UNITED
NATIONS
EP
Governing Council
of the United Nations
Environment Programme
Distr.
GENERAL
UNEP/GC.22/8/Add.2
31 December 2002
ORIGINAL: ENGLISH
Twenty-second session of the Governing Council/
Global Ministerial Environment Forum
Nairobi, 3-7 February 2003
Item 6 of the provisional agenda
Outcome of the World Summit on Sustainable Development
BACKGROUND PAPER FOR THE MINISTERIAL LEVEL CONSULTATIONS
Discussion paper presented by the Executive Director
Addendum
Promoting sustainable consumption and production patterns
The present document is a background paper intended to stimulate discussion and identify questions
of concern to Governments to be addressed by ministers and heads of delegation during their
ministerial-level consultations at the twenty-second session of the Governing Council/Global Ministerial
Environment Forum of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

K0263678
UNEP/GC.22/1.
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For reasons of economy, this document is printed in a limited number. Delegates are kindly requested to bring their copies to
meetings and not to request additional copies. This document is printed on 100 per cent recycled paper.
UNEP/GC.22/8/Add.2
Global challenges call for integrated responses…
1.
Global environment trends continue to pose grave challenges and threats, as underscored by figures
recently reported in UNEP’s third Global Environment Outlook report. For instance, concentrations of the
greenhouse gas carbon dioxide continue to climb; just under a third of the world’s fish stocks are now
ranked as depleted, over-exploited or recovering; and the world’s forest cover has declined by 2.4 per cent
since 1990. On the social front, some important indicators have improved in recent years, such as school
enrolment and literacy rates, but other threats worsened substantially, such as the human immunodeficiency
virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) epidemic. Overall, poverty rates remain high, with
2.8 billion people—nearly half of humanity—living on less than $2 per day. Both the millennium
development goals1 adopted by nearly 200 heads of State in 2000 and the World Summit on Sustainable
Development Plan of Implementation2 call for decisive action to improve these critical social and
environmental trends.
2.
Doing so will require addressing underlying unsustainable patterns of consumption and production, as
recognized in the World Summit Plan of Implementation. The third chapter of the Plan (Changing
unsustainable patterns of consumption and production) notes that "Fundamental changes in the way societies
produce and consume are indispensable for achieving global sustainable development," and calls for the
development of a 10-year framework of programmes in support of regional and national initiatives to
accelerate the shift towards sustainable consumption and production patterns that will "promote social and
economic development within the carrying capacity of ecosystems.” UNEP played an active role in the
preparatory process for the World Summit on this issue, and will now concentrate on launching the
programmes and initiatives called for in the Plan of Implementation.
Current consumption and production trends threaten people and planet…
3.
The last half-century has been a time of unprecedented expansion in the global economy. The gross
world product has expanded nearly seven-fold since 1950, reaching $46 trillion in 2001, while the number of
people on the planet has more than doubled, rising to 6.2 billion in 2001. These underlying trends have led to
rapid increases in the production and consumption of energy, materials and a broad range of consumer
goods. For example, global oil consumption and paper production have both more than tripled since the
early 1960s, while aluminium production has climbed more than five-fold. Without a dramatic change in
existing patters, and their environmental and social consequences, consumption trends are expected to
accelerate rapidly in coming decades, adding to the burdens on the environment (see box below).
4.
These trends pose great challenges and opportunities for all countries. In the North, consumption
patterns are clearly unsustainable, but tremendous intellectual and technological resources are available to
change consumption and production patterns without reducing quality of life. In many parts of the South,
there needs to be rapid and widespread increases in access to crucial goods and services in order to lift
people out of poverty and improve human welfare.
5.
But these increases can and indeed must occur in a way that does not irrevocably damage the
ecological health of the planet. The China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and
Development, for one, recently noted that China’s remarkably low per capita consumption pattern was an
opportunity to avoid the mistakes of many other countries that have developed very high levels of material
and energy consumption, and pointed out that moving towards more sustainable consumption patterns could
lead to more competitive domestic enterprises and greater access to international markets. Similar
opportunities await other countries that move towards more environmentally and socially sustainable
patterns of consumption and production.
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Facing the facts

The money spent on overall household consumption worldwide increased 68 per cent between 1980
and 1998.

80 per cent of the total of $19.3 trillion in household consumption in 1998 took place in high-income
countries, while low-income countries accounted for only 4 per cent of all private consumption.

200 million vehicles will be added to the global car fleet if car ownership in China, India, and
Indonesia reaches the current world average of 90 vehicles per 1,000 people, roughly double the number of
cars in the United States of America today.

