Sustainable Consumption & Transport

There is wide global recognition that unsustainable patterns of consumption have serious social and environmental impacts. Sustainable consumption and production first gained international prominence at the Rio Earth Summit (United Nations Conference on Environment and Development) in 1992 where the international community warned that excessive demands were being made on the planet’s finite stock of resources and on its capacity to absorb the waste products of human activities, and called for action to promote patterns of consumption and production that reduce environmental stress and meet the basic needs of humanity. The Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002 recognised that ‘fundamental changes in the way societies produce and consume are indispensable for achieving global sustainable development’ and that ‘Governments, relevant international organizations, the private sector and all major groups should play an active role in changing unsustainable consumption and production patterns’.

Following the Johannesburg Summit, UNEP, together with UN-DESA, received a mandate from the Commission on Sustainable Development to develop and implement a 10-year framework of programmes for the promotion of sustainable consumption and production patterns.

ROE has been working on sustainable consumption issues since 2001 promoting a multi-stakeholder approach and is expanding the scope of this work to provide an effective response at the regional level. The aims of the project ‘Sustainable Consumption Opportunities for Europe’ are to raise awareness of sustainable consumption issues and to support the development of multi-stakeholder partnerships in the pan-European region, with particular emphasis on transition countries. The focus is on multi-stakeholder dialogue and on promoting a positive understanding of sustainable consumption related to quality of life for all.

The advantage of the multi-stakeholder approach is that it integrates all the different perspectives in the analysis of sustainable consumption. This complex issue is tackled in national, sub-regional and regional multi-stakeholder workshops involving governments, the business sector, scientists, national and international NGOs, and civil society. The workshops serve to initiate multi-stakeholder dialogue, facilitate fact-finding about consumption status and sustainability at the various levels, disseminate existing examples of good practice and decide priorities for action.

ROE, in collaboration with project partners will also deliver substantive work towards the assessment of sustainable consumption status in Europe through the development of initial sets of indicators. A conceptual framework report will be the basis for fact-finding studies in various countries. This will provide valuable information for the planning of strategic actions for the promotion of sustainable consumption.

Further information

	Sustainable Consumption Opportunities for Europe Project Website
	EST goes EAST Clearing House Promoting Environmentally Sustainable Transport in Central and Eastern Europe
	UNEP/DTIE Production and Consumption Branch

Documentation:

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