the reduction of the environmental problems of consumption is possi-ble though eco-efficiency improvements. Other actors equate sustainable consump-tion to the ‘greening’ of markets, i.e. providing green product alternatives. Fur-thermore, there is no consensus regarding the scope of the efforts needed to address consumption-related problems. In other words, the debate centres on whether it is sufficient to change consumption patterns or if there is a need to also reduce con-sumption levels. Finally, the shift towards sustainable consumption involves con-flicts of interests on an individual level, i.e. it implies changing consumer behav-iour and adjusting lifestyles not only by “them”, but also by “me personally”.

A growing number of governmental initiatives and workshops on sustainable consumption in recent years have indicated that the field is coming into policy focus. Simultaneously, the conceptual developments on sustainable consumption do not seem to have been translated into practical strategies and instruments to the same extent as sustainable production strategies did.

There are also a number of successful NGOs that facilitate bottom-up changes in consumption patterns and consumer behaviour by directly working with and educating consumers and households. However, many agree that to have an effect these measures need to be disseminated to a much larger audience and be linked with policy instruments into a coherent sustainable consumption strategy. In order to facilitate the development of a coherent and systematic sustainable consumption strategy, it is important to understand the current level of development in the


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sustainable consumption field and to investigate the reasons for the identified lack of research sophistication, practical developments and initiatives related to sustain-able consumption.

There is a broad range of different disciplines that deal with sustainable con-sumption issues, starting from economics, marketing, business strategies and social studies of consumer behaviour. Different policy studies have also started address-ing the issue of sustainable consumption, since conventional market mechanisms and eco-efficiency strategies are not always sufficient when addressing environ-mental externalities and environmental problems stemming from the levels of con-sumption. Conventional areas where policies are being developed in relation to consumption are prerequisites for information provision, taxing environmentally harmful activities and products and banning extremely dangerous substances. However, it is not clear whether existing policy measures take into account the knowledge from consumption research. Furthermore, since consumption and envi-ronmental problems are increasing, the current range of policy instruments seems insufficient

In this study, we are mapping out the major outcomes of the research on con-sumption and sustainable consumption from various disciplines and discussing how this knowledge can be used for policy making and what needs to be addressed by future research activities and policy interventions. The study aims to contribute to the preparatory work of authorities on developing a national strategy for sustainable consumption. Relevant for the interests of policy makers will be the overview of the existing research initiatives and outcomes, including policy oriented research.

The following section details the goals of the study and describes the method-ology employed. Chapter 3 describes consumption-related problems with some statistical data. Chapter 4 summarises the main research streams relevant for this study in economic, sociological, psychological, environmental and policy research. In Chapter 5, the activities of the main stakeholders on sustainable consumption are presented. Chapter 6 discusses the roles of various stakeholders and the effective-ness and feasibility of various policy instruments for sustainable consumption. Conclusions are made in Chapter 7.


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2 Goals, methods and limitations of this study

The goal of this study is to provide a critical overview of current research activities and their main outcomes concerning consumption and sustainable consumption fields by:

• Reviewing existing research initiatives and policy instruments towards sus-tainable consumption;

• Identifying gaps in the existing range of initiatives and policy instruments towards sustainable consumption.

The focus of the study is on research outcomes, policies and practical initiatives of the EU and OECD countries in addressing sustainable consumption problems. Data was primarily collected via literature analysis, but also from interviews with rele-vant actors. The study comprised several stages:

1. A critical overview of existing research activities and their out-comes regarding sustainable consumption.

2. An analysis of the main policy documents on sustainable con-sumption written in the last decade by international organisations, based on discussion panels, seminars and workshops with different stakeholders. The outcome is an overview of how the sustainable consumption concept has been addressed at the international policy level and what the potential gaps and drawbacks in the proposed and discussed policy documents are.

3. The mapping out of non-governmental initiatives for sustainable consumption and an evaluation of their outcomes.

4. An analysis of the sustainable consumption field with regard to undertaken and potential future research needs and policy interven-tion.

This study outlines the progress towards sustainable consumption by describing recent initiatives in this field with a special focus on research- and policy-related activities. This report outlines existing research gaps and needs and the role of policy intervention as the possible solution to addressing sustainable consumption problems.


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3 Consumption phenomenon The industrial revolution was one of the most important drivers for reaching the current standards of living, lifestyles and consumption patterns. Industrialisation took place during several significant political and economic transformations in the North, such as colonisation, which secured access to cheap natural resources from the South. Competition for the lowest price and the reduction of manufacturing costs was accompanied with a number of structural changes on the macro-economic level, especially the pricing of natural resources. On the demand side, increasing urbanisation and growing incomes facilitated increasing consumption. A giant leap in production output and consumption levels was possible due to the increase in work productivity through a series of innovations in production sys-tems, such as the division of labour and technological modernisation.

Along with the industrial revolution, the ever-increasing international competi-tion became another driver for increasing productivity, which in turn allowed higher incomes and increased consumption. A number of technological forces gave an impetus to consumption, especially the invention of general-purpose technolo-gies such as electricity, the internal combustion engine, microwaves and communi-cation technology (Grübler 1998; Røpke 1999a; Grübler, Nakicenovic et al. 2002). At first, these technologies generated stand-alone products and applications, but later evolved into product systems, infrastructures, social practices, institutions and cultures. For example, the arrival of the car required creating road networks, traffic police, road administrations, driving schools, etc. The arrival of television induced the creation of broadcasting systems, studios, the advertising and film industries and so on.

Information and communication technologies (ICT) gave a new impetus to consumerism. The Internet became a powerful marketing channel, improved con-sumer access to information and created a perfect frictionless market with abundant information and close-to-zero transaction costs, which expanded markets in terms of time and space. The “one-click-shopping” e-commerce has dramatically chang-ed the way we find and buy products and services. These developments have a great environmental potential through the optimisation of supply chains (Romm, Rosenfield et al. 1999). Simultaneously, the increased availability of information on new products and services and the lower prices of goods stemming from optimi-sations on the market have resulted in higher consumption and negative environ-mental impacts.

Today, consumption is seen as an extremely important component in gross do-mestic product (GDP) – the main traditional indicator of economic growth. It is a widely accepted belief that economic growth, beyond eliminating poverty, will ultimately increase well-being and happiness. Therefore, many governments treat consumption growth as a positive phenomenon and promote it in many ways.

However, economic growth does not always leads to increased happiness, as indicated by several studies showing that materialistic societies are less happy than less materialistic ones. The industrial revolution and economic growth generated


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side effects that put under threat the very goal of economic development – well-being. These are typically externalities, such as environmental pollution, health deterioration and increasing social disparities between the rich and the poor.

The expansion of global consumption expenditures allowed considerable ad-vances in human development resulting in substantial improvements in health care, communication and education. Concurrently, many environmental problems are linked to consumption. At this point a distinction must be made between resource and household consumption. The former refers to resource consumption on the supply side (i.e. the manufacturing and service industry) and the latter denotes consumption of final goods. In many cases, a reduction of resource consumption is a positive development in the eyes of many governments because it is a signal of increased productivity and the ability to produce more with less, i.e. higher com-petitiveness. On the other hand, a reduction of consumption on the supply side does not mean a reduction of final consumption. Very often low manufacturing costs translate into lower prices of final goods, which results in increased demand.

According to the Worldwatch Institute, the global consumer class (users of TVs, phones and the Internet along with the culture and ideals these products trans-mit) is about 1.7 billion people or more than a quarter of the world. Between 1960 and 2000, private consumption expenditures (household spending on goods and services) increased from $4.8 to $20 trillion.

Although part of this was induced by population growth, advancing economic prosperity stimulated most of the growth. The latter was possible due to increasing production efficiency. For example, a week’s output of an industrial worker today corresponds to four years of output in the 18th century. Furthermore, consumption is fuelled by enormous pressure through the advertising industry, which in 2002 had a global spending of $446 billion – a nine-fold increase from 1950 (Worldwatch Institute 2004). Figure 1 shows the disparities between industrial and developing countries in terms of per capita energy consumption. The gap between the rich and the poor has not diminished and in some cases has even widened.

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Figure 1. Total and per capita energy consumption in 1995. (Source: UNEP 2000.)


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However, the growth in prosperity in different parts of the world is highly unequal (Table 1). Industrial nations have far higher incomes and consumption levels than developing countries. As a result, regional disparities are still increasing. In 1999, for instance, some 2.8 billion people lived on less than $2 a day. In 2000, 1.1 bil-lion people did not have “reasonable access“ to safe drinking water and 2.4 billion people lived without basic sanitation (Worldwatch Institute 2004).

Table 1. Consumer spending and population by region in 2000. (Source: Worldwatch Institute 2004.)

Region % of global expenditure % of global population

USA and Canada 31.5 % 5.2 %

Western Europe 28.7 % 6.4 %

East Asia and Pacific 21.4 % 32.9 %

Latin America and the Caribbean 6.7 % 8.5 %

Eastern Europe and Central Asia 3.3 % 7.9 %

South Asia 2.0 % 22.4 %

Australia and New Zealand 1.5 % 0.4 %

Middle East and North Africa 1.4 % 4.1 %

Sub-Saharan Africa 1.2 % 10.9 %

At the same time, improving the situation of the underprivileged is possible for less than what global population spends on trivial things, such as makeup, ice cream or pet food (Table 2). Other observations show that along with population growth, key consumption activities contributing to serious environmental problems, such as personal travel by car, amount of meet and fossil fuels consumed, have intensified (Figure 2).

Table 2. Global annual expenditures on products and investments need for different social goals. (Source: Worldwatch Institute 2004.)

Product Annual spend-ing

Social or economic goals

Investment needed to achieve the goals

Makeup $18 billion Reproductive health care for all women $12 billion/year

Pet food in Europe and United States $17 billion Elimination of hunger $19 billion/year

Perfumes $15 billion Universal literacy $5 billion/year

Ocean cruises $14 billion Clean water for all $10 billion/year

Ice cream in Europe $11 billion Immunizing every child $1.3 billion/year


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Figure 2. Some examples of growing total consumption. (Source: Worldwatch Institute 2005.)

Total world final energy consumption has been growing faster than in OECD member countries, which can be explained by the increasing share of (presumably less energy intensive) service industries in developed countries and outsourcing of energy intensive industries into third countries (Figure 3). At the same time, energy consumption per capita has not decreased, which is a sign of increased affluence and higher levels of consumption. One of the facilitating factors to increasing con-sumption is diminishing prices of natural resources induced by the improvements in manufacturing technologies, which inevitably lead to rebound effects.


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Figure 3. Energy consumption trends in OECD since 1970s. (Source: OECD 1999:55.)

The concept of rebound effects is often mentioned in discussions about productiv-ity improvements and is often used in the discourse on sustainable development and resource consumption. The concept refers to a positive feedback loop between productivity improvements, economic growth and the levels of consumption. The rebound effects are explained through market price mechanism and consumer be-haviour: as technological improvements increase resource efficiency, fewer re-sources are needed to produce the same amount of output, thus the cost per unit of production falls, which leads to increased demand of the output. The effect was first extensively discussed by energy economists in the 1980s demonstrating that higher efficiency in producing energy services resulted in lower energy price and higher consumption (Brookes 1979; Khazzoom 1980; Khazzoom 1986; Khazzoom 1987). Later research confirmed that rebound effects are taking place in all eco-nomic sectors and that they are closely tied to consumer behaviour (Berkhout, Muskens et al. 2000; Binswanger 2000). Furthermore, technological innovations of general purpose technologies, such as IT and Internet, also lead to complex re-bound effects across many economic sectors (Plepys 2002).

A four-tier taxonomy of rebound effects have been suggested (Greening, Greene et al. 2000). On the lowest tier are the traditional price effects, as defined by the energy economists above. The described increase in consumption, however, is not limitless. A consumer will increase the use of a cheap commodity until the limits of satiation or until budgetary tradeoffs with other expenditures.1 The limited consumption of such commodity in this case may result in savings, which will be used for increasing consumption of other commodities, or the so-called second order rebound effects (Greening, Greene et al. 2000).

On a macro level, Greening et al. (2000) conceptualised economy-wide and transformational effects. The former refer to readjustments of prices and quantities of other commodities across all sectors as a consequence of price and 2nd order rebounds. The argument builds on the interrelationship of prices and outputs of

1 Consumption may also be limited by time limitations or behavioural constraints (e.g. social norms, fashion or effort level, see (Schneider, Hinterberger et al. 2001).


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goods and resources in different markets, which form a unique equilibrium state. The transformational effects relate less to price mechanisms and more to the changes of consumer preferences, lifestyles, new habits and altered social institu-tions. These effects are the most obscure and, although describing transformational effects is conceptually possible, they are not practical analytically, as both theory and data are lacking (Greening, Greene et al. 2000, pg. 399).

This point can be considered as the limit to the economic explanation of re-bound effects. There are many other parameters affecting consumption desires and many are not related solely to product function and its price, but also to human factors such as consumers taste, image and fashion, brand identity, sentiments, etc. Therefore, other theories dealing with psychology and consumer behaviour issues are needed. Consumption habits are indeed tied with human psychology and be-haviour. The view that we consume things only for their function is very simplistic and in reality human consumption desires are formed by two components –basic needs and emotional satisfaction. The first one is driven by human aspirations to satisfy basic physical needs for food, clothing, shelter and mobility, while the sec-ond - by human desires to express a particular lifestyle determined by the symbolic values of goods (Sachs 1998; Sachs 1999).

Consumption has become an important issue in international policy since the early 1970s after The Club of Rome, a group of economists, scientists, and busi-ness leaders, published The Limits to Growth. The publication had drawn public attention to the rates of reaching the limits of Earth's carrying capacity along with the increasing affluence and population growth, resource depletion, and pollution generation. Sustainable consumption was proposed as a broad strategy to dealing with environmental problems and a number of national and international discus-sions, political discourses and research initiatives have been launched.

The first serious appearance of sustainable consumption issue on the interna-tional agenda was in 1992 at the international conference in Rio de Janeiro. Chap-ter 4 of the Agenda 21 declaration was devoted to changing consumption patterns, where patterns of production and consumption were labelled as a cause of unsus-tainable development: “The major cause of continued deterioration of the global environment is the unsustainable patterns of consumption and production, particu-larly in the industrialised countries. (Chapter 4, Agenda 21). Later, several re-search institutions and international bodies followed up the issue of sustainable consumption. Most of the work focused on developing a better understanding of the role of consumption and especially patterns of production and consumption in meeting basic human needs and reducing overall environmental impact.

One of the important streams of research on sustainable consumption deals with different environmental indicators. A number of international organisations (EEA 1995; OECD 1999; Worldwatch Institute 2004) have funded projects to develop a set of indicators that could help trace the progress toward less consump-tive lifestyles.

Success in approaching sustainable consumption has been rather modest for several reasons. First, there is still no consensus on the definition and scope of sustainable consumption. Some treat consumption as part of production; others


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equate it to greening the markets. Secondly, lack of progress in sustainable con-sumption domain can be ascribed to interests of different stakeholders that lobby against addressing especially consumption levels. More consensual agreement exist in the discussion about the necessity to address consumption patterns – consuming differently, which is in fact just greening the markets. Thirdly, sustainable con-sumption in it broadest sense may call for renegotiation of the major societal con-ventions and institutions, which is not the easiest thing to do. Lastly, the vision of sustainable consumption poses a need for individual action in changing consump-tion habits and adjusting lifestyles in line with the principles of sustainable devel-opment. This implies not only buying more environmentally sound products and services, but also by applying sufficiency principles.


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4 Consumption studies in different disciplines

The history of consumption and consumerism has its roots in a number of eco-nomic, social, cultural and geopolitical transformations that evolved throughout history. Along with these transformations on the macro level, which were impor-tant pre-requisites for changes in consumption levels, there are a number of factors related to consumer behaviour. Therefore, the consumption phenomenon has been discussed in a number of different scientific disciplines such as economics, sociol-ogy, psychology, behavioural science, etc. In this chapter, we provide a short over-view of the main theories that are useful in understanding consumption and the need for sustainable consumption.

4.1 The simple model of neo-classical economics

Neo-classical economic theory is one of the oldest economic theories of consump-tion and dominated scientific debate from the mid-19th century and prevailed well into the 20th century. Neo-classical economics started with William Stanley Jevons' “Theory of Political Economy” (1871), Carl Menger's “Principles of Economics” (1871) and Leon Walras' “Elements of Pure Economics” (1874 – 1877). The theory is based on a number of simplifications and assumptions regarding consumer be-haviour and consumer interaction with the surrounding world (see more modern authors: Friedman 1957; Douglas and Isherwood 1980; Harris 1997; van den Bergh and Ferrer-i-Carboneli 2000).

The traditional microeconomic consumption theory describes how the rational consumer allocates his/her budget amongst different goods in order to maximise private benefit (utility). Generally speaking, neo-classical economics takes the insatiability of consumer desires and the sovereignty of consumer choices as the definite features of consumption without going into the underlying motivations for them. Incomes and prices are treated as one of the main limiting factors and the consumer’s choice is essentially an exercise of finding the optimal condition where the utility/price ratios of the chosen goods are equal (Toumanoff and Farrokh 1994). Another important determinant of consumption is time or rather its alloca-tion between different product and service alternatives (Becker 1965).

The neo-classical theory rests on a number of assumptions. Firstly, is the fun-damental assumption that the consumer is a rational decision-maker with well-defined aspirations for goods and services. Secondly, is the assumption that the desires are insatiable and consumption is determined by the desire to maximise the consumer’s private utility measured in terms of the quantities of products and ser-vices consumed. Utility maximisation is an insatiable desire and consists of a proc-ess of balancing consumption amongst different alternatives available on the mar-ket. The main limiting factors for consumption are budget and time (Lancaster


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1971; Michael and Becker 1973). Thirdly, is the assumption that the consumer is sovereign and consumes goods without considering social, ethical or environmental issues, i.e. culture, institutional frameworks, social interactions. Fourthly, is the assumption that consumer preferences and desires for certain goods are by nature stable and that consumers maximise private utility in the world of perfect informa-tion and market competition.

Thus, in this simplistic model, the main prerequisite for consumption, assuming adequate supply of goods and services at market prices, is the availability of in-come and time to consume. Other important factors are personal tastes, but these often fall outside the realm of economics and traditional economists mostly restrict themselves to discussing the role of prices and incomes when determining con-sumption choices.

The level of income depends on the time spent working, qualifications and how well this is applied in producing value-added. Generally, higher incomes are possi-ble along with technological improvements that provide higher productivity and lower production costs and the final prices of goods. Since consumption is directly linked to the available budget, consumers are interested in increasing personal incomes, which is possible by raising productivity, i.e. producing more with fewer production factors (labour, capital, technology or resources). This may lead to over-supply and the resulting price drops and rebound effects that in turn promote consumption and result in higher environmental impacts.

With its set of assumptions, the neo-classical theory is convenient for analysing how price elasticity, incomes and product substitution influence consumer behav-iour. Income elasticity measures the responsiveness of the demanded product quan-tity to income change. If spending on a good does not grow proportionally to in-come, the good can be considered a necessity. On the other hand, if an increase in income induces more than a proportional increase in expenditure, the good can be considered a luxury (Pearce 2000).

Practice shows that wealthy individuals are more likely to consume luxury items and are typically early adopters of a new technology, initially absorbing the high costs of innovation. As soon as the market for the early adopters (usually wealthier consumers) saturates, the manufacturers may choose to lower their profit margins or produce similar, but simpler and cheaper products in order to reach mass consumers (EC IST 2001). As technological improvements are made, the price of new technologies drops and demand increases allowing the suppliers to benefit from the economies of scale. As the production volumes increase, so does the competition, which further presses down the prices making products more af-fordable. This market mechanism usually helps to move a good from the realm of luxury to the realm of an affordable common good, which inevitably increases consumption levels.

An affordable good may even evolve into a necessity, which influences con-sumption of other goods. This is especially true when institutional settings and infrastructures surrounding that good change in a way that promotes consumer dependency on the good. For example, in the USA cars were luxury goods until the 1920s. However, as incomes grew, cars became an affordable good and later,


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facilitated by governmental strategies for infrastructure development and town planning, cars evolved into an absolute necessity. The increasing availability of cars increased consumer mobility, allowed time saving and access to more shop-ping places. In reality, however, time saving from car use is a relative benefit. With an increasing number of cars, time benefits usually shrink as roads become more clogged with traffic.

Being simplistic (i.e. ignorant to the exogenous factors – society, culture and institutions) the neo-classical economic theory is well-suited for modelling the effects of technological and labour productivity improvements. This theory is also convenient for environmental policy interventions using economic instruments, such as road fees, carbon taxes or any other general pollution surcharge taxes (Kletzan, Köppl et al. 2002). However, it does not hold true in its assumption that increasing levels of material ownership lead to increasing satisfaction with life as, for example, millions of poor people in India consider themselves happy, while the opposite is true for rich people in the USA (see further discussion on this topic in the following section).

4.2 Modern consumption theories A change in neo-classical economics took place in the mid-1930s with the publica-tions of Joan Robinson’s “The Economics of Imperfect Competition” (1933) and Edward H. Chamberlin’s “The Theory of Monopolistic Competition” (1933), which introduced models of imperfect competition, new theories, such as Herbert Simon's theory of bounded rationality, and new tools, such as the marginal revenue curve. Taking into account the concept of bounded rationality with lack of information and cognitive limitations, it is clear that consumers cannot be efficient in their cho-ices and that neoclassical economics has failed to provide a sufficient explanation of consumption processes. Since then, the neo-classical economic theory has been criticised by many scholars for its over-simplification of reality, particularly on the assumptions of a rational and sovereign consumers with limitless consumption needs (see: Scitovsky 1976; Daly and Cobb 1989; Daly 1996; Bianchi 1998; Sa-muelson and Nordhaus 2004).

According to recent consumption theories, a large part of the factors determin-ing consumption are based on socio-psychological drivers (Røpke 1999a) and other external macro factors, such as demography, institutions and culture (Gatersleben and Vlek 1998). Galbraith argued that there are limits to desires and that the ex-pressions of these desires in specific wants are created by a number of external factors, such as industrial, social and political systems. Only physiological needs have limits, while psychological needs are insatiable. The present consumer socie-ties appear to exploit the latter fact and employ a great amount of resources to dis-cover and create an urge for more and more desires (Galbraith 1958).

One of the models describing consumer behaviour that is often implicitly or explicitly used in many modern consumption theories is the so-called Needs-Opportunities-Abilities (NOA) model. This model explains consumer behaviour as being driven by motivations and behavioural control factors (Figure 4).


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Figure 4. The NOA model of consumer behaviour. (Source: Gatersleben and Vlek 1998; Gaters leben 2001. ) Motivations are determined by physiological and emotional needs, such as nutri-tion, safety, comfort, positioning in and interaction with society, status, etc. On the other hand, behavioural control factors are those that limit consumer motivations. The most common control factors are financial, temporal, informational, cognitive, physical or special. Opportunities have influence on both motivational and behav-ioural control factors. In this sense, opportunities are important in terms of avail-ability or lack of information, time, money, locations and access, which all deter-mine consumption opportunities. It is also argued that needs, opportunities and abilities are in turn influenced by macro factors, such as technologies, economic systems, demographics, institutional structures, social relationships, customs and cultures (Gatersleben and Vlek 1998; Gatersleben 2001).

A group of theories that attempt to explain the consumer decision-making process comes from the fields of sociology and psychology, which focus on non-economic interpretations of consumerism and consumer behaviour. These theories make a distinction between the needs and wants of private consumers and to a large extent explain consumption patterns as a process of balancing needs and wants. Needs are usually viewed as pertinent to biological or bodily necessities, while wants are not biologically determined, but are acquired by learning. Once they are attained and their ability to give satisfaction has been learned, wants become habit-ual and at a certain level can be perceived as needs. To certain degree, both needs and wants are influenced by psychological factors acquired over individual’s life-time and by social drivers induced by social relationships, norms and culture.

4.2.1 Psychological studies of consumer behaviour With the exception of besides social psychology, the major part of psychological research studies individual processes. The domain of psychological research on consumer behaviour focuses on identifying and studying the personal human


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qualities that influence consumer behaviour. Psychology is concerned with learning how the urge of need is created, how different stimulators influence the personal decision-making process and how the satisfaction sensation is created and con-firmed. It seems that the focus is on four major topics: consumer resources (time, money), motivation, knowledge, attitudes, personality, values and lifestyle. Along-side these, three major processes are being studied by psychologists: information processing, influencing attitudes and behaviour and learning processes (Engel, Blackwell et al. 1995).

Several schools of thought can be distinguished in psychology. Representatives of the operant conditioning view of consumer learning investigate the role of re-wards and punishments in the consumer decision-making process. Behaviourists are concerned with the role that the surrounding conditions have on learning and the decision-making process. Behaviourists that support a classical conditioning view study how consumers respond to brand names, scents, colour and other stim-uli when making purchasing decisions based on knowledge they have gained over time. On the other hand, cognitive learning theorists are concerned with studying internal brain processes.

Psychological studies analyse the influence of the emotional state of consumers on purchasing decisions (see, for example Gardner 1985). Psychological processes such as attention, comprehension, memory and cognitive and behavioural theories of learning, persuasion and behaviour modification constitute an integral part of marketing studies on consumer behaviour. The need for social appreciation and status discussed previously are well grounded in the psychological theory of Mas-low (1954), who postulates that human behaviour could be explained by the uni-versal motivation to satisfy a hierarchy of needs (Figure 5) and that self-realisation and social acceptance are as important as the basic needs of food and shelter (Maslow 1954).

Figure 5. Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs. Graphics from : Jackson, 1999#1654.


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Some needs are pre-potent and must be satisfied before higher order needs. He argues for the development of a society that encourages higher order needs and in such a way creates a more liberal society that allows its members to reach their full potential. He argues that the system of needs must be protected from powerful social forces as higher order needs may totally disappear as a result of such forces, such as unemployment for instance.

The lifestyle concept comprises a formal process of the integration of social practices through which actors express their individual identity. The practices of our society are closely linked to an economic and market system based on the no-tion of consumption. Therefore, in Bauman’s opinion, “lifestyles boil down almost entirely to styles of consumption” (Bauman 1990). According to Bauman, people’s individual identity as expressed in their lifestyles can be read almost entirely from the package of goods and services people surround themselves with. Today, to a large extent, lifestyles (as well as consumer choices in general) are strongly influ-enced by advertising through the media and the example of celebrities. With in-creasing consumer exposure to different media channels, such as radio, televisions and recently the Internet, the power of the media in shaping consumer preferences is likely to increase.

The Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) suggests that behaviour depends on the intention to perform the behaviour – the most important determinant of a person’s behaviour is behavioural intent. It is a linear correlation between the strength of a person’s intention, a person’s willingness to try to act accordingly and the likeli-hood that such behaviour is actually being performed (Fishbein and Ajzen 1975). This theory defines two independent determinants of intention. The first determi-nant is the personal factor named “attitude towards the behaviour”, which refers to the individual’s belief that there will be outcomes and the evaluation of these out-comes. The second determinant is the so-called subjective norms, which comprise an individual’s belief that relevant social actors think he/she should or should not perform a behaviour and an individual’s intention to comply with this behaviour (Ajzen and Fishbein 1980). To conclude, according to this theory, the individual performs the behaviour as a rational decision and is in a position to make such a decision. It then depends on the situation regarding whether the attitude or the sub-jective norms take over in shaping the intention.

The Theory of Planned Behaviour is an extension of the Theory of Reasoned Action (Ajzen 1988), (Ajzen 1991). It includes the concept of perceived behav-ioural control, which is the person’s belief concerning the feasibility of using the provided opportunity. Individual abilities and opportunities can affect control over the intended behaviour. The main idea is that the greater the perceived behavioural control, the stronger a person’s intention is to try and perform the relevant behav-iour.

The literature search on psychology, consumption and environment revealed many psychological studies on the general environmental behaviour of people (see, for example, (von Borgstede and Biel 2002), (Iwata 1996)), social and ethical norms that affect it (von Borgstede, Dahlstrand et al. 1999) or on studying particu-lar behavioural patterns and behaviours, for example recycling behaviour


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(Guagnano, Stern et al. 1995), waste sorting behaviour or energy-saving behaviour (Poortinga, Steg et al. 2003). An important line of psychological research is the formation of habits and the environmental consequences of changing everyday behaviours.

In addition, there is a Theory of Envy as an inherent property of humankind. Different versions of this theory use concepts such as relative needs, social emula-tion, positional goods, conspicuous consumption and competitive display (Smith, Veblen and Keynes, Hirsch cf. in: Røpke 1999b). These concepts make a distinc-tion between absolute needs and wants that facilitate social differentiation – to be different from or to feel superior to others. These wants are allegedly insatiable and are constantly evolving. An explanation of these theories can be found through goods as a “means of making sense”, where goods act as “markers and classifiers”. Physical products form, make visible and stabilise different elements of personal identity and finally contribute to forming a certain culture (American, European, urban, rural, etc.).

Various scholars have discussed the effects of tastes and preferences on con-sumption choices (Scitovsky 1992; Becker 1996). It has been argued that life would be impossibly complex if we were to go through the entire decision-making process every time we are faced with a choice. Instead, it is suggested that our lives are deeply routinised and that decisions concerning familiar daily situations are made automatically, as a matter of habit. Habits are formed based upon changes in tastes and our preferences depend on experiences from past consumption. This discussion stems from the psychological learning theory, according to which habits are formed in the process of continuous reinforcement of influencing factors. Once people are satisfied with their choice and situation, their behaviour becomes routi-nised and they tend not to search for new solutions until new signals and influences arrive that can trigger the search for better alternatives.

These ideas built the foundation for an extensive debate on the economic im-plications of habituation (Pollak 1970; von Weizsäcker 1971). Economists have suggested looking at individual costs as an explanation for habitual behaviour. Stigler and Becker (1977) explain the stability of habits with a certain capital, con-sisting of skills, information and experiences that were acquired during consump-tion of a particular object or service. The stability of habits is also strengthened by the influence of advertising, some of which is taking an increasingly aggressive shape and targets consumers at an early age (e.g. the strategy of McDonalds of “growing up” their consumers). Triggers for change reduce this accumulated capi-tal (Stigler and Becker 1977). This discussion is also interesting from an environ-mental point of view, as routines and habits often offset sustainable patterns of consumption.

The discussion on the formation of habits can also be enriched by the socio-logical studies on the topic. The major question raised is how habits are formed and how they can be changed to stimulate the habituation of more sustainable con-sumption patterns. Sociology provides several insights. Firstly, behavioural stabil-ity is explained by social interdependence of consumption. Consumers are seen as being embedded into, influenced and enabled by institutions (North 1981),


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(Hodgson 1988). Secondly, consumers are also part of social groups, from which they can learn through interaction. Again, status and the desire to be accepted and treated as part of the group is an important need (e.g. the Maslow’s hierarchy).

According to Sen, in order to evaluate a person’s well-being it is not sufficient to look at one’s possessions and at the characteristics of these possessions, but at what “functioning” these possessions provide (Sen 1985). Consumer’s can be viewed as an active creator of utility (Sen 1997). Functioning can be defined as “an achievement of a person”, which has to be distinguished from the commodities, which are used to achieve a functioning. The latter, in turn, has to be distinguished from the “happiness generated by the functioning”. The creation of happiness or satisfaction is a process of utilising goods (e.g. a bicycle) for their characteristics (mobility) and turning it into functioning (transport) to extract the final utility (a combination of transportation function, low cost and the pleasure of riding). This conceptualisation is reminiscent of the direction of current discussions in the envi-ronmental field regarding product ownership versus buying functions of products and brings us closer to the discourse concerning product-service systems.

In The Psychology of Happiness, Michael Argyle (1987) concludes that per-sonal happiness is determined by the level of satisfaction in social life (marriage, family and friends), work and leisure. According to the Limits to Growth, people list the most desirable and satisfying activities, such as education, art, music, relig-ion, basic scientific research, athletics and social interactions (Meadows, Randers et al. 1972). A growing number of scholars now suggest that material wealth fails to provide happiness. Rather the opposite - social life and leisure suffers from one’s time and energy being directed towards obtaining more money and material goods (Elgin 1981; Wachtel 1983; Dominguez and Robin 1993; Durning 1995). Indeed, many consumers in modern industrialised countries feel trapped in a work-and-spend cycle, trying to compensate for excessive stress and widening social and cultural vacuum through increasing consumerism (Schor 1991).

Sociologists agree that the relation between the level of material welfare and the level of happiness is highly non-linear. With the constant progress and rise of welfare, there is a point at which a luxury item becomes a necessity, e.g., tap water or lawn mowers, but the welfare effect of even greater consumption seems dubious and, in many cases, even negative. Social indicators in many Western countries tend to show that social welfare does not continue to grow at the same rate as the economy (GDP) expands and in many developed countries the endless growth of material wealth and consumption has not made people happier. According to Max-Neef (1995), every society has a period when economic growth brings about an improvement in the quality of life only until a certain point, beyond which further growth brings diminishing improvements.

This welfare theory suggests that the per capita GDP, used as a traditional measure of welfare, is not an adequate indicator of happiness. One of the suggested alternatives is the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW). The index is intended to include different external factors that determine sustainable economic welfare (Daly and Cobb 1989). It adjusts personal consumer expenditure by taking into consideration a variety of social and environmental factors. A significant


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difference between ISEW and GDP can be illustrated by an example from the UK and Sweden (Figure 6 and Figure 7a, b).

Figure 6. Thresholds of happiness in different countries. (Source: Max-Neef 1995.)

(Source: Jackson and Marks 1999)

Figure 7a. Difference between the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW) and GDP in the UK.


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(Source: Jackson and Stymne 1996.)

Figure 7b. Difference between the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW) and GDP in Sweden during 1950–1996.

4.2.2 Sociological studies of consumption behaviour Social institutions, collective behaviour and constraints of consumption environ-ments enable and affect consumer behaviour. Social studies focus on identifying and studying the parameters of external environments that influence consumption patterns. The major themes studied by sociologists with regard to consumption behaviour are culture, social class, personal influence, ethnic influence, family and household and situational influences. Social institutions, social groups, ideologies and behaviours mutually reinforce each other and shape the development of soci-ety.

According to this group of theories, as a route towards sustainable consumption technological innovations and economic forces alone will not provide the desired change. Equally important are accepted norms and moral principles that should go together with changing the techno-economic framework and should provide new grounds that will shape and determine more sustainable consumer choices. Engel et al. (1995) shows the scope of individual and environmental influences and this distinction is used in this study for narrowing down and distinguishing between the two research areas: sociology and psychology.

There is a substantial body of literature on consumer culture that analyses cul-tural differences and looks into reasons for consumption in a cultural context (Featherstone 1991); (Cross 1993); (Lury 1998). Culture affects the entire structure of consumption. Sociology studies into why people buy products find various an-swers to this simple question: products provide function; products should comply with people’s preferences concerning the form in which product function is deliv-ered; products become symbols of meaning in society (Solomon 1983). The impor-tance of values is described by a theory of consumption values (Sheth, Newman et al. 1991). The authors propose that consumer choice is influenced by functional


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value, conditional value, social value, emotional value and epistemic value. Chang-es of values are usually explained from evolutionary (people grow older and their values change) and generational perspectives (values of old generations are re-placed by values of the “leading” generation).

Another line of sociological research on consumption analyses the institutional influences on consumption patterns. The main institutions in focus are family, re-ligion and the education system. Social class also affects consumption patterns to a large degree, because people who belong to the same class share similar values, lifestyles and interests (Williams 2002). Sociologists study the role different goods play in distinguishing between different classes and reinforcing identity within a certain class. Marketing segmentation is also often based on marketing products to a specific social class by using special language, symbols and appeal, which trig-gers associations of a particular social class.2

Personal influence on the consumption patterns is studied by investigating the meanings that consumers attach to the process of consumption as part of the di-mension of identity construction. It is clear that people purchase goods and services for their qualities and functions, as well as for the symbolic or identity value of products and services (Bauman 1990). Consumers create themselves and are cre-ated by products, services and experiences.

Four different types of meanings can be distinguished: utilitarian meaning (the perceived usefulness of a product in its ability to perform functional tasks), hedonic meaning (specific feelings the products evoke or facilitate), sacred products that are very important to people and social meanings (products and services that are seen as “media for interpersonal communication” and statements about people’s positions and statuses in social groups) (Engel, Blackwell et al. 1995). Some au-thors show that for many consumers today, the symbolic value of products has become even more important than the physical aspects of goods (Leiss 1983) and traditional marketing strategies further cultivate this trend. Other authors indicate that the value of goods and services is not inherent, but depends on the activities they are used for (Lunt and Livingstone 1992). For example, one of the reasons for purchases is to increase people’s “personal availability” 3—to free/obtain more time to be engaged in other activities, which are more pleasant and which have the potential to increase the social status of people, such as organising a party, recrea-tional activities and so forth.

Status and personality differentiation are considered as one of the constructs of conspicuous consumption. Achieving a certain status in a social group stimulates consumption of the so-called “status goods” (Veblen 1902). Therefore, at the heart of the sociological view are studies on the role played by goods in marking the distinction between different social groups and classes and strengthening identity within the group.

2 See for example, (Williams 2002), or (Henry 2002) 3 The personal availability reason, if true, has direct implications for associated environmental impact

that arises from alternative tasks or activities people become involved in when some time or money is

freed—the so-called rebound effect.


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Several sociologists have investigated how people belonging to the same class use the construct of taste to choose particular goods. For example, Bourdieu (1984) maintains that consumption patterns develop based on taste that is specified by a certain cultural location (habitus) and that people consume in order to distinguish themselves in the social arena. Bourdieu analysed how consumers classify goods in accordance with their taste and how taste indicates belonging to a certain social class (Bourdieu 1984). An interesting conflict has been pointed out by Baudrillard: while we need to buy the same items because we want to feel that we belong to certain stereotypic groups (“assisted” by heavy marketing), we also want to buy goods that allow us to feel different and unique (Baudrillard 1998).

Following this line of research, Leibenstein (1950) suggested that since the de-sire of people to consume certain goods is rooted in the desire to be accepted by a social group, people can be trapped by the desire to adopt the most accepted or prestigious way of living. This mechanism implies that if the prestigious way of living is unsustainable, it may be difficult to change it, as non-members will always struggle for being accepted into the prestigious circle. The contrary is also true: if it is possible to make a prestigious lifestyle more sustainable, then it will be easier to solicit more followers to it.

According to Røpke’s (1999a) interpretation of Douglas and Isherwood’s (1980) theory, goods are used both as means of interacting with society and the world at large as well as making a personal differentiation in society. Individuals have a strong desire to differentiate themselves from a social group and create and confirm a unique style and in this way manifest one’s identify. These desires create a demand for value-added goods and services, such as unique handcrafted or local products. A general trend towards individualisation is also seen as reinforcing con-sumption demand. Individualisation implies that the person is freed from social and traditional bonds, meaning that her/his identity is no longer defined by a commu-nity or by traditional roles but rather by increasing their number of goods, which serve as a message about one’s identity (Halkier 1998).

Serving the growth task, prevailing economic and political institutions make people believe that the pursuit of self-interest in the quest for higher material pros-perity is the expected behaviour (Kilbourne, Beckmann et al. 2001) or even a pa-triotic duty (Princen 1999). Thus, there is a trend of formalisation and institution-alisation, where people are shaped by society and fashion and are pressed into con-forming to accepted social norms and lifestyles. This could be exemplified by the consumption of certain cuisines or the use of different dress codes to differentiate special occasions according to shared understanding in society or to conform to accepted rules and norms. These desires increase the demand and supply of goods from all over the world, which creates something unique for the modern world – the global culture and the global consumer.

Many factors explaining increasing consumption can be found in technological development and the historic changes on the household level (Røpke 1999a). Whi-le an individual as well as society are the two factors determining consumption, the household is another very important determinant, because household is the place where consumers spend most of their time and this is where a large part of their


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behaviour is shaped. The importance of the household as a consumption unit is increasing along with growing prosperity and demographic changes. The latter includes the changing roles of women, decreasing household size, ageing popula-tion, increased mobility of the work force, migration to suburbs, increased trans-portation needs, etc. Technological progress created a variety of household appli-ances that became more and more affordable with the increasing income. Most of these appliances were designed to save time and ease everyday household work. However, the effect was similar on the macro-economic level – mechanisation of the household created empty time slots, but filled them with more diverse work. For example, while time was saved with the mechanical laundry, more time was spent shopping as cars became affordable for most of families. Furthermore, tech-nological progress and increasing income allowed for the buying of more diverse clothes that require more time for separate washing and other special care. Changes in socially accepted norms also play their role – the levels of cleanness half a cen-tury ago are no longer acceptable, so eventually people are “forced” to spend more time doing laundry.

This selective overview of concepts and factors of consumer behaviour is rele-vant to the following sections, in which an overview of the studies of environ-mental approaches to sustainable consumption is presented.

4.3 Environmental research on consumption Environmental studies on sustainable consumption are often multidisciplinary and build upon results of many traditional disciplines. A large part of this research focuses on understanding the environmental impacts of consumption in general; such as material flow studies and the impacts related to product life cycle, such as lifecycle assessments. The latter are typically product-specific, while material flow studies are interested in consumption effects on a much more aggregate level.

Lifecycle assessment (LCA) is a rapidly evolving research area applied to products and services. The methodology of LCA is being developed by the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) and other research institu-tions (see: Lindfors, Christiansen et al. 1995; Guinée, Goree et al. 2002).4 The LCAs are primarily intended to provide a comprehensive lifecycle view of individ-ual products and require detailed information on specific products and manufactur-ing methods and are thus less relevant for understanding the consumption problem per sé. However, it is useful to have a system’s perspective, i.e. what environ-mental impacts are associated with a product system and its use. At the same time, LCA suffers from a general lack of product-specific data and a high degree of sub-jectivity from making assumptions and simplifications. The most critical points are system cut-offs in the inventory step, assumptions about linearity environmental impacts and a poor scientific basis for making decisions in impact valuation steps.

Alternatives to the traditional LCAs are assessment methods built on macro-economic accounting tools, such as input/output tables containing information on

4 For example, Carnegie Mellon University (USA), Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Universities of Leiden and Delft (Netherlands).


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cross-sectoral monetary flows. Input-output analysis (I/OA) of economic flows has been practiced since the late 1960s (Leontief and Ford 1970; Leontief 1986) and today is increasingly applied in environmental studies. Here, monetary infor-mation is supplemented with physical data on energy and material flows, which also allows calculated environmental emissions from the relevant economic sectors (Cleveland and Ruth 1998). The main benefit of I/AO is that it can cover all com-ponents in the lifecycle of products and avoid the system cut-offs practiced in tradi-tional lifecycle assessments. The drawback is that I/AO operates with highly ag-gregated data, which does not allow for a focus on the environmental impacts of specific products (Plepys 2004).

The latest developments in the area of lifecycle assessments are the attempts to combine the traditional LCAs and the I/OA into a hybrid LCA (see: Suh and Hup-pes 2002). The goal is to avoid the drawbacks of both methods and to make envi-ronmental assessments of products and services faster and more complete.

Consumption studies based on material flow accounting (MFA) are another large area of research. These methods are used for studying the impacts of individ-ual products, but they are particularly useful for evaluating changes in consumption levels on a large scale. The distinct feature of MFA-based tools is the assumption that environmental impacts can be approximated by the amount of material dis-placed in different processes. The MFA methods use the concept of “environmental backpack”, which denotes the sum of weight of all materials displaced during the lifecycle of a product or a service, measuring eco-efficiency as MIPS – material input per service unit (Schmidt-Bleek 1994).5

The main benefit of MIPS-based tools is that they allow fast assessment and provide illustrative and pedagogical results, which are easily understood by the majority of stakeholders. However, the assumption of the existing link between material intensity and environmental impact of different processes has a weak sci-entific basis for taking into consideration the toxicological, human health and bio-diversity related impacts. Similar problems persist in a related method of “ecologi-cal footprint” accounting (Wackernagel and Rees 1995). This method attributes consumption-induced environmental degradation to the total area of bio-productive land needed to assimilate the damage. Although biodiversity issues can be taken into consideration, this method suffers from a general lack of data as well as other methodological drawbacks (e.g. the same value of land).

Other studies focus on the environmental consequences of consumer purchas-ing decisions and how they can be influenced. This field is an interdisciplinary area of research that builds upon economic, socio-technical, socio-psychological and policy studies. Consumer behaviour models are being developed (Hansen and Schrader 1997) and the environmental impacts of various scenarios of consumption have been modelled (Jager 2000). Material- and energy-intensive consumption patterns have been analysed and suggestions for addressing over-consumption have been provided (Røpke 1998), (Røpke 1999c), (Brown and Cameron 2000).

5 For more details see: (Tischner and Schmidt-Bleek 1993; Schmidt-Bleek 1998; Hinterberger and Schmidt-Bleek 1999)


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From a macro-economic perspective, there is a long-standing doctrine (first suggested by Daly) that economy has expanded to the point where natural re-sources and the pollution assimilative capacity of nature are the limiting factors, rather than human-made production functions. In order to pursue welfare, Daly suggests seeking ways to maximise welfare with minimal consumption. For this, Daly proposes to shift the taxation focus from labour and capital to natural re-sources.

Public as well as personal welfare consists not only of the economic part (quan-tity of goods and services consumed), but also of the social and environmental elements. Studies in the field of environmental economics draw a distinction be-tween a consumer-individual consumer and a citizen-consumer and introduce the concept of “externalities” – a non-priced social cost, such as air pollution, land-scape deterioration, noise, etc. (Pearce 1998; Pearce 2000). A citizen is willing to act for the public benefit (better environment), which in theory may even include a sacrifice in the levels of private consumption. A consumer-individual, however, usually reveals behaviour favouring private benefits (needs + wants), which are perceived in the form of maximisation of personal consumption.

Environmental economists attempt different “contingent valuation” methods to set a price and transform the non-priced externalities into quasi-goods, which po-tential individual consumers could then be asked to value (Harris 1997; Pearce 2000). For example, an economic valuation of the externalities (pollution, noise, etc.) from having an airport built close to a residential area could be tracked via the changes in property prices. It is also possible to valuate by testing people’s per-sonal willingness-to-pay (WTP) to avoid a nuisance, or willingness-to-accept (WTA) a compensation for having an environmental externality. Unfortunately, neither method is accurate or easy to validate. In the WTP/WTA methods, the main problem is the traditional difference between the expressed and revealed prefer-ences, which are observed from different studies on consumer polls regarding green consumerism and observations of market tendencies for green products (Stern 2000; Niva and Timonen 2001a; Peattie 2001; OECD 2002b).

While the unwillingness to offer a personal sacrifice for the public good is sometimes perceived as hypocrisy, some theories find an explanation for consump-tion rationales in existing institutional settings (Mark Sagoff, cf. in Harris 1997). Public policy shapes nearly all consumer decisions through its influence on every-thing – from a simple permit to sell a product to refusing the internalisation of environmental externalities in the prices of natural resources and products. An example could be a poorly developed system for public transportation, which in-duces a more extensive use of private cars, in the USA.

Recently, a new field of psychology of sustainability was launched to address theoretical and empirical studies that strive to better understand the psychological processes underlying and triggering the development of environmental awareness and concerns with sustainability issues (Jones 1996; Bonnes and Bonaiuto 2001). The emphasis of this field is on the emotional bonds with our planet, the applica-tion of environmental issues to psychotherapy and even the search for an environ-mentally acceptable standard of mental health.


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In the context of sustainable consumption and lifestyles, it is worth looking at what kind of theories the psychology provides to aid in making the shift towards more sustainable consumption patterns. At the individual level, the psychology offers theories that aim at explaining the cognitive processes behind individual decision making, connecting such constructs as intentions, attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control. These theories provide some input to the discussion above concerning socially relevant actors and the importance of belong-ing to a group.

An important part of the discourse on sustainable consumption focuses on ways of involving various stakeholders in the process towards more sustainable life-styles, including consumers (Jenkinson 1997). The role of raising the environ-mental awareness of consumers and the importance of streamlining environmental communication and information provision has also been addressed by a vast num-ber of studies (Zimmer, Stafford et al. 1994; Niva, Heiskanen et al. 1997; Palm and Windahl 1998b; Palm and Windahl 1998a; Imkamp 2000; Björner, Gårn Hansen et al. 2002).

Another important development step towards sustainable consumption is the recent acceleration of work on product-related environmental policies (Niva and Timonen 2001b), including extensive work on Integrated Product Policy (IPP), and especially the application of life-cycle thinking to product policies (Dalhammar 2002).6 One of the approaches for dealing with ever increasing consumption is the so-called dematerialised consumption that is based on the utilisation value of prod-ucts and a shift to a service society. Consumers can extract the utilisation value during the product use and do not necessarily have to own the material product. However, so far studies conducted with a focus on eco-efficient services and prod-uct-service systems (PSS), show that this utilitaristic idea is not that simple to im-plement in practice, as consumer behaviour is a much more complex process. Nu-merous studies show the importance of psychological and individual factors, as well as social frameworks for accepting eco-efficient services in private markets (Schrader 1999; Littig 2000; Meijkamp 2000; Hirschl, Konrad et al. 2001; Schra-der 2001).

The environmental impacts of consumption depend on what is being consumed – resource-intensive products or supposedly less material intensive services.7 The link between the consumption of products or services and the environmental im-pacts is not always clear and is case-dependant, where time allocation and con-sumer choices are the key elements in determining environmental impacts. The environmental impacts of consumption depend on the priorities between consumer needs and wants and by what activities the choices are being satisfied. In addition, the existing institutions and infrastructures influence consumer need and wants. For example, the need to eat may be accompanied by the want of cooking at home, but the lack of time and the availability of fast food may change consumer choices and

6 See Annex C for a list of relevant publications. 7 It is not a given that services are better options from the environmental point of view. For instance, service alternatives to products may involve excessive transportation with high environmental impacts.


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result to different environmental impacts, for example, driving to a fast-food outlet. Therefore, time is an important factor for environmental issues of consumption.

When it comes to consumer choices, industrially produced products have lower prices than products and services produced with high labour input. Opportunity costs for buying a new or replacing an old product are lower than the costs of repair work, personal care, etc. Thus, potentially less-material services become worse-off alternatives when compared to products; so more income is spent on material in-tensive products. This also contributes to the development of self-service economy (Gershuny 1978), where household activities, such as dishwashing, laundry, clean-ing or small repairs, are cheaper if performed by the households themselves (de-manding all the necessary hardware), rather than the professional service providers.

An interesting contribution to understanding the phenomena of consumption comes from studies exploring what activities constitute leisure time of private con-sumers (Heiskanen and Jalas 2000; Heiskanen, Halme et al. 2001). The activities can be anything from low energy-intensive (e.g. cultural recreation, museums, painting, etc.) to highly energy-intensive (e.g. travelling, sauna, etc.). The negative environmental effects are less significant if fewer resource-intensive activities fill in empty time slots. An example could be a consumer repairing his/her own car, instead of leaving it to a professional service provider and going to sauna during their free time. So far, there is a clear indication that time-saving services tend to increase the energy consumption of private consumers, i.e. they lead to time-related rebound effects (Jalas 2000).

A number of initiatives have been made on developing indicators for sustain-able development in general and sustainable consumption in particular. Here, the UN and OECD have been particularly active by facilitating studies focusing on household related consumption issues and indicators (OECD 1999; UN DSD 1999; Lorek and Spangenberg 2001).

Studies commissioned by UNEP have proposed the following criteria for indi-cators on sustainable consumption: appropriateness, measurability, simplicity (at-tractiveness) and policy relevance (Bentley and de Leeuw 2003). Factors such as target audience, compatibility with scientific research and the consideration of cultural and national differences are determining the appropriateness of the indica-tor. They must be conceptually well founded, clear and in line with internationally accepted principles of sustainable consumption. Other important criteria are the availability of data, data quality, scientific adequacy and simplicity to be under-stood by the targeted stakeholders.

However, one of the major considerations for practical applicability of the indi-cators is policy relevance. Several consumption patterns are highly likely to be affected by policy intervention and others are not. Furthermore, some consumption issues are possible to address within a short time period and some require long-term strategies. Ultimately, the question is should all trends reflecting consumption patterns be researched and displayed or should concentration be on only those that are manipulative in the short-term (Bentley and de Leeuw 2003: 33). A consider-able focus, therefore, is directed to developing different indicators of consumption.


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Generally, the indicators proposed by different international organisations are linked to key environmentally significant trends covering the major driving forces for final consumption. Here a distinction is made between final consumption (e.g. by households) and intermediate consumption undertaken by manufacturers (e.g. primary fuels, minerals, water, etc.). In the context of this report, we discuss the measuring of final consumption and the policy strategies directed towards final consumers, be it private consumers or the public sector. The typical indicators relevant for economic, physical and socio-demographic trends are listed in Table 3. The indicators are typically selected on the basis of their policy relevance, analyti-cal soundness and measurability (by data availability and data quality) (OECD 1999: 31). The problem, however, is that the indicators have difficulty in reflecting the link between consumption patterns and levels and the associated environmental impacts. In order to establish such a link, comprehensive data is required regarding the relative environmental impact induced by the expenditures in different product-service categories, taking into consideration the life cycle perspective of products and services.

Table 3. Three domains of consumption with examples of types of indicators. (Source: OECD 1999.)

Trends that are relevant for consumption indicators Economic domain Physical domain Social-demographic domain

Expenditure shares of GDP (of households and government) Distribution of private income (spending by category) Saving rates

Consumption of durable and non-durable goods and service Transport, tourism, etc. Final consumption (household) Related resource consumption (e.g. energy, water, etc.)

Urbanisation (ratio of urban and rural population) Urbanisation (land use) Household size Population characteristics (age, education levels, employment rate, etc.)

Examples of indicators: • Expenditures – public and governmental final consumption expenditure (% GDP) • Expenditure by type of purchased products and services ($ as % of income) • Passenger car stock (units) • Road traffic by passengers cars (km) • Energy consumption by transport mode or fuel type (GJ) • Residential energy consumption (GJ/capita) • Communication tools (units/pop.), e.g. number of newspapers, telephone lines • Consumption of durable goods (kg/pop.), e.g. paper, meat consumption

4.4 Interpretation of main consumption-related research streams

Addressing the vision of sustainable consumption must take into consideration the environmental, social, economic and political aspects. Of particular importance are issues of quality of life, social equality, personal lifestyles, family and social val-ues, as well as the role public institutions have in creating institutional frameworks influencing consumption patterns. Therefore, the discourse on sustainable


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consumption receives contributions from different disciplines, such as economics, psychology, sociology and environmental studies, which to a large extent comple-ment each other and allow a more comprehensive picture of the consumption phe-nomenon.

Economic studies on consumption focus on general economic forces in society on the macro-level (national or regional), meso level in households and individual budget spending on a micro level. Most traditional studies take a neo-classical view assuming that consumers are rational decision-makers interested in maximising private utility by selecting optimal bundles of goods. The main limiting factors for making consumer choice are prices and budget considerations. An important area of research is econometric studies on rebound effects, which attempt to understand the market response to changes in the prices of goods induced by technological and productivity improvements.

On the macro-level, economic growth is still traditionally measured in terms of GDP, implying that the ultimate measure of welfare is material possessions. How-ever, increasing interest is given to more aggregate indicators, such as the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW). This method of measurement allows estab-lishing a more adequate link between levels of affluence and levels of welfare.

The neo-classical view is increasingly questioned by psychological and socio-logical research disciplines, which posit that consumption patterns are much more dynamic and prone to more diverse influencing factors. Consumers are far from being rational optimisers of individual or public utility.

Psychology and sociology complement economic theories in understanding the consumption phenomena and especially useful is the Needs-Opportunities-Abilities (NOA) model, which complements the limited view of economics. The model ex-plains consumption processes through motivations and behavioural control factors and in a sense combines economic and socio-psychological views on consumption. While technological and economic factors act as behavioural control to a large degree, culture, status, lifestyles and emotions act as motivations for consumption.

The field of consumption psychology focuses on individual consumption char-acteristics, the psychology of decision-making, the value of habits and emotions, how motivations and attitudes are formed and how values and lifestyles influence personal choices. A highly relevant area for modern consumerism is studies on the role of media and social icons in shaping consumption habits and lifestyles. Ha-bituation is a powerful consumption drive, especially in an environment where consumer choices are abundant, qualitative variables are multiple and time for decision-making is short. Psychology of human behaviour explains that many con-sumer actions are based on semi-subconscious choices rooted in habits, which eases the decision-making process.

The field of sociology of consumption focuses on the formation of consump-tion processes and practices and how different social structures affect consumption patterns. The individual is viewed as being manipulated by influences on different levels – personal, family and society levels. Social norms and values shape the consumption culture and have a profound importance for forming consumer choi-ces. These are in turn affected by people’s desire of both differentiating and


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affiliating with a particular social stratum. Both desires contribute to the creation of personal identity and image, confirmation and visualisation of a certain status and eventually contribute to the formation of lifestyle and consumer culture.

Differentiating the understanding of consumption process within psychological and sociological disciplines is rather difficult, but, in general, psychologists assume and subsequently study consumer behaviour in isolation from other consumers, while sociologists perceive consumption as a socially grounded process. By their nature, psychological and sociological studies rarely produce suggestions for how certain changes in the societal frameworks can be initiated and what various actors in the society can do to facilitate changes.

If defined as a separate discipline, the group of environmental studies on sus-tainable consumption mainly focuses on how environmental considerations are taken as a criteria in purchasing decisions, how households could be involved and what community initiatives exist that can serve as alternative scenarios for current consumption patterns, or how society can address growing consumption levels and whether eco-efficiency strategies are sufficient for the vision of sustainable devel-opment. All these studies ultimately deal with technological development, innova-tion and infrastructures to a larger or lesser extent. In the past, environmental issues used to be addressed by ecologists, who generally displayed a rather modest fa-miliarity with the complexity of consumer behaviour and the role of economic, psychological and sociological aspects. Recently, however, more environmental studies are performed in the spirit of multidisciplinary research by trying to com-bine the knowledge from different disciplines.

Among the most significant streams of environmental studies on consumption are those that focus on accounting material flows and product lifecycle related environmental impacts. Material flow analysis (MFA), ecological footprint and input-output assessments are useful for analysing consumption issues on an aggre-gate level. Lifecycle assessments (LCA) are useful in studying specific products and processes. All these methods are suffering from different methodological drawbacks and are still in the evolutionary stages. However, the quality of data is gradually improving and application areas are growing.

Most consumption-oriented environmental studies suggest that technological solutions directed to improving resource productivity are not sufficient in curbing the environmental effects of consumption. Solutions should be based not only on changing consumption patterns, but also on reducing the levels of consumption. The former is addressed in the strategies of material substitution, pollution preven-tion, consumer information and optimisation of end-of-life management practices. The concept of dematerialisation and the shift from product- to service-based con-sumption (e.g. the framework of product-service systems (PSS)) are among the newest research streams. Calls for reducing the levels of consumption are the most radical views based on principles of sufficiency.


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While the importance of the social context is recognised and widely used by businesses in their marketing strategies, there is, unfortunately, no specific field of environmental policy studies on consumption. The closest link we found in studies that investigate policy strategies and instruments for sustainable consumption and production are the instruments that primarily focus on production side and at best on improving efficiency of products.


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5 Stakeholders in the sustainable consumption discourse

Consumption has been an important issue in international policy since the early 1970s. However, the topic of sustainable consumption entered policy discourse in 1992 at the international conference in Rio de Janeiro. Chapter 4 of the Agenda 21 declaration was devoted to changing consumption patterns, where patterns of pro-duction and consumption were labelled as a cause of unsustainable development: “The major cause of continued deterioration of the global environment is the un-sustainable patterns of consumption and production, particularly in the industrial-ised countries”.

After the meeting in Rio, several research institutions, international govern-mental structures and other stakeholders followed up the issue of sustainable con-sumption. Most of the work focused on developing a better understanding of the role of consumption and especially patterns of production and consumption in meeting the basic human needs and reducing the overall environmental impact. The main outputs of the key organisations are briefly described below.

5.1 Governmental stakeholders 5.1.1 United Nations The United Nations (UN) has a number of structures and units, which are in some way involved in the sustainable consumption debate. Recognising the problems of consumption, increasing globalisation and that international co-operation is needed to address the environmental issues in cost-effective ways, the WSSD in Johannes-burg called for the “development of international programmes to accelerate the shift towards sustainable consumption and production patterns that will promote social and economic development within the carrying capacity of ecosystems” (UN 2003).

The UN Environmental Programme (UNEP) is the most active inter-governmental organisation promoting the concept of sustainable consumption. Its main role is in adding international and regional dimensions to the SC debate and involving different stakeholders by creating partnership with different UN struc-tures, other inter-governmental, business and consumer organisations. Specific UNEP activities include a variety of methodologies, tools, initiatives, training packages and programmes such as life cycle analysis (LCA), cleaner production (CP), product-service systems, eco-design, sustainable procurement, guidelines for consumer protection, advertising sustainable consumption, education and aware-ness raising.


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In 1998, UNEP started a new Sustainable Consumption Program (SCP) created the Division of Technology, Industry and Environment (DTIE), Production and Consumption Unit. The objective of the programme was to complement DTIE’s supply-side activities, such as cleaner production, eco-efficiency and dematerialisa-tion, with demand-side activities, such as green procurement and changing patterns of consumption. Within this programme, UNEP targets different stakeholder groups including businesses, governmental and non-governmental organisations. The content of the programme derived from the UN Guidelines on Consumer Pro-tection and builds upon the results of ongoing UNEP programmes and projects in the sustainable consumption area. These include UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initia-tive, UNEP Advertising and Communication Forum, UNEP Sustainable Consump-tion Opportunities for Europe project, UNEP’s Environmentally and Socially Re-sponsible Procurement (ERSP) and the UNEP/CDG (Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft) initiative on Eco-design for small and medium-sized companies in developing countries.

The main strategic recommendations for governments are to ensure sustainable government procurement policies by enforcing regulations and economic and so-cial instruments and by sectoral policies, especially in land use, transport, water energy and housing. The importance of education and information programmes for consumers in areas such as the environmental impacts of consumer choice and behaviour, efficient use of materials, energy and water and recycling were also among the most important recommendations (UNEP 2003b). Strategic recommen-dations for industry focused on life cycle thinking, technological innovations to improve practising eco-efficiency; consumer information regarding the conse-quences of their choices and the creation of market conditions for sustainable prod-ucts and services (UNEP 2001b; UNEP 2003a). Strategic recommendations for consumers and communities focused on ensuring intergenerational equity, con-sumer education (for consumer organisations) and increasing the overall con-sciousness of the environmental and social impact of their consumption patterns (UNEP/CI 2004). Other activities include developing environmental indicators (Bentley and de Leeuw 2003) and promoting training and networking activities (UNEP 2004c).

Another UN structure is the Commission for Sustainable Development (CSD) established to coordinate international work programme on changing consumption and production patterns. In 1999, the CSD together with Consumers International (CI) initiated a review of the “UN Guidelines for Consumer Protection”, which were later revised and published in a second edition (UNEP/CI 2004).

In 2001, UNEP’s report “Consumption Opportunities” elaborated on the mean-ing of sustainable consumption emphasising resource efficiency, changing patterns of consumption and improving quality of life (UNEP 2001a). Apart from the em-phasis on eco-efficiency, later initiatives focused on facilitating business innova-tions for shifting from products to services, using e.g. Product-Service Systems framework (UNEP 2002a).

In November 2002 in Monterrey (Mexico), UNEP held the 8th High Level Seminar on Sustainable Consumption and Production. It was the first meeting of its


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kind dealing with sustainable consumption and production (SPC) issues, which effectively expanded the scope of the previous seminar held in Prague in April 2002 (CP-7). Most of the focus was devoted to the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, water shortages, food consumption and green house gas generation with emphasis on particular regions such as India, China, Africa and the USA. In the session on Sustainable Resource Use, Technologies and Products, a special emphasis was given to discussing lifestyle aspects and on the role of youth in changing consumption patterns, e.g. avoiding the purchase of any goods that are then discarded without being used. The outcome from the meeting was a Recom-mended Action Framework for governments, industry and consumers.8

In 2003, UNEP with inputs from UNIDO and UNESCO initiated a project “Capacity building for Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns” involv-ing a broad spectrum of stakeholders.9 The main objective of the partnership is to improve the skills of decision-makers to implement sustainable consumption and production policies aimed at governments, business and civil society. This is im-plemented though capacity building in form of practical training materials, organi-sation of national training courses, monitoring of results and providing individual advice to participants. The initiative assists the implementation of Chapter IV of Agenda 21 on changing unsustainable consumption and production patterns, in both developed and developing countries as well as economies in transition.

The latest significant development was in 2003. The so-called Marrakech process developed a “10-year Framework on sustainable production and consump-tion” in cooperation between UNEP and UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA). The framework included the following actions10:

• To identify specific activities tools, policies, measures and monitoring and assessment mechanisms, including, where appropriate, life-cycle analysis and national indicators.

• To adopt and implement policies and measures aimed at promoting SCP patterns and improving the environmental profile of products and services.

• To develop awareness-raising programmes on the importance of SPC pat-terns, particularly among youth, through education, consumer information, advertising and other media.

• To increase eco-efficiency, with financial support from all sources, where mutually agreed, for capacity building and technology transfer.

To facilitate the implementation of the 10-year framework, the UNEP engaged in organising consultations on strategies, programmes and projects on the regional, national and local levels, as well as monitoring and evaluating progress and ex-changing information and experience at the international level. The work will be facilitated by programmes carried out by UNEP, UN DESA and bilateral, regional and other international organisations. A number of expert meeting have already 8 See URL: http://iswa.org/index2.php?option=content&task=view&id=186&pop=1&page=0 9 Among the most important were Consumer International, World Federation of Advertisers, SETAC (Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry), National Cleaner Production Centres (NCPC’s), Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft (CDG) and a number of other NGOs. 10 See URL: http://www.uneptie.org/pc/pc/graphics/highlights/Marrakec%20Plen%20Rev.doc


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been held on international and regional levels (e.g. in Asia-Pacific, Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, Europe and West-Asia), where regional needs and priorities have been identified and regional strategies on sustainable consumption and pro-duction have been developed.11

Critique of UNEP’s work

UNEP’s work has been criticised for its insufficiently firm position (or lack of consistency) on the issue of consuming less in order to “not to scare its Northern members” (Fuchs and Lorek 2004: 10). For example, the head of UNEP DTIE has emphasized that “sustainable consumption is not about consuming less, it is about consuming differently, consuming efficiently, and having an improved quality of life. It also means sharing between the richer and the poorer” (UNEP/CDG 2000, in: Fuchs and Lorek 2004).

In other UNEP reports, authors, including an initiator of the Sustainable Con-sumption Programme, speak about the rights of a “free consumer” and say, that “…in terms of ‘modern’ consumption, the avocation of simply consuming less is not necessarily the most suitable reaction. What is required rather, is a fundamental shift in consumption thinking and its associated behavior” (Bentley and de Leeuw 2003: 6). The authors are not very clear what is meant by “consuming less” and how behaviour shift can reduce the environmental impacts of consumption.

On the other hand, UNEP’s publication “Consumption Opportunities” (UNEP 2001a) is a strategic pre-Johannesburg policy report, which to some degree dis-cusses lowering consumption levels and changing consumption patterns. At the same time, this work found application mainly in the Sustainable Consumption Opportunities for Europe (SCOPE) project (UNEP 2004a), which focused on Cen-tral and Eastern Europe and Newly-Independent States, excluding Western Euro-pean industrialised countries. Critics of the narrow scope of this activity pose a question: Is Eastern Europe really in more need of shifting its consumption patterns and levels towards sustainability than its Western counterpart? (Fuchs and Lorek 2004: 11).

In 1998 its Human Development Report (UNDP 1998) concluded that in order to contribute to sustainable development, consumption must ensure the basic needs of all, contribute to building human capabilities, be socially responsible and con-sider the well-being and future choices of society at large. However, the report does not give an impression of consistency, since it stresses the need for sustain-able consumption that does not require “giving up or losing out” and instead em-phasises the concept of low-impact affluence.

5.1.2 OECD The OECD has been working on Sustainable Consumption since 1994, which star-ted with a seminar 12 where it was acknowledged that the OECD includes countries

11 See URL: http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/sdissues/consumption/Marrakech/conprod10Yeur.htm 12 See URL: http://www.iisd.ca/linkages/consume/mit.html


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with about 20% of the global population consuming almost 80% of world’s re-sources. In 1995, the OECD established a Work Programme on Sustainable Con-sumption and Production. The main activity area of the programme was related to linking resource efficiency and technological change and environmental improve-ments without affecting economic growth.

The programme explicitly concentrated on specific household consumption ar-eas, such as consumption of food, energy, water, waste generation and tourism-related travel. By bringing together different elements of household consumption, the purpose of this work was to better understand consumption trends and to iden-tify the best policy options towards sustainable consumption. These include data on household consumption trends and drivers, environmental impacts, policy re-sponses and policy recommendations.

The main outputs from the programme were frameworks and objectives of governmental policies and an analysis of the effectiveness of different types of policy instruments (regulatory, economic, social) in influencing consumer deci-sion-making. The results of this work were complied in different publications (OECD 1997; OECD 2002a; OECD 2002f; OECD 2002e).

Critique of OECD’s work

The programme on sustainable consumption lasted for three years. Although the OECD’s work had a significant contribution to the global sustainability debate, it has also been criticised for having too narrow a focus on technical solutions. The main point of critique was the OECD’s preference for the strategies of decoupling the standards of living from environmental load by increasing production effi-ciency and a rather weak acknowledgement that reducing the levels of consump-tion and changing lifestyles must be discussed (Fuchs and Lorek 2004). Others criticised the OECD for missing the development of coherent framework of indica-tors, which would be practically useful for decision makers in governmental and business organisations (Lorek and Spangenberg 2001).

The OECD has also been criticised for being rather passive in lobbying for the adoption of the policy recommendations that came from the three years of research. Later work, such as OECD Forum 2003 dealing with the follow up of the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, and the implementation of sustainable development in general do not explicitly mention the aspect of sustain-able consumption (Fuchs and Lorek 2004: 13). 5.1.3 The European Union There is a clear consensus that sustainable consumption needs better institutional integration at the international (EU) and national levels. A practical solution to-wards this direction would be the establishment of an Ombudsperson at the EU and/or national level.

On the 25-26 of November 2004, UNEP’s DTIE and Regional Office for Europe organised a pan-European Stakeholder Meeting on Sustainable


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Consumption and Production. One of the six workgroups discussed the question of how to re-orient the consumer society towards more sustainable patterns of con-sumption. The meeting has identified a number of key strategies toward achieving sustainable consumption (UNEP 2004b):

• Education is essential for changing consumption patterns. Therefore, cur-ricula should be reformed to include issues of sustainable consumption on all levels of the education systems. For this the workgroup proposed to cre-ate a EU ombudsperson and a communication platform for sustainable consumption that would include all relevant stakeholders.

• Consumer information on sustainability issues should be conveyed in a po-sitive way rather than moralistic and conceptual languages. Information should be personal and practical, translating political language into “ac-tionable knowledge”. The focus should be on the benefits of more sustain-able alternatives to the individual consumer– stressing what the personal benefits are. An opinion was shared that a focus on personal health effects is perhaps the most effective tactic.

• Communication strategies should not be moralistic, but rather positive and practical and should be implanted on all levels – EU, national and local. Furthermore, the strategies should be based on the active involvement of “social icons”, such as high profile personalities from the areas of culture, music and sport.

• Getting price signals right was identified as another important element in the integrated policy strategy towards sustainable consumption. However, in some markets (e.g. luxury and brand goods) price is not always the de-termining factor in purchasing decisions. Therefore, in addition to the in-ternalisation of environmental, social and other externalities, inadequate subsidies should be eliminated and new fiscal incentives to stimulate the development of markets and encourage the take-up of more sustainable goods and services should be developed. In practice, the strategy of apply-ing economic instruments should be based on ecological tax reform, which, instead of increasing the overall tax burden, would shift taxes to less envi-ronmental alternatives. It was also noted that fiscal reforms require careful assessment of distributive effects to avoid regressive impacts on the poor-est and most vulnerable. The workgroup has also raised calls for more de-bate on whether to consume rather than what or how to consume.

5.1.4 National governments Many national governments have also been active in the area of sustainable con-sumption. A number of governments commissioned different international projects and sponsored the activities of the UNEP and OECD. The Norwegian, German and Danish governments have been particularly active in both financing a substantial amount of research and promoting global sustainable consumption governance.

The Norwegian government, for example, organised important workshops, such as the international Symposium on Sustainable Consumption in 1994 and the Ministerial Roundtable Conference on Sustainable Production and Consumption in


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1995 (see the timetable for the major events in Annex 1). The German government has been active in initiating a national societal discourse on sustainable consump-tion involving a broad range of stakeholders. It has also been actively sponsoring research on sustainable consumption indicators and policy measures (Fuchs and Lorek 2004).

At the WSSD summit in Johannesburg (2002), Finland, Sweden and Denmark lobbied for the industrialised countries to set out objectives to promote sustainable production and consumption patterns. This has significantly contributed to the development of the 10-year global framework programme (UNEP), which set the goal of supporting social and economic development within the carrying capacity of the natural environment, while reducing the harmful environmental impacts of economic growth.13

Local governments for Sustainability (ICLEI) 14 is a democratic local gov-ernment association founded in 1990 by local governments at the United Nations Headquarters in New York as the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI). Its members – currently about 450 cities, towns, counties, met-ropolitan governments, and local government associations from around the world, govern the organisation. ICLEI's mission is to build and serve a worldwide move-ment of local governments to achieve tangible improvements in global sustainabil-ity with a special focus on environmental conditions through cumulative local ac-tions. The scope of this cooperation covers a broad range of environmental topics. In the context of this report, the organisation is interesting for its cooperation of sustainable procurement issues, for example the “Buy Green” Network15, estab-lished for advising local governments and developing procurement guidelines and recommendations.

5.2 Business organisations The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) is one of the most notorious business organisations working on the environmental issues. The WBCSD is best known for its work on integrating business solutions and environ-mental improvements through different strategies and promoting eco-efficiency in industry.

Some of the WBCSD’s work also has connections to sustainable consumption issues, such as poverty alleviation in its book “Changing Course” (1992), a series of scenario exercises on global governance and projects, such as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Sustainability Through the Market (STM) and Sustainable Livelihoods (2001).16 The projects focus on exploring the role of the market and the roles that corporations and markets can play in bettering the lives of impover-ished people and promoting sustainable development.

Overall, however, it can be said that the WBCSD work does not explicitly voice the need to reduce consumption levels, but emphasises the role of eco-

13 See URL: http://www.ymparisto.fi/default.asp?contentid=62075&lan=en 14 See URL: http://www.iclei.org/ 15 See URL: http://www.iclei-europe.org/index.php?big-net 16 See URL: http://www.wbcsd.ch/templates/TemplateWBCSD1/layout.asp?type=p&MenuId=Mjg5


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efficiency though managerial and technological solutions as the most promising strategy in changing consumption and production patterns. (In fact, the OECD adopts the same focus). The concept of Eco-efficiency includes improvements in management and technology through better utilisation of resources, dematerialisa-tion of production and reduction of waste per unit of economic output. The concept has been advocated as a “win-win solution” able to deliver a double dividend – business profit and benefits for the environment.

A large number of companies utilise and benefit from the eco-efficiency con-cept, both in economic and environmental terms. Fewer companies can boast a contribution to increasing the knowledge of consumers about environmental fea-tures through environmental declarations or eco-labels. Even fewer can provide examples of strategies employed to provide life cycle financial and environmental information to stimulate more environmentally sound consumer choices. Electrolux can serve as such example. The company is using life cycle cost information to facilitate purchases of its more environmentally sound products, the initial price of which is higher than similar products of other producers, but the life cycle cost is lower due to the reduced use of electricity and water.

A recent concern regarding the area for development that contributes to social sustainability is the Corporate Social Responsibility approach that advocates ac-tions to ensure that social considerations are part of business decision-making.

5.3 Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have also been active in the area of sus-tainable consumption, although they have significantly less power in influencing global political agenda on sustainable consumption compared to international or-ganisations, such as the UN or OECD. However, the work of NGOs is also impor-tant, especially because different political agendas and power groups hold less influence over these organisations. Differing from inter-governmental or business organisations, many contributions from these NGOs pursue strong sustainable consumption by discussing patterns and levels of consumption, social values and the adoption of alternative lifestyles.

According to a growing body of empirical evidence, habits and routines are very important determinants of consumer behaviour and decision-making and have a great potential for using change in routine to capture consumer attention toward environmental issues (OECD 2002d: 17). Consumer NGOs can help change these habits by structured approaches that are adopted to local consumer characteristics.

Examples of such campaigns can be found in the activities of Global Action Plan, Environmental Home Guard (Norway), Miljøhjemmevernet (Norway), The New American Dream (USA), Sustainable Do-It-Yourself (The Netherlands), So-lar-Na Klar! (Germany). These organisations are working on improving environ-mental literacy and facilitating behavioural change and are considered as being quite successful in information provision activities to inspire households for volun-tary contracts to reduce environmental impacts through the change of consumption habits. For example, the Environmental Home Guard attempts to change consumer behaviour by taking an optimistic solution-oriented approach, using simple and


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direct language, including humour and linking action with cultural activities such as theatre, music and sports (Robins and Roberts 1998).

Simultaneously, voluntary initiatives of consumers and NGOs often have lim-ited capacity to bring about a change of the same significance for all stakeholders. To strengthen their voice in the sustainable consumption debate, NGOs have or-ganised themselves into different international organisations, such as the Consumer International (CI) and International Coalition on Sustainable Consumption and Production (ICSPAC).17

Consumers International (CI) is one of the largest consumers’ NGO with over 250 member organisations in 115 countries. Their mission is to promote a fairer society by defending the rights of all consumers, especially the poor, marginalized and disadvantaged. CI is active in campaigning at the international level for poli-cies with respect to consumer concerns. Its activities cover a broad spectrum of issues, such as product and food standards, health and patients’ rights, the envi-ronment and sustainable consumption and the regulation of international trade and public utilities.18 With regard to sustainable production and consumption, IC is known for its cooperation with the UNEP and other UN structures.

The purpose of ICSPAC is to provide an effective information exchange and networking vehicle for NGOs and citizen organisations promoting sustainable production and consumption policies and practices. The coalition builds upon working relationships established through the earlier NGO Caucus on Sustainable Production and Consumption at the UN Commission on Sustainable Develop-ment. The main activity areas include the development of National Policy Frame-works to promote sustainable production and consumption, reforming destructive subsidies and public investment promoting unsustainable production and consump-tion, promoting citizen access to meaningful information, while challenging irre-sponsible sources of disinformation such as the promotion of unsustainable values and habits to children and finally encouraging producer responsibility and corpo-rate accountability.

The Sustainable Consumption Network is another NGO disseminating knowl-edge concerning sustainable consumption among citizens and governments in Europe. The network unites European scientists from diverse traditions and disci-plines, such as environmental systems analysis, management sciences, consumer economics, psychology and social sciences. The network contributes to the struc-turing and integration of European Research on practices of sustainable consump-tion and testing new policy measures with policy makers from the local to the in-ternational levels.19

Worldwatch Institute is an independent research organization that works to-wards an environmentally sustainable and socially just society. It was established in 1974 by the environmentalist Lester Brown and since then has been active in tracking and communicating global environmental indicators, including consump-tion of natural resource, pollution, biodiversity and private consumption. In 2004,

17 See URL: http://icspac.net/ 18 See URL: http://www.consumersinternational.org/about_CI/default.asp?regionid=135 19 See URL: http://www.sustainable-consumption.net


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the Institute released its annual “State of the World 2004” with a special focus on Consumer Society (Worldwatch Institute 2004). The report outlines problems re-lated to consumption and presents key figures on consumption levels and growing disparities between the rich and the poor.

World Resources Institute (WRI) is another relevant organisation working on sustainable production and consumption. WRI is an independent non-profit organi-zation hosting more than 100 scientists, economists, policy experts, business ana-lysts, statistical analysts, mapmakers and communicators. The institute is known for its most significant publications, such as “The Weight of Nations” and “Re-source Flows” (WRI 1997; WRI 2000). Most of its work focuses on environmental research in terms of material flow accounting, mapping production and consump-tion patterns and tracking critical consumption trends and implications on global and national levels.

5.4 Interpretation of stakeholders’ roles in sustainable consumption

Although concerns over environmental problems at the end of the last century has substantially risen among private consumers (Dunlap 1991), changes in pro-environmental behaviour have seemingly been minimal (Balderjahn 1988; Jenkin-son 1997). One of the main reasons is that consumers do not see how much pur-chasing choices affect them directly (Mont 2001b), for example, recycled material content in products. Exceptions are foodstuffs, which could have a potential direct health effects (e.g. genetically modified food), and energy consuming products, which have economic effects (e.g. vehicles, household appliances).

Therefore, until now, private consumers and households were not the leading force towards a more sustainable society. Furthermore, private consumers often have a rather constrained capacity to change their behaviour, which is strongly influenced both by the existing institutional settings and infrastructures and by societal factors. In other words, private consumers act within social, technological and market boundaries, as well as the boundaries of their own knowledge. In addi-tion, due to the diversity of the group, there is a lack of adequate stimuli provided by policy makers.

Politicians and economists often regard private consumers as rational decision-makers, as if the economic reasoning that works perfectly for companies should apply to them too (Hirsch 1976). However, there is a substantial difference be-tween business and private consumers. The latter may allow themselves to maxi-mise welfare by shifting demand towards non-consumptive leisure activities or services outside the monetary system (Featherstone 1991). Another difference is that the public sector and businesses become consumers as part of fulfilling their direct business tasks, while private consumers purchase outside of their working responsibilities. This distinction has direct implications for the possibilities of rais-ing the environmental awareness and changing consumption behaviour in these different types of consumers. Private consumers may have little desire to learn


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more about the consequences of their purchasing decisions and how to make them more environmentally rational.

The Public sector can set an example in sustainable consumption through envi-ronmentally sound public procurement, focusing on the shift from products to ser-vices to preferring greener product alternatives. Governmental share in final con-sumption expenditure in developed countries accounts for about 15-20% of GDP on average (Table 4). Being a large market player, the public sector has substantial power to influence the market by promoting alternatives to current consumption models and can play an important role in promoting specific social and economic objectives. Table 4. Consumption expenditures as shares of GDP in OECD. (Source: OECD 1999:38.)

Private final consump-tion expenditure

Governmental final con-sumption expenditure

Gross domestic capi-tal formation

Share as % of GDP

Change since

Share as % of GDP

Change since

Share as % of GDP

Change since

N. America 64 64 67 3 3 21 17 14 -7 -3 17 1 20 3 2 EU15 57 59 59 2 0 18 19 18 -1 -2 24 21 20 -4 -1 OECD Europe 57 59 59 2 0 18 19 17 -1 -1 24 21 20 -4 0

OECD 60 61 62 2 1 18 17 15 -4 -2 22 21 21 0 -1

Environmentally-oriented public purchasing programmes could, for example, be used to promote locally manufactured products, to prioritise the interests of small business, revitalising and stimulating growth in selected industries and encouraging research and development in areas deemed important to national interests. As a result, incorporating environmental concerns into public purchasing decisions is a natural extension of the role of authorities and governments in protecting the na-tion’s environment.

The government can also establish policies that directly or indirectly influence consumer behaviour and/or producers’ performance by applying economic instru-ments. However, the application of these instruments has limitations based on the economic interests of businesses and on the voting power of private consumers (Mont 2001b).

Examples on how governments could contribute to sustainable consumption are:

• Take leadership by developing institutional and regulatory frameworks that promote sustainable consumption practices;

• Internalise environmental costs so that markets send the “right” signals to consumers and producers and encourage use of economic instruments on products with the highest environmental impact (as e.g. tax on gasoline);

• Practise what you preach – through governmental procurement policies that demonstrate the applicability of the shift to services and less material products, reduced material consumption, repair, reuse and recycling, as well as interest in alternative consumption systems, such as sharing, pool-ing, renting and leasing.


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• Develop guidelines for the use of social instruments • Initiate, support and advocate sustainable consumption values via educa-

tion and information programs for consumers • Develop conditions so that products are not bought in vain – there is a need

to ensure that products are tried before the purchasing decisions are made. • Consider the introduction of the user-pays principle and transparency of

costs of the polluter-pays principle to consumers.

Individual consumers are a stakeholder group that is the most difficult to address directly with governmental policies. However, governments can still stimulate sustainable consumption practices in the society by:

• Supporting and stimulating the creation of alternative or the revival of tra-ditional family and community values and stressing the value of suffi-ciency and eco-efficiency;

• Investing into educating consumers about the impact of their choices on the environment, health and social aspects and reveal their hidden private and social costs;

• Helping to create alternative lifestyles based on mutual support and shar-ing, in contrast to the currently prevailing culture of consumerism, indi-vidualisation and material aspirations.

The Business sector is also an important stakeholder in addressing consumption. The main rationale for business is profit maximisation. Unfortunately, in the cur-rent economic climate of cheap natural resources and expensive labour, the main strategy to maximise profit is by increasing production volumes, raising labour productivity and launching new products on the market. Only a few innovative businesses find opportunities in new ways of generating profit based on demateri-alisation and product servicising strategies. Governments have an important role to play by policy interventions, which create incentives and establish mechanisms promoting these types of innovations. On the other hand, businesses could also be more proactive by lobbying for the development of framework conditions for more sustainable business opportunities.

Specific suggestions for businesses to address sustainable consumption issues are:

• Practice eco-efficiency and develop new business models that profit from innovative combinations of products and services that provide higher value-added to consumers and encourage sufficiency principle in consump-tion material products.

• Provide information about life cycle costs and the environmental and social impacts of their product to give a sufficient basis for consumer choice.

• Shift their business vision from selling more material products to providing functional solutions that have lower environmental and social impacts, for instance, move from slogans, such as “we produce the best cars”, to “we provide mobility solutions”.


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6 Policy role in addressing sustainable consumption

6.1 Policy principles In recent years we have witnessed a clear change in policy making from production processes to products, services and individual well-being. The initial focus in envi-ronmental policy was on point-source polluters – large production plants and their emission levels and waste volumes. Emission types were clearly distinguished and addressed by separate policy measures. Policy interventions along with market forces proved to be effective in stimulating technological improvements that re-sulted in higher resource productivity, pollution prevention and emission control. The outcomes of these policies have been significant in many industrialised coun-tries. For example, the Swedish emission levels dropped with approximately 90% between the end of the 1960s and the end of the 1990s, despite increased produc-tion levels.

However, these improvements were not enough to reduce the absolute envi-ronmental impacts and more fundamental approaches to reducing environmental impacts are needed. Also, increasing levels of waste in society have led to raised concerns over what and how much of various materials are used in the products and how much of these materials end up in waste that needs to be disposed of or incinerated at the end of life stages of products. Therefore, later, products came into focus of environmental debate. While at the beginning the product-oriented policy instruments dealt with specific product life cycle stages (mostly regarding hazardous material contained in products), later policy instruments attempted to address several or entire life cycles of products. Eventually, this thinking has evolved into focusing on the function that the product delivers, not just a product per se and the concept of product-service systems (PSS) was developed to propa-gate the need to investigate and try to reduce the impacts of services as well (Mont 2000; Mont 2001a). Moreover, the basis of the PSS idea is the realisation that sys-tem-wide changes are needed if strong sustainability is to be reached. It calls for radical changes to society, because incremental innovations are simply not enough.

Policies and policy instruments in many OECD countries are built on a number of policy principles. In the context of this discussion, some principles are of spe-cific interest, as they are more directly linked to the consumption side.20

The Polluter Pays Principle aims at correcting market failures by ensuring that the environmental costs of products are internalised and that more environmentally apt options are economically attractive to customers and thus more competitive on the market.

The Extended Producer Responsibility Principle is a policy principle to pro-mote total life cycle environmental improvements of product systems by extending

20 There are a vast number of books and articles that discuss the different principles for sustainable development. For a review of the instruments used in European environmental law see e.g. (Jans 2000)


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the responsibilities of the manufacturer of the product to various parts of the entire life cycle of the product, especially to the take-back, recycling and final disposal of the product (Lindhqvist 2000). The principle triggers producers to especially con-sider the end-of-life stages of their products in the product design phase and in this way may lead to the reduction of product-related environmental impacts, including the use phase.

The Integration Principle suggests the integration of environmental protection into other policy areas, e.g. transport, energy, consumer, agriculture and trade poli-cies. However, in order to ensure that sustainability concerns are taken into consid-eration in these policy areas, social issues need to be integrated as well.

In the following sections, a brief overview of existing policy principles, strate-gies and instruments that have direct or indirect effect on consumption is provided.

6.2 Policies and strategies in the European Union

The European Union has been active in developing different strategies and policies for sustainable production and consumption. These are divided into general policy frameworks and environmental policy areas targeting specific issues (Table 5). However, very few policies are actually developed with sustainable consumption issues in mind. The problem is that the majority of policy strategies and instru-ments address both sides of the problem – sustainable production and consumption, which usually leads to sustainable production strategies being much more well defined, while consumption strategies remain vague and moralistic.

Judging from this list, there are very few consumption-oriented strategies. At best, consumption issues are distilled in the production-oriented strategies. One explanation for this phenomenon is the fact that it is difficult to separate production and consumption issues, since they represent inherent parts of product life cycle. Another explanation comes from the obvious discomfort caused by the suggestion that it is impossible to satisfy needs of the new consumer class in China and other Asian countries at the level enjoyed by industrialised West due to the sheer level of it in terms of material consumption and associated pollution levels. The outcome of this realisation is the suggestion that consumption levels in industrialised countries should be reduced to give space to other consumers and to not to jeopardise the environmental stability of the planet.


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Table 5. EU strategies and polices for sustainable production & consumption. Source: (Dalhammar and Mont 2004)

General Policy Framework • Lisbon Strategy of Economic and

Social Renewal (2000) • 2001 Sustainable Development

Strategy • European Commission’s Social

Policy Agenda for 2000-2005 • 6th Community Environmental

Action Programme • 2001 The Community guidelines

on State aid for environmental pro-tection

• 6th EU Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development (2002-2006)

Specific environmental policy areas • Thematic Strategy on the Sustainable Use of

Natural Resources • Thematic Strategy on Waste • Integrated Product Policy (IPP) • EU Environment Technology Action Plan (ETAP) • 2002 Commission Communication on Corporate

Social Responsibility • 2001 Commission Interpretative Communication

on environmental considerations in public pro-curement

• 2001 Commission Interpretative Communication on social considerations in public procurement

• 2004 Communication on Member States’ use of market-based instruments in environmental policy

• 2002 EU Consumer policy strategy for 2002-2006

Policy instruments that address consumption range from the removal of environ-mentally harmful subsidies to the increasing use of green taxes and awareness rais-ing campaigns to make consumers concerned about the environmental as well as the social impacts of production and consumption. There are very few initiatives in the European Union that consider how consumer policy could help to reduce the environmental impacts of consumption, perhaps because the sustainability goal may eventually undermine the very premise of the existing economic paradigm – the sovereignty principle. Therefore, the EU consumer policy is poorly developed concerning how it can help reduce the environmental burdens of consumption.

Recently, more comprehensive environmental strategies have been launched to coordinate supply and demand side instruments in order to get an optimal outcome, taking into account the cost-effectiveness and the implications for competition and trade. The most obvious examples of such strategies are the discussion on the Inte-grated Product Policy (IPP) which aims to reduce the environmental impacts as-sociated with product features and to some extent addresses consumption-related impacts.

However, IPP does not strive to reduce the aggregate levels of consumption, rather it aims to promote the greening of markets within the ideology of “the more – the better”. It calls for actions to address the environmental problems of products with the highest environmental impacts. As with many other policies, the IPP envi-sions the use of both production and consumption side strategies and instruments, but fails to take a holistic approach to consumption. For example, the IPP Commu-nication does not provide any guidance for developing measures on educating citi-zens and other stakeholders about the importance of life cycle thinking; but envis-ages Member States to have the primary responsibilities for education activities (European Commission 2003a). It also neglects the issue of consumption levels and


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excludes such innovative ideas as functional thinking and product-service systems. Eco-labelling is the only instrument mentioned in the IPP Communication that aims at reducing the environmental impacts associated with the use phase. This is clearly insufficient. Measures are needed that will motivate and enable individuals and organisations to reflect upon consumption patterns and levels and incorporate lifecycle concerns in their decisions.

The 6th EU Framework Programme for Research and Technological Develop-ment has funded five EU-wide projects that aim at addressing consumption-related problems. The HOMESERVICE project investigates a wide variety of services that are currently provided to households and aims to estimate their dematerialisation potential. MOSES - Mobility Services for Urban Sustainability – is a project that looks at the possibilities of replacing car ownership with car sharing. FESCOLA – Feasibility and Scope of Life-Cycle Approaches to Sustainable Consumption – aims to outline how life cycle assessment (LCA) and similar approaches, such as environmental input-output analysis, can be used to advance the sustainable con-sumption agenda. TOOLSUST is a project that evaluates the environmental situa-tion in five European cities and suggests ways for households to contribute to im-proving the current situation. It aims to develop tools for sustainable consumption in close collaboration with stakeholders. EMUDE – Emerging Users Demands for Sustainable Solutions – is a project that aims to map out emerging sustainable us-ers’ demands and to develop a set of qualitative scenarios on how these demands and specific products and services may co-evolve.

Two Communications were produced that considered the role of public pro-curement and the possibility to integrate environmental and social criteria into the purchasing decision-making process (European Commission 2001a; European Commission 2001b). These Communications aimed to evaluate public procurement practices and identify the possibilities for incorporation of environmental and so-cial issues into each step of contract award procedure. However, neither of them addresses the aggregate consumption level. It is perhaps interesting to mention that the Commission Communication on Corporate Social Responsibility (2002) does not even contain the word “consumption”, see (European Commission 2002b), not to mention sustainable consumption.

The focus on unsustainable consumption patterns did put consumer issues higher on the environmental agenda. However, the question is how the sustainable consumption debate has influenced the consumer agenda. Some may argue that the two areas share many common goals and problems (Kye 1995), while others point out that the environment is not one of the core issues of consumer policy and this may lead to conflicts of both basic goals and concrete rules (Wilhelmsson 1998). There may sometimes be a conflict between consumer health and environmental concerns, although these interests usually go well together.

On the EU level, the European Commission’s Directorate-General (DG) for Health and Consumer Protection is mainly concerned with protection of consum-


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ers’ health, safety and economic interests. The environment is of primary concern for consumer policy when pollution can be linked to human health impacts.21

Another focus in consumer policy is “fairness”: fair prices, fair marketing, fair access to information and maximisation of the utility of the consumer. Sustainable consumption issues are not included in the DG’s main areas of interest and it is only touched upon in the latest Consumer Policy Action Plan with no suggested measures to promote it. Furthermore, there does not seem to be a clear policy on how environmental issues come into consumer education and environmental affairs are not represented in the organisational structure of the DG for Health and Con-sumer Protection, unlike many other DGs, which have a department for environ-mental issues (European Commission 1999). Despite this, it is clear that many current issues on the DGs agenda are also high on the environmental agenda. These issues include food safety, GMOs, credible information on goods and labelling. Some EU member states have lobbied that a stronger weight should be given to environmental goals in EU consumer policy.22

The EU Consumer Policy Strategy 2002-2006 sets out a number of health and safety requirements for a range of product groups (European Commission 2002a). It requires that products and services on the market should be safe and consumers should receive relevant information about product features, which should help them make informed choices. It allocates an important role to consumer organisa-tions as representing the voice of the consumer in multi-stakeholder dialogues and outlines actions that include, among other items, capacity-building projects for consumer organisations. One of the important items in the indicative list of actions of the Consumer Policy Strategy relevant for the purpose of this investigation sug-gests that the appropriate initiatives for Community action on promotion of sus-tainable production and consumption patterns need to be taken forward. However, it is rather optimistic to hope that this goal will lead to tangible outcomes since the Community actions do not specifically target sustainable consumption, but rather treat it as a matter of eco-efficiency improvement within upstream life cycle stages.

6.3 Instruments In this section, we will go through some of the policy instruments developed and used for addressing production and consumption related environmental problems. These are generally divided into three main categories: administrative, economic and informative. The administrative instruments include bans, laws and policies that enforce specific requirements. The economic instruments are generally mar-ket-based instruments that provide economic incentives for changing the behaviour of market actors – be it manufacturers or consumer (e.g. changing consumption patterns and levels). The informative instruments are those that aim at increasing overall consumer awareness with regard to consumption choices by education,

21 Pollution related diseases are one of the topics on the Directorate-General for Health and Consumer Protection’s agenda. 22 For instance, Sweden has lobbied that EU consumer policy should have an ecological perspective that is reflected in the actual policy-making (Regeringens skrivelse 2002).


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media channels and labelling. Traditional areas where policies are being developed in relation to consumption are requirements for information provision, taxing envi-ronmentally harmful activities and products and banning extremely dangerous substances.

Administrative instruments In general, the majority of legislation affects the production side or upstream life cycle phases. However, the current trend in the development of environmental regulation is geared towards increasing the focus on products and the associated life cycle impacts. One of the first attempts in this field was the development of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) legislation. The idea was that through proper design, individual producers would have incentives to design products that have less environmental impacts in other life cycle phases, especially in the end-of-life phase (Lindhqvist 2000). Subsequent EPR legislation has become more sophis-ticated: legislation of take-back is often combined with design requirements, re-strictions of hazardous materials and the obligation to produce and make available information on the products that are useful in the end-of-life stages (for disassem-bly and recycling purposes). Upcoming legislation on energy intensive products aims to stimulate design changes that improve energy efficiency and other envi-ronmental parameters (European Commission 2003b).

The increased focus on product regulation also has implications for the con-sumption side. Take-back legislation has stimulated the development of recycling systems, which requires consumers to sort and recycle waste, thus changing con-sumer behaviour and making the consumer more aware of the environmental im-plications of consumption. As product-oriented legislation affects also the chemical content and energy efficiency of products it becomes very interesting from the consumer perspective. However, the regulations are largely and primarily directed towards the producers.

Concerning administrative instruments of a voluntary nature, we mainly see developments on the national level. Examples include product panels in Denmark23 and the promotion of Product-oriented Environmental Management Systems (POEMS) in e.g. Netherlands. Product panels can be considered a consumption side strategy, at least when consumer interests are well represented.

Retailers are an important link between producers and consumers, but are sel-dom addressed in policymaking. Some recent initiatives have, however, been di-rected towards retailers. One example is the recent initiative Framtida Handel, where the Swedish government has an agreement with a number of actors, includ-ing retailers, to green the production systems through e.g. greener transports and the development of more environmentally friendly products. 24

23 More information on product panels (in Danish and English) can be found at the homepage of the Danish Environmental Protection Agency: http://www.mst.dk 24 See http://www.framtidahandel.se/.


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Economic instruments The 6th Environment Action Programme (6EAP) promotes market-based instru-ments and can be considered as a tool to address sustainable production and con-sumption patterns. However, the EU has limited possibilities to impose taxes and charges and therefore often encourages member states to use these instruments and/or remove environmentally damaging subsidies at the national level. In con-trast to resource prices, labour costs are high in most industrialised countries and they are frequently the reason why firms shed labour and replace it with resource-intensive equipment. In the EU, in excess of 80% of all taxes are income related (Paleocrassas 1999). To a considerable extent, the high cost of labour (not salaries) is the consequence of deliberate policies. An attractive proposal is to shift the tax burden from labour to the environmental impact.25 Some states have initiated a green tax reform, with the aim to (in the long run) substitute income related taxes with taxes on natural resources and energy. In Denmark, an essential part of a ma-jor tax reform passed in 1993 was the redistribution of taxes from labour to natural resources and pollution. The reform provided for marginal income taxes to be low-ered by about 8-10% from 1994-1998 and for the phasing in of new green taxes. In the case of Swedish tax reform, the tax shift between the labour and energy ac-counted for 4%. The reason for the tax reform was mainly the need to lower high marginal tax rates on labour income (EEA 2000). It currently appears as if the green tax reform has slowed down in many countries, perhaps due to the economic recession.

Different types of taxes are being used across countries and at the EU level. For example, eco-taxes on products, materials and environmentally damaging activities are one way of ensuring that the price incorporates the environmental cost. For example, the 2003 Energy Tax Directive that extended the Community system of minimum tax rates from mineral oils to other energy products. Another example is the EU-wide allowance trading scheme for greenhouse gas emissions that entered in force in 2005 and that aims at assisting in reaching the Kyoto reduction targets (European Commission 2005).

Waste disposal charges can affect both producers and consumers and eventu-ally aims at extending the life span of products. Deposit-refund systems are also an example of product charges that are refunded to the consumer and are aimed at influencing consumer behaviour in relation to the end-of-life management of the products they use.

Informative instruments There is a clear trend towards a wider use of informative instruments. There are few informative instruments of a mandatory nature. Recent initiatives include leg-islation that assures the publics right to environmental information (based on commitments in the Aarhus convention). Energy labelling is an example of legisla-tion that will insure that consumers have access to relevant environmental

25 However, it is often stressed that care should be taken not to increase the total tax (revenue neutral-ity) when introducing the shift from labour to resource tax.


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information, which may affect the purchases. Chemicals legislation is interesting as it aims to provide more information to institutional and private consumers on chemicals and their properties. However, the current and planned EU legislation will not help to provide consumers with much information on chemicals in other goods. Therefore, some EU member states are developing national strategies to supply this information to consumers.26 Advertising law will regulate the use of environmental claims.

There are a greater number of voluntary informative instruments. Most of these instruments are addressing private or institutional consumers and include: eco-labelling (ISO type I), environmental product declarations (EPDs, ISO type III), organic labelling of food, and certification schemes of e.g. hotels, consumer advice, consumer campaigns and consumer education. The EU Eco-label seeks to improve the environmental profile of products from a life cycle perspective and to provide consumers with a simple indication of environmentally sound products. Despite updating the rules and scope for the EU Eco-label, the label is still awarded to too few products, is rarely visible in shops and criteria has been developed for too few product groups. There is a broad range of other labels for various products, such as Energy Star, labels for environmentally sound and organic foods, etc. However, there is reason to question the effectiveness of informative instruments. Many of the instruments got little response from industry and consumers and some of the instruments may not be easy to use for the desired purpose. For instance, EPDs are hard to interpret even for the intended user group: professional purchasers. The high hopes that were put on eco-labelling have been tuned down in later years. The EU Eco-label seeks to improve the environmental profile of products from a life cycle perspective and to provide consumers with a simple indication of environ-mentally sound products. Despite updating the rules and scope of the EU Eco-label, the label covers too few product groups and is rarely visible in shops. At the same time, some national eco-labelling schemes, e.g. German Blue Angel, have been more successful.

The effectiveness of consumer campaigns is often not evaluated, as it is a diffi-cult task to measure the effectiveness.27 Studies have showed that information in itself is not sufficient to achieve the required change, because people need to have opportunities to act and sufficient drivers to consider to actually changing their consumption behaviour (Moisander 1998).

26 The Swedish government has asked the National Chemicals Inspectorate to investigate what infor-mation needs different actors – e.g. professional purchasers, private consumers and recyclers – in the product life cycle have and how an effective information system can be set up that can deliver the information. See (KEMI 2004). 27 Usually, an evaluation would look at how various informative instruments have affected the consum-ers with regard to knowledge, attitudes and concrete action, which is quite difficult. In the latest Swedish evaluation of green consumer information, we can notice that it is often easier to measure how con-sumer information has triggered action from producers than from consumers. See (Regeringens skriv-else 2002)


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6.4 Interpretation of policy instruments – effectiveness vs. feasibility

As made clear from the preceding sections, the success of the sustainable consump-tion efforts depends to a large degree on governmental actions. Therefore, it is interesting to reflect on what the role of policy makers is in facilitating practical outcomes from environmental awareness and what are the possibilities of doing this with different types of policy instruments. The three types of instruments in question are administrative, economic and informational, as discussed in Section 6.3.

It has been noted that in addressing the issue of sustainable consumption and production, administrative or regulatory instruments are usually applied to produc-ers (e.g. pollution control, product standards). Furthermore, many examples of economic instruments (tax reforms, product charges), although affecting producers, are directed towards final consumers. Informative instruments are being used for both consumers through e.g. awareness raising campaigns, education and eco-labels and for producers through labelling schemes or voluntary initiatives.

In order to provide our interpretation on the ability of policy makers to induce a change towards a sustainable final consumption through policy measures, we pro-vide our valuation of the three types of policy instruments (see Table 6). The instruments are evaluated in relation to three main actors – governments, busi-nesses and private consumers. The valuation takes into consideration two criteria – the environmental effectiveness and the feasibility of policy instruments and is performed on a simple scale using markers (*) for small, (**) for medium and (***) for large potential. The effectiveness denotes how successful in our opinion an instrument is for inducing a shift towards a more sustainable consumption. The feasibility denotes our perception of the level of enforceability and the degree of freedom for the government to apply an instrument. Explanations and reasoning for our valuations followed after the table.

Table 6. Evaluation of effectiveness and feasibility of policy instruments.

Private consumers Businesses Public sector

Instrument Effective-ness

Feasibil-ity

Effective-ness

Feasibil-ity

Effective-ness

Feasibil-ity

Administra-tive * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Economic * *(*) * * * * * * * * * * * * Informational * * * * * * * * * * * * * The effectiveness of administrative instruments in terms of inducing environ-mental change (e.g. regulations on emissions or restrictions of toxic substance use) is usually high in relation to all three actors, because of the very nature of any regu-lations (i.e. a regulation imposed by the law must be followed). Simultaneously, these instruments have a different degree of feasibility in terms of governmental willingness to impose strict regulations. This is especially true for actors, such as


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businesses, and even more so for private consumers. Regulating the public sector by strict regulations is much easier than businesses, where economic and competi-tiveness factors play an important role. Even more difficult is to regulate private consumers, where the principle of consumer sovereignty is very important and policy makers avoid dictating to private consumers. Exceptions are certain prod-ucts and services that are health damaging, addictive or treated as criminal by the existing legal frameworks (for instance, the use of illegal drugs or prostitution). The feasibility of administrative instruments also depends on the distribution of power between national and regional authorities.

Informational instruments compared to the administrative ones in many re-spects have opposite characteristics, i.e. the feasibility of their application for the three actor groups is high, but the effectiveness could be very low. The latter is debatable. Some studies argue for a greater role of education and consumer infor-mation (OECD 2002c). Others point to the discrepancy between consumers’ atti-tudes towards the environment and their actual behaviour (Stern 2000; Niva and Timonen 2001a; Peattie 2001; OECD 2002b). For example, eco-labels are intended to be useful information aids in guiding consumer choices and to some degree they do fulfil this task (Palm and Windahl 1998b), but in practice the effect of eco-labels is moderate and product-specific. For instance, eco-labels are effective when it comes to product information that has something to do with consumer health (e.g. organically grown foodstuffs) or reduced cost of ownership (e.g. the energy labels on white goods). However, consumers are much less interested in environ-mental information about product lifecycle-related environmental aspects, such as product’s recyclability or the share of recycled materials used in manufacturing.

Informational instruments are important in shaping a responsible consumer who is more likely to adjust his/her behaviour than an uninformed or an unedu-cated consumer. Therefore, we do not argue that the instruments are not useful in addressing the issue of sustainable consumption. However, in our view, compared to other instruments the effects of informational instruments are more of an indirect and long-term nature and thus the instruments are less suitable for inducing a change in a short-term.

Economic instruments, such as environmental taxes, fees, tradable permits or extended producer responsibility schemes, are very effective in inducing the change towards sustainable consumption among business actors, which we assume to be rational consumers. In this context, the instruments are effective both for the consumption of resources as production input and for the final consumption. The effectiveness of the economic instruments for other actors is difficult to define without analysing a particular instrument. The effectiveness also depends on how we treat public sector and private consumers in terms of consumer rationality. We may assume that rational decision-makers constitute the public sector, thus they are sensitive to changes of the final prices and react to economic interventions to the same degree as business actors. On the other hand, the latest debate on the neo-classical view on private consumers suggests that the latter should not be regarded as fully rational market players being influenced by the multitude of external fac-tors shaping consumer behaviour. With this in mind, we suggest that economic


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instruments for private consumers are somewhat less effective in comparison to public sector and business actors.

The feasibility of applying economic instruments for all actors is moderate and is case-specific. While the reasons could be different, the majority are linked to political and economic considerations facing policy makers. Here, the necessity to consider the issues of international trade and competitiveness as well as the inter-ests of marginalized industrial sectors, companies or private consumers often clashes with the environmental ambitions of policy makers. Nevertheless, we con-sider economic instruments among the most useful tools for policy intervention both in short-term and long-term perspectives. So far, they have proved to be effec-tive in facilitating the implementation of important policy principles such as the polluter pay principle. In a number of countries they also supported the implemen-tation of EPR-based waste management systems for important product groups, such as packaging, end-of-life vehicles and electronics.


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7 Conclusions In the current understanding, consumption is one of the cornerstones of social wel-fare and an important part of people’s lives, serving as a measure of success and a way of defining personal identities. At the same time, increasing consumption is one of the main contributors to the continuing environmental degradation threaten-ing the idea of sustainable development. Therefore, developing socio-economic systems ensuring high quality of life and sustaining environmental impacts in line with nature’s carrying capacity should be perceived as the contemporary societal goal. The ultimate question facing today’s society in developed countries is whether consumerism actually contributes to human welfare and happiness.

Although the challenge of reducing consumption volumes has been widely rec-ognised in academia, the practical applications are seen as rather incremental ac-tions. Strategies are missing that would conceive ways of shifting from current culture of limitless consumerism to a society with less materialistic aspirations. Such strategies should target both the supply and demand sides, i.e. propagate eco-efficiency in production as well as sufficiency in consumption. Most of the con-temporary environmental strategies seem to focus on improving resource efficiency on supply side allowing environmental improvements on per unit basis. However, economic growth implies increasing final consumption and does not reduce envi-ronmental pressures on the aggregate level.

Therefore, eco-efficiency strategies are insufficient en route towards sustain-able development and they must be complemented with changes in consumption patterns as well as reduction of the levels of material consumption. Unfortunately, the latter not only requires personal moral commitment, but also threatens a variety of vested interests clashing with current political and economic strategies of pro-moting economic growth.

One of the primary problems in the discourse is lack of consensus on the defi-nition of sustainable consumption, i.e. at what level is consumption sustainable? Furthermore, there is little agreement on strategies to approach sustainable con-sumption. Some treat consumption as part of production and thus try to address it by supply-side oriented measures, such as eco-efficiency. Others equate it to the ‘greening’ of markets and focus on providing greener product alternatives. One of the important questions is whether it is sufficient to merely address the patterns of consumption, for example, shifting to more eco-efficient products, or to take a more radical strategy of questioning the levels of consumption. Although it seems that the shift from product- to service-centric consumption models contributes to the goals of sustainable consumption, there is little clarity on what kinds of services and what degree of servicising is acceptable for the principles of sustainable devel-opment.

Developing socio-economic systems of sustainable consumption requires more knowledge about consumer behaviour and the environmental impacts of consumer-ism. The impacts of established product groups are gradually being explored and assessment tools are being developed. However, the main research gaps seems to


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be in understanding the environmental impacts of alternative consumption sys-tems based on product to service substitution. It is not a given that servicising ultimately leads to lower environmental impacts and it is important to understand what the main prerequisites on the systems’ level that lower the impacts are. Fur-thermore, little is known regarding what service features and functions are impor-tant for consumers to make choices among services that can be alternatives to the existing products.

Consumerism is driven by a complex set of forces rooted in different psycho-logical, social and institutional settings. Therefore, understanding and addressing consumption issues requires a multidisciplinary approach, especially with input from economics, sociology and psychology. The traditional economic models built on the neo-classical economic theory are not sufficient for explaining consumption processes. The latest results of consumption research suggest that consumption patterns are shaped not only by economic forces, but also by technological, politi-cal, sociological, psychological and environmental factors. According to empiric studies, the link between material welfare and happiness in not omnipresent and senses of security, clean environment, family ties and friendships are at least as important as material possessions. Therefore, the current way of measuring wel-fare in terms of gross domestic product is far from adequate and should not be regarded as a sufficient indicator for policy strategies.

Dealing with the environmental issues of consumption requires balancing be-tween sustainable development, socio-economic goals and political agendas and a concerted international action from government, businesses and private consum-ers and integrated system-level solutions.

The most active stakeholders leading the debate of sustainable consumption are inter-governmental organisations and different non-governmental organisations (NGOs). However, the former seem to lack the political commitment to take radi-cal approaches, such as reduction of consumption levels. NGOs are more radical, but lack the power to induce changes beyond marginal cases. Business stake-holders, on the other hand, do not see the economic rationale in curbing consump-tion levels, which in the current economic settings would undermine their bottom line and challenge the very survival of companies. Therefore, actions by govern-ments are needed that would change the existing institutional and economic frameworks and create conditions in which producers would be interested in searching for new business opportunities leading to new profit centres in less re-source-intensive products-services offers.

So far the bulk of environmental policies and policy instruments have been fo-cused on production side issues. Although there is a link between production and consumption, more efforts are needed in designing consumption-oriented policy instruments. Regulatory instruments, such as bans on harmful substances, and the economic tools, such as green tax reforms, are progressing slowly. Conversely, most of the existing consumer-oriented instruments rely on information and aware-ness raising, but experience shows that informative instruments so far have been rather ineffective in stimulating tangible changes in society (Suchard and Polonsky 1991; Dembkowski 1998). For instance, eco-labelling schemes have had limited


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success and the way these schemes are set up may limit their possibilities to green products even if their popularity increases. Green public procurement strategies and technology procurement have great potential for stimulating improvements, but most of these instruments are still voluntary and marginalized.

Obviously, no single tool or approach can change the existing socio-economic frameworks and combinations of administrative, economic and informa-tional policy instruments are needed. Furthermore, new consumption-oriented poli-cies must be developed in consultations with all relevant stakeholders and aligned with the existing policy framework. Positive developments in this area are national (e.g. Swedish) and international (e.g. the EU) initiatives on the development of Integrated Product Policy (IPP) framework.

Addressing sustainable consumption on a national level is difficult and interna-tional cooperation among policy makers is absolutely necessary. Facilitating the dialogue on IPP on the EU level is a step towards the right direction, which could provide a forum for finding potential solutions. The shift towards sustainable con-sumption has to emerge in industrialised countries, which will inspire the rest of the world to lead less consuming lifestyles.


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ANNEX A. Major events and key publi-cations on sustainable consumption Table 7. Timetable of major events and key publications on the issue of sustainable consumption (based on UNEP 2002b; Fuchs and Lorek 2004; SDIN 2005).

1992 major event: Earth Summit (Rio de Janeiro).

Publications: UN (1992). Changing Consumption Patterns (Chapter 4, in: Agenda 21). United Nations: New York. 1994 major event: Symposium on Sustainable Consumption (Oslo).

Publications: UNCED, Report of the Secretary General, “Changing Consumption Patterns”. New York.

1995 major event: Ministerial Roundtable Conference on Sustainable Production and Consumption (Oslo). 1996 major event: UNEP’s work on sustainable development indicators Publications:

WBCSD (1996). Sustainable Production and Consumption: A Business Perspective. World Busi-ness Council for Sustainable Development: Geneva. UNEP (1996). “Indicators of Sustainable Development: Framework and Methodologies”. United Nations Environmental Programme: Paris.

1997 major event: Review of Agenda 21 – review of policy instruments for changing consumption patterns. Earth Summit II, Rio+5 (New York)

Publications: OECD (1997). Sustainable Consumption and Production. Clarifying the Concepts. OECD: Paris. Robins, N. and Roberts, S. (eds) (1997). Unlocking Trade Opportunities: Changing Consumption and Production Patterns. IIED and UNDP/CSD: London and New York. UN CHS (1997). Changing Consumption Patterns in Human Settlements. UN Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat). UN CHS: Nairobi, Kenya.

1998 major event: Kabelvåg Workshop: June 2-4, 1998 (Kabelvåg, Norway).


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Publications: IIED (1998) Consumption in a Sustainable World. Report of the Workshop held in Kabelvåg, Norway. Oslo: Norwegian Ministry of Environment and IIED. UNECE (1998). Recommendations to ECE governments on encouraging local initiatives towards sustainable consumption patterns. Fourth ministerial conference in June 1998 (Aarhus, Denmark): Environment for Europe. UN Economic Commission for Europe: Geneva. UNDP (1998). Human Development Report: Changing today’s consumption patterns for tomor-row’s human development. UN Development Programme: New York. OECD (1998). Towards Sustainable Consumption Patterns. OECD: Paris. OECD (1998). Sustainable Consumption Indicators. OECD: Paris. UN DESA (1998). Measuring Changes in Consumption and Production Patterns. A Set of Indica-tors. UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs: New York. UNECE (1998). Recommendations to ECE governments on encouraging initiatives towards sus-tainable consumption patterns. UN Economic Commission for Europe.

1999 major events: UN CSD 7th Session, focusing on sustainable consumption. Launch of Oxford Commission on Sustainable Consumption (Oxford, UK). OECD Environment Directorate launched a program Towards Sustainable Consumption. UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) adoption of UN guidelines on consumer pro-tection re sustainable consumption. UNEP DTIE: 1st international expert meeting on topic “Sustainable production and consump-tion”. UNEP DTIE: Sustainable Consumption & Production; creating opportunities in a Changing World (Berlin, Germany).

Publications: UN CSD (1999). Changing Consumption Patterns. Report of the Secretary General. United Na-tions: New York. UNEP/DTIE (1999). UN Industry and Environment Review: Changing Consumption Patterns. Report of the Secretary General. UN Environmental Programme, Division of Technology, Industry and Economics: New York. UNEP (1999). Sustainable Consumption & Production - creating opportunities in a Changing World. United Nations Environmental Programme, Division of Technology, Industry, and Economics: Paris. WWF (1999). Living Planet Report. World Wide Fund, Geneva. UNEP (1999). Global Environmental Outlook 2000. Earthscan. United Nations Environmental Programme: Paris. OECD (1999). Towards more Sustainable Household Consumption Patterns - Indicators to meas-ure progress. OECD: Paris. UN (1999). Comprehensive review of changing consumption and production patterns. Report of the Secretary – General. UN: New York. UN DESA (1999). Trends in Consumption and Production: Household Energy Consumption. UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs: New York. UNEP (1999). Towards a Global Use of LCA. UN Environment Program, Division of Technology, Industry and Economics (DTIE), Production and Consumption Unit: Paris. WBCSD (1999). Sustainability through the Market. World Business Council for Sustainable De-velopment.


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2000 major events: UNEP DTIE: African Roundtable on Cleaner Production and Sustainable Consumption, (Nairobi, Tanzania). UNEP DTIE: expert workshop “Product-Service-Systems” (Paris, France). UNEP/UNESCO: workshop Youth and Sustainable Consumption. Is the future yours? (Paris, France). UNEP DTIE: Design for Environment (Hanover, Germany). UNEP: Global Ministerial Environmental Forum (Malmö, Sweden)

Publications: Heap, B. and J. Kent (eds) (2000). Towards Sustainable Consumption: A European Perspective. The Royal Society, London. UNEP/CDG (2000). Sustainable Consumption and Production. Creating Opportunities in a Changing World. UN Environmental Programme and Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft. UNEP (2000). Malmö Ministerial Declaration. Malmö.

2001 major events: UNEP: a workshop on Consumer Needs and Protection in connection to the 7th European Roundtable for Cleaner Production (IIIEE/Lund University, Sweden) UNEP/SETAC: 1st workshop of the UNEP SETAC life cycle initiative (Tokyo, Japan) UNEP DTIE: a series of regional workshops on sustainable consumption in Asia Pacific (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia); Eastern and Central Europe (Sophia, Bulgaria and Tallinn, Estonia); and Latin America and the Caribbean (Sao Paulo, Brazil)

Publications: WBCSD (2001). Sustainability through the market: seven keys to success. World Business Coun-cil for Sustainable Development: Geneva. WBCSD (2001). The business case for sustainable development. World Business Council for Sustainable Development: Geneva. UNEP (2001). Consumption Opportunities: strategies for change. A report for decision-makers. UN Environment Program, DTIE: Paris. UNEP/UNESCO (2001). Youth, sustainable consumption patterns and life styles. UN Environment Program: Paris. UNEP/UNESCO (2001). Is the Future Yours? UN Environment Program: Paris. Charter & Tischner (eds.) (2001). Sustainable Solutions: Developing Products and Services for the Future. Greenleaf Publishing: Sheffield. OECD (2002). Report of the OECD Workshop on Information and Consumer Decision-Making for Sustainable Consumption. 16-17 January 2001, OECD HeadquartersParis. OECD Environment Policy Committee: Paris.

2002 major events: United Nations: The Johannesburg Summit (Johannesburg, South Africa) UNEP DTIE: 2nd African Roundtable on Cleaner Production and Sustainable Consumption (Arusha, Tanzania) UNEP/ SETAC: Life Cycle Initiative Workshop, 1 December 2002 (Barcelona, Spain). AIST/UNEP: Workshop on Life Cycle Approaches to Sustainable Consumption, 22 November 2002 (Laxenburg, Austria). Organised by Japan's Research Center for Life Cycle Assessment (AIST) and UNEP. UNEP/CI/UN DESA: Implementing Sustainable Consumption and Production Policies: North-South, South-South and East-West Partnerships, Paris, France, 6-7 May 2002. Organised by the UNEP, Consumers International (CI) and UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA). Publications:

UNEP/CI (2002). Tracking Progress: Implementing Sustainable Consumption Policies - A Global Review of the Implementation of the UN Guidelines to Consumer Protection. Consumers Interna-


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tional and UNEP/May 2002. UN DESA (2002). Survey of International Activities on Consumption and Production Patterns. UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs: New York. UNEP-DTIE (2002). Sustainable Consumption and Cleaner Production, Global Status 2002: A Contribution to Sustainable Development. UNEP/Politecnico di Milano University (2002). Product-Service Systems and Sustainability: Op-portunities for Sustainable Solutions. UN Environment Program: Paris. UNEP/McCann-Erickson (2002). Can Sustainability Sell? UN Environmental Program: Paris. OECD (2002). Decision-Making and Environmental Policy Design for Consumer Durables. OECD, Environment Policy Committee: Paris. OECD (2002). Policy Case Study Series: Participatory Decision-Making For Sustainable Con-sumption. OECD Program on Sustainable Consumption: Paris. OECD (2002). Policy Case Studies Series: Policies to Promote Sustainable Consumption: an Overview. OECD Environment Policy Committee: Paris. OECD (2002). Towards Sustainable Household Consumption: an economical conceptual frame-work. OECD Publications: Paris. OECD (2002). Towards Sustainable Household Consumption: Trends and Policies in OECD Countries. OECD Publications: Paris. WBCSD (2002). The Business Case for Sustainable Development. World Business Council for Sustainable Development: Geneva.

2003 major events: UN Division for Sustainable Development and UNEP: Launching of the “Marrakech-Process”. The first international expert meeting on the 10-year framework on sustainable consumption and production. Marrakech, Morocco, 16-19 June 2003. UNEP: regional meeting on sustainable consumption in Asia-Pacific, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, May 2003. UNEP: regional meeting on sustainable consumption in Latin America, Buenos Aires, Argentina, April 2003. UNEP: regional meetings. 1st China Forum on Sustainable Consumption and Production, Changsha, China, 6-8 December 2003. UNEP: regional meetings. 2nd Asia-Pacific Regional Expert Meeting on Sustainable Consump-tion and Production, Seoul, Republic of Korea, 6-7 November 2003. UN DESA and UNEP: regional meetings 2nd Governmental Experts Meeting on Sustainable Consumption and Production in Latin America and the Caribbean, Managua, Nicaragua, 15-16 October 2003. SNTT, AIST, UNEP: A series of international workshop on Life-cycle approaches to Sustainable Consumption held in Vienna, November 2003; Paris, March 2003; and Tokyo, Japan, 19-20 March 2003. Organised by The Society of Non-Traditional Technology (SNTT) and the Re-search Centre for Life Cycle Assessment (AIST) in cooperation with UNEP. Publications:

UNEP (2003). Greener Purchasing Strategy for Local Governments: Towards a Sustainable Purchasing Strategy at the Local Level. UN Environment Program: Paris. UNEP/US EPA (2003). Life Cycle Initiative: Evaluation of Environmental Impacts in Life Cycle Assessment. UN Environment Program, Division of Technology, Industry and Economics (DTIE), Production and Consumption Unit: Paris. UNEP (2003). Summary Report: International Expert Meeting on Sustainable Consumption and Production. UNEP: Marrakech. Bentley & de Leeuw (2003). Sustainable Consumption Indicators. UNEP. Paris. 40. UNEP (2003). Evaluation of Environmental Impacts in Life Cycle Assessment. UNEP: Paris.

2004 major events: UNEP, the European Commission and UN DESA: European Stakeholder Meeting on Sus-tainable Consumption and Production. Ostende, Belgium, 25-26 November 2004. UNEP: sub-regional meeting on sustainable consumption in the Baltic States (workshop on Sus-tainable Consumption and Production), Vilnius, Lithuania, June 2004. UNEP: regional meetings, African Roundtable on Sustainable Consumption and Production Casablanca, Morocco, 17-18 May 2004.


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UNEP: Global Compact Policy Dialogue on Sustainable Consumption: Marketing & Communica-tions, Paris, France, 5-6 April 2004. Publications:

EC (2004). Sustainable consumption and production in the European Union. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities: Luxembourg. UNEP/DTIE and UNEP/ROE (2004). Background paper for European stakeholder meeting on sustainable consumption and production. UN Environment Program, Division of Technology, Industry and Economics (DTIE) and UNEP Regional Office for Europe: Paris. UNEP/CI (2004) (2nd edition). Tracking Progress: Implementing Sustainable Consumption Policies - A Global Review of the Implementation of the UN Guidelines to Consumer Protection. Consum-ers International and UNEP/May 2002.

2005 major events: UN DESA: Intergovernmental preparatory meeting to UN Commission on Sustainable Develop-ment, CSD-13 (planned). Feb 28, 2005. New York. More information: http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/csd/csd13/csd13.htm UN DESA: "CSD - 13" (planned). Apr 11, 2005. New York. More information: http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/csd/csd13/csd13.htm UNEP: 2nd International Expert meeting on Sustainable Production and Consumption, Marra-kech + 2 (planned). Costa Rica, September 2005.


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ANNEX B. Relevant links Below you will find links to organisations working on issues related to sustainable product and consumption debate.

Inter-governmental organisations: CSD - Consumption and production patterns. URL: www.un.org/esa/sustdev/conprod.htm UN - Commission on Sustainable Development. URL: www.un.org/esa/sustdev/conprod.htm UNEP - Advertising and Communication Initiative. URL: www.uneptie.org/pc/sustain/advertising/advertising.htm UNEP - Production & Consumption Unit. URL: www.uneptie.org/pc/home.htm UNEP - Regional Initiative on Sustainable Consumption. URL: www.uneptie.org/pc/sustain/wssd/regional.htm UNEP - Sustainable Consumption Unit. URL: www.unepie.org/pc/sustain/home.htm OECD - Organisational for Economic Cooperation and Development. URL: www.oecd.org IISD - International Institute for Sustainable Development. URL: www.iisd.ca

Business organisations World Business Council for Sustainable Development. URL: www.wbcsd.ch/

Non-governmental organisations Adbusters. URL: www.adbusters.org ANPED Sustainable Production & Consumption Program. URL: www.anped.org Center for Sustainable Consumption (UK). URL: www.shu.ac.uk/schools/slm/csc.html Centre for Sustainable Design. URL: www.cfsd.org.uk/ Citizens Network for Sustainable Development. URL: www.citnet.org Consumers International, URL: www.consumersinternational.org/ Forum for Environment and Development. URL: www.forumue.de/ Global Action Plan for the Earth (GAP), URL: http://globalactionplan.org International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) www.iied.org/smg/index.html#suscon International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), URL: www.iclei.org International Coalition for Sustainable Production and Consumption. URL: http://icspac.net National Wildlife Federation. URL: www.nwf.org North American Sustainable Consumption Alliance. URL: http://nasca.icspac.net/default.aspx Norwegian Forum for Environment and Development. URL: www.rio10.no/english.html Sustainable Communities Network. URL: www.sustainable.org/living/buying.html Third World Network. URL: www.twnside.org.sg/ University of Oslo, Research Program for a Sustainable Society. URL: www.prosus.uio.no


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ANNEX C. Relevant publications Production side oriented policy publications on Integrated Product Policy (IPP): IIIEE (2004). Integrated product policy and sustainable consumption: At the cross road of environ-mental and consumer policies. IIEEE, Lund University, 2004. URL: www.env.leeds.ac.uk/%7Ehubacek/leeds04/3.3Dalhammar&Mont_Leeds1.pdf CSD (2003). IPP, Consumption and CO2 reduction: An analysis and future implications. The Center for Sustainable Design, 2003. URL: http://unit.aist.go.jp/lca-center/lca/symposium/ws030319pfd/S2-3%20Charter.pdf

SEPA (2003). IPP in Sweden. Swedish Environmental Protection Agency. URL: www.internat.naturvardsverket.se/index.php3?main=/documents/issues/envprod/envprod.htm EEB (2003). An Environmental NGO vision paper towards a European Integrated Product Policy. European Environmental Bureau, 2003. URL: www.eeb.org/activities/product_policy/ENGO-vision-paper-towards-a-European-IPP-March2003.pdf CIRANO (2003). Integrated Product Policy and the Innovation Process. Center for Interuniversity Research Analysis on Organisations. URL: www.cirano.qc.ca/pdf/publication/2003s-65.pdf SAEFL (2001) IPP in Switzerland. Swiss Agency for the Environment, Forests and Landscape. URL: www.umwelt-schweiz.ch/imperia/md/content/stobobio/produkte/strategie/2.pdf CSD (2001). Integrated product policy and eco product development. Center for Sustainable Design. URL: www.greenleaf-publishing.com/pdfs/ssolch5.pdf EC (2001). Green paper on Integrated Product Policy. The European Commission. URL: www.cirano.qc.ca/pdf/publication/2003s-65.pdf Ernst and Young (2000). Developing the foundation for Integrated Product Policy in the EU. URL: www.ewindows.eu.org/Industry/integrated_product__policy/eu/ipp_foundation.pdf Five Winds Intl. (2002).EPR, IPP and Market Development: Lessons from Europe and the USA. URL: www.fivewinds.com/uploadedfiles_shared/CRUISE.pdf


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Sustainable ConsumptionResearch and Policies

Global sustainable development will require wide-

ranging changes in the way societies consume and

produce.

This study provide a critical overview of the

current research trends, policies and other initiatives

in developed countries relating to the area of

sustainable consumption, and their main outcomes.

Gaps and potential future research needs and policy

intervention is also discussed. These issues are important

to understand for policy makers, academia and other

relevant actors in order to facilitate the development

of a coherent and systematic sustainable consumption

strategy.

The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency SE-106 48 Stockholm, Sweden. Visitor address: Blekholmsterrassen 36. Tel: +46 8-698 10 00, Fax: +46 8-20 29 25, e-mail: [email protected] Internet: www.naturvardsverket.se Orders Tel: +46 8-505 933 40, Fax: +46 8-505 933 99, e-mail: [email protected] Address: CM-Gruppen, Box 110 93, SE-161 11 Bromma. Internet: www.naturvardsverket.se/bokhandeln

REPORT 5460

THE SWEDISH

ENVIRONMENTAL

PROTECTION AGENCY

ISBN 91-620-5460-7

ISSN 0282-7298

Documents

Sustainable Consumption ISBN 620-5460-7 - Naturv¥rdsverket