World energy production rose 42 per cent between 1980 and 2000, and is projected under status quo
conditions to grow 150-230 per cent by 2050.

70 per cent of all freshwater withdrawal is for use in agriculture, where inefficiency abounds; over
half of the water drawn for agriculture is lost to leakage and evaporation.

A single semi-conductor plant uses between 500 and 1,000 different chemicals, and a computer
monitor can contain 1.8 to 3.6 kilograms of lead, a heavy metal that damages the nervous system and
poisons blood cell development.

Television ownership increased five-fold in the East Asia and Pacific region between 1985 and 1997.

The number of Internet host computers has exploded from 213 in 1991 to 147 million in 2001.

The average citizen of the industrial world consumes 9 times as much paper as the average citizen of
the developing world, although consumption is rising fast in many developing countries.

Municipal solid-waste generation in Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD) countries grew from 320 kilograms per capita annually in 1980 to more than 420 kilograms per
capita in 1995.

Packaging accounts for between 25 and 50 per cent of urban wastes in developing countries.
6.
The challenge is to increase efficiency in energy and water uses, reduce waste, stimulate the life-cycle
economy and decrease externalization of cost, put into practice the polluter-pays principle, and inform and
educate the consumers of today and tomorrow.
Progress has been made…
7.
UNEP has been a leader in sustainable consumption and production efforts for many years. When its
cleaner production programme was launched in 1989, the challenge at the time was to build awareness of the
concept of cleaner production, demonstrate its benefits, and strengthen institutional capacities to deliver it.
Today, cleaner production is a flagship project not only for UNEP, but for many other businesses and
organizations as well. Efforts have also been made to more fully integrate social issues such as labour
conditions into cleaner production activities, in close cooperation with the International Labour Organization
(ILO).
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8.
Significant results have been achieved. For example, over 150 cleaner production centres have been
created, 23 of them national centres established jointly with the United Nations Industrial Development
Organization (UNIDO), and more than 1,000 demonstration projects have been launched. These and other
similar initiatives are beginning to yield on-the-ground results. In Denmark, for example, five plants on an
industrial estate have cooperated with one another, with local authorities and with local farms to utilize each
other's wastes, leading to savings in energy and water worth $12-15 million a year. And in Brazil, liquid
effluent per ton of production from one particular factory is now less than 5 per cent of what it was in
1990—a 20-fold improvement.
9.
UNEP launched its programme on sustainable consumption in 1999, addressing the demand side of
the economy and responding to increasing awareness by consumers worldwide about “the world behind the
product.” It also initiated work with the advertising and retail sectors, and with youth and consumer groups,
and it has continued to work with a broad range of other important actors, including the financial sector. In
2002, UNEP launched a new life-cycle initiative that is bringing together industry leaders, academics and
policy makers to encourage the development and dissemination of practical tools for evaluating
opportunities, risks and trade-offs associated with products over their entire lives.
10. Governments, industries, consumers and other actors have experimented with many new strategies
and initiatives over the last few decades (see box below). These include preventive efforts such as cleaner
production assessment, eco-efficiency, green productivity, reuse and recycling, and eco-design; as well as
awareness-raising campaigns and product testing by consumer groups and end-of-pipeline control strategies,
such as waste treatment and disposal and emissions permits.
11. New tools have been introduced, including life-cycle approaches, environmental management
systems, eco-design, green supply chains, sustainable procurement and environmental reporting. The field of
industrial ecology has begun to take hold, in which industrial production is designed as a closed loop, where
the waste from one activity is used as input into another. Several countries have introduced requirements for
extended producer responsibility, in which producers are required to take back packaging and sometimes
also entire products such as automobiles and electronic equipment, creating a strong incentive to minimize
waste generation. Some countries have also begun to introduce environmentally sensitive fiscal policies,
including eco-taxation and subsidy reform.
Signs of hope

More than 80 per cent of Governments surveyed found the United Nations Guidelines for
Consumer Protection useful, and the same number have initiated information campaigns related to
sustainable consumption.

Mauritius has launched awareness-raising campaigns on solar energy, paper reuse and prudent use
of plastics.

As at late 2001, the Forest Stewardship Council had certified over 25 million hectares of
commercial forest in 54 countries as meeting their standards for sustainable forestry, more than double the
area in 1998.

The global retail market for organic produce climbed from $10 billion in 1997 to $17.5 billion in
2000, and an estimated 17 million hectares of agricultural land are now managed organically worldwide.

At least 29 countries, 20 in Europe and 8 in Asia, have instituted “take-back” laws requiring
companies to recycle or reuse packaging discarded by consumers.

Carbon dioxide emissions in China fell by 6-14 per cent between 1996 and 1999 owing to improved
energy efficiency and reduced coal use, while its economy grew by 22-27 per cent.
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
In the United States, the Energy Star label for energy efficient products has helped save enough
energy to power 10 million homes, and has reduced air pollution by an amount equivalent to taking 10
million cars off the roads.

World wind energy generating capacity grew more than 37 per cent in 2001, and production of
photovoltaic solar cells climbed 36 per cent.

Thai consumers have used information from an appliance-labelling programme to increase the
market share of energy efficient, single-door refrigerators from 12 per cent in 1996 to 96 per cent in 1998.
12. Another development of recent years has been the rise of consumer power as a powerful force for
change, with eco-labelling and certification initiatives proliferating at a rapid rate. These initiatives aim to
use consumer pressure to encourage producers to switch to more sustainable methods and practices. Many
Governments have catalysed the development of labelling programmes at the national and regional level in
recent years, including Germany, India, Singapore, and the Nordic countries. A wide range of international
labelling initiatives also exist, including those of the Forest Stewardship Council, the Marine Stewardship
Council, and the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements. All told, there are now
hundreds of different labelling systems covering a broad range of products, including laundry detergents,
paints and varnishes, sanitary items, wood, textiles, energy production and tourism. Although the rapid
growth in eco-labelling programmes is in many ways a promising sign, the impact of these initiatives on
environmental quality and international trade has yet to be fully assessed.
But new challenges are emerging…
13. Despite these successes, many large challenges remain. While cleaner production techniques and
greener products are increasingly widespread, they are far from being universally implemented and adopted.
Barriers to broader dissemination include ingrained resistance to change, difficulties in convincing financiers
that cleaner production programmes generate rapid financial returns, weak capacities among some
environmental managers to identify and implement cleaner production alternatives, and the danger that
obsolete, second-hand technologies and products will be exported to the developing world. On the consumer
side, while eco-labels hold great promise for providing purchasers with the information they need to shift
their behaviour, rules on misleading and ambiguous claims are needed to ensure that labelling initiatives
provide clear, transparent and reliable information on the environmental impacts of products and services.
There is a need for non-legally binding guidelines for eco-labelling. Relationship trade should be considered
in addressing these issues.
14. It is also becoming more and more clear that environmental gains in production are increasingly being
offset by rising resource consumption in response to a combination of population growth and economic
expansion to alleviate poverty, improve living standards and satisfy growing consumer demand for goods
and services. For example, the energy used to produce a ton of metallurgical alumina fell by 10 per cent
globally between 1991 to 2000, but total production increased by over 40 per cent over the same period,
meaning that the total energy used for producing alumina has continued to increase. Similar trends prevail in
other sectors.
15. In addition, newly emerging or rapidly developing economic sectors pose new environmental threats
that are not yet being effectively controlled, such as the growing problem of electronic wastes. Increasing
quality of life, globalization and higher purchasing power have led to rapid increases in resource-intensive
economic activities such as tourism and aviation, and technological innovations have brought about the
development of new business sectors, such as computer manufacturing and mobile telephone production.
The relationship between sports and the environment is another example of such issues to be addressed.
Many of these new developments contribute greatly to communication and economic development, but they
have also brought with them substantial environmental challenges.
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16. A fundamental underlying problem is the continuing failure to integrate environmental concerns
sufficiently into economic and social decision-making, and vice versa. Governments continue to pursue
economic and social development with a short-term perspective that fails to give due consideration to
environmental problems. For example, a Government may decide to develop a tourist destination to attract
foreign direct investment and increase employment, which may have serious long-term impacts on the
ecosystem and the prevailing social structure. The same can be said for some environmental conservation
programmes that try to stop logging in forests without implementing alternatives for local economic
development.
17. Similar challenges face other sectors of society. Businesses, for instance, do not always adequately
factor in the environmental and social impacts of their production decisions. And consumers, particularly
those in wealthy societies, do not always know or consider the environmental and social impacts of their
consumption choices.
18. One reason that efforts to date to redirect patterns of consumption and production in a more
environmentally sustainable direction have been only partially successful is that they have often failed to
address issues and challenges in a holistic manner. This compartmentalization has sometimes led to
counterproductive results, such as environmental liabilities being shifted from one segment of the product
chain to another, rather than being truly solved or consumers being asked to purchase environmentally
friendly products before alternatives are widely available at competitive prices.
Calling for new and innovative strategies and approaches…
19. Achieving lasting success in redirecting consumption and production patterns in support of
sustainability will require new and innovative approaches. An important step that UNEP has taken in recent
years is to address cleaner