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SUSTAINABLE PRODUCTION & CONSUMPTION UPDATENovember 2000 1. NGO Strategy Targets World Summit in 2002 1. NGO STRATEGY TARGETS WORLD SUMMIT IN 2002The SPAC Watch initiative proposes an NGO assessment of progress toward sustainable production and consumption. The report—on the 10th Anniversary of the Earth Summit—is to be presented to the United Nations as a contribution from civil society groups around the world to next year’s World Summit on Sustainable Development. The World Summit will be held in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2002. NGOs forging alliancesNGOs have regularly met each year at the United Nations working together to promote sustainable production and consumption policies and priorities. Through the NGO Caucus on Sustainable Production and Consumption (SPAC), environmentalists, consumer advocates, and other public interest groups have met with representatives of governments, trade unions, international agencies, and others forging alliances pushing for stronger positions on sustainable production and consumption. Among the various campaigns waged by the SPAC Caucus was the revision of the UN Guidelines on Consumer Protection to address the issue of sustainable consumption. A matter of grave concernIn 2002, the U.N. General Assembly will bring together world leaders to review progress made during the past ten years implementing the Agenda 21 plan agreed to at the 1992 Earth Summit. In Chapter 4 of Agenda 21, govern-ment delegates agreed that “the major cause of the continued deterioration of the global environment is the unsustainable pattern of consumption and production, particularly in industrialized countries . . . a matter of grave concern.” Furthermore, Principle 8 of the Rio Declaration states that “to achieve sustainable development and a higher quality of life for all people, States should reduce and eliminate unsustainable patterns of production and consumption.” It should come as no surprise that five years later, in the Programme for the Further Implementation of Agenda 21, the U.N. General Assembly would declare production and consumption and poverty as the two “overriding” issues cutting across all the specific environmental and economic issues discussed by the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD). Yet many NGOs continue to question the political will and action behind such language, especially when the overriding issues dominating most policymaking is not sustainable production and consumption or poverty eradication but trade liberalization and military security. Hollow rhetoric and empty promises?Many NGOs have thus focused their attention on another agreement in the Programme, that “the review of progress made in achieving sustainable consumption patterns should be given high priority.” Who exactly would do this review? Considering what has obviously been a severe lack of progress in taking the goal of sustainable production and consumption seriously, what kind of conclusions can be expected from such a review aside from severe criticism and the charge of hollow rhetoric and empty promises? Nonetheless, several governmental bodies and international agencies, along with committed NGOs, scholars, and educators, relentlessly worked together to follow-up on these agreements, contributing to the development of an International Work Programme on Sustainable Production and Consumption. Norway, Brazil and other governments, as well as the CSD, OECD, UNEP and others sponsored numerous international conferences and expert group meetings to examine the problems and possible solutions to this issue. (See www.un.org/esa/susdev/conprod.htm ). Various programs and projects have emerged from these meetings, not to mention a slowly growing movement to raise awareness and action on this topic. Yet in the eyes of many sustainability advocates, such constructive actions remain dwarfed by the scale of unsustainable production and consumption patterns shaping economic and social life throughout the world. If poverty is viewed as one type of unsustainable consumption, of under-consumption, the question turns to the economic and political forces driving unsustainable production and consumption patterns. Confronting the driving forcesFar too often, government and business leaders as well as the mass media shy away from adequately addressing or even assessing these economic and political forces driving unsustainable production and consumption. Mostly, when “unsustainable consumption” is mentioned, the typical image is of over-consuming individuals, nervously being asked to voluntarily curb their consumerist habits. Marketing and advertising and the promotion of northern consumerism continue to expand, particularly in developing countries, typically encouraging unsustainable consumption values and lifestyles. Yet, while the advertising and marketing industry may be acknowledged as a factor in promoting unsustainable consumption, government, business, and especially the mass media are loathe to effectively confront this source of the problem. Current wasteful consumption patterns celebrated in the industrial countries cannot be sustained in the developing countries. Even if these countries achieve the economic growth needed to raise their populations out of poverty, the resources and sinks from two additional planets would be needed to service this growth. Qualitatively different economic processes and values are needed, yet this aim receives low political priority next to the aim of simply increasing trade and investment. Free market ideology is rarely admitted to be a driving force. Also rarely admitted is the powerful influence of corporate lobbyists as a factor promoting unsustainable production and consumption patterns. SPAC WatchPublic officials courageous enough to highlight these corporate impacts on production and consumption are often accused of being anti-business. NGOs, for the most part, do not have these constraints. Civil society can thus intervene as watch dog and public advocate. In 1995, the Oslo Ministerial Roundtable on sustainable consumption affirmed this need, recommending that civil society groups should “monitor and evaluate progress of local, national and international authorities, institutions and industry.” In 1999, at the international NGO conference “From Consumer Society to Sustainable Society” held in Soesterberg, The Netherlands, NGOs launched the SPAC Watch proposal to monitor progress by countries towards sustainable production and consumption. Targeting the U.N. General Assembly’s ten-year review of progress on Agenda 21 in 2002, the proposal aims to present an NGO perspective on national and international efforts to achieve sustainable production and consumption patterns. One important dimension of the SPAC Watch initiative is that it will not shy away from the political taboo of addressing the driving forces. Rather than identifying isolated “best practices” the object of SPAC Watch is to assess what actual progress has taken place in a number of specific areas of production and consumption. Toward national policy frameworksThe overall focus of the SPAC Watch initiative is on the developing and implementing national policy frameworks by different countries, promoting and integrating sustainable production and consumption values and priorities into national economic and social policy. This process should include the adoption and use of the newly revised UN Consumer Guidelines. These national frameworks should actively promote sustainable production and consumption norms and practices within government, business and civil society. In general, NGOs in the SPAC Caucus are trying to create just and sustainable economies, not simply green lifestyles. This goal re-defines sustainable production and consumption as going beyond efficiency to that of sufficiency, promoting development of sustainable livelihoods for all. Monitoring and evaluating progressThe project, involving collaboration among NGOs in different countries and regions around the world, will gather information and analyses especially from active and knowledgeable NGOs and networks already engaged in monitoring and evaluating government and industry policies and practices related to different aspects of production and consumption. The project will produce a series of working papers, roundtables and a dedicated website focusing on specific policies and actions throughout the cycle of consumption, investment, production and distribution. In particular, the project will look for progress in: 1) subsidy reform 2) corporate accountability (.e.g. Extended Producer Responsibility, evaluation of voluntary initiatives) 3) consumer access to meaningful information 4) adoption and use of the UN Consumer Guidelines The project will look for actions taken in these four areas, especially as they apply to energy, food, forests, information and other topics discussed by the Commission on Sustainable Development. In addition to producing the working papers, roundtables and website, the project will produce and submit a report to the UN General Assembly in 2002, providing a civil society perspective on efforts to achieve sustainability production and consumption, as well as analysis of some of the driving forces, and recommended actions for overcoming those obstacles. The successful production and reception of this report, however, will require active and timely input and participation from civil society organizations engaged and knowledgeable of these issues. We hope SPAC Watch can become a useful tool for sustainability and social justice advocates. 2. U.N. CONSUMER GUIDELINES: MORE EMPTY TALK OR WILL GOVERNMENTS ADOPT AND USE THEM?For several years now, NGOs and networks such as Consumers International, ANPED and others have been lobbying governments and the United Nations to revise the U.N. Guidelines on Consumer Protection, incorporating new thinking and policy recommendations to promote sustainable consumption and production. At the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD), this has been one of the lobbying priorities for the NGO SPAC Caucus. At the 1999 International Conference on Sustainable Production and Consumption in Soesterberg, The Netherlands, the Guidelines were highlighted as one of the strategic vehicles to help push governments towards stronger sustainable production and consumption policies and programs. One recommended objective was to persuade governments to follow through on their commitment to national consultations on the Consumer Guidelines. Another was for national governments to report to the CSD and stakeholders during the following three years on how they have used the Guidelines in policymaking and decisions. These two points were delivered in a statement presented in 1999 to the CSD by Stefan Leranas for Consumers International and the SPAC Caucus. For more information on UN activities regarding the Consumer Guidelines, contact Ralph Chipman at the CSD, tel: (212) 963 5504, email: chipman@un.org 3. WHAT IS is C-I-P-D?Monitoring and evaluating efforts to promote sustainable production and consumption can get complicated. How to find our way through this maze? In figuring out how to navigate our way through the many different dimensions of production and consumption issues, SPAC Watch participants agreed to use a simple schema looking at production and consumption as part of a cycle, which includes the elements of investment and distribution. Thus, seen as a cycle moving from consumption (C) to investment (I) to production (P) and distribution (D) back to consumption, each of the various stages can be analyzed both in terms of their impact on sustainability (S) and the quality of life as well as the policies and changes needed to orient them towards these priorities. Whether addressing the topic of energy, fresh water, food, information, we first begin with consumption, asking what do people need and want to maintain or improve their quality of life and are those needs being met in a sustainable way? Next, we look at the investment of resources needed and directed to meet those needs. Then we examine the production of products and services needed to meet those needs are current production patterns contributing to or undermining sustainability and the quality of life? Finally, we examine the distribution of those products and services not just transportation and packaging but also marketing, advertising and sales/trade. Finally, we return to the question of in what ways the different elements of this cycle contribute or undermine the goal of achieving sustainable consumption. 4. AREAS TO ASSESSEach of the following items represent policy areas in which governments have promised to take action, but which NGOs need to assess what actual progress has been made. (1) Subsidy reformGovernments spend over $650 billion each year subsidizing destructive projects. The project will examine what efforts are being made to eliminate those subsidies and channel public investments towards more sustainable programs. (2) Corporate accountabilityTo have sustainable production, citizens need laws, regulations and enforcement mechanisms to ensure responsible production practices and products. Corporations have promoted various voluntary initiatives and agreements (VIAs) claiming to more effectively address environmental and social problems. Understandably, many civil society groups are skeptical that these approaches represent strategies to avoid regulations. SPAC Watch will thus work with NGOs and efforts such as the NGO Taskforce on Business & Industry (ToBI) to examine VIAs and codes of conduct and what efforts government and industry are making to improve or avoid corporate accountability. The project will also examine progress made towards implementing the policy of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), which assumes responsibility of the producer for a product throughout its life-cycle, especially at the end of that life-cycle. (3) Access to informationAdequate education and access to meaningful information for everyone especially in poor countries, is essential to the need for “informed consumers” in order to make choices about goods and services—especially considering the globalization of mass consumer culture values through advertising and marketing. In assessing progress toward this goal, the project will look at efforts to provide labeling, establishing the right-to-know, corporate reporting requirements, worker audits, and education about sustainable consumption and production patterns. In addition, the project will look at the problem of dis-information, particularly in marketing and advertising. (4) Implementation of Consumer guidelinesMany of these areas are covered in the UN Consumer Guidelines. The project will look at what efforts have been made to use these Guidelines. For more information about the SPAC Caucus or SPAC Watch contact: NORTH AMERICA:Jeffrey Barber, ISF Carolyn Nunley, Consumers Union EUROPE:Pieter Van Der Gaag, ANPED ASIA:Rajat Chaudhri, CUTS
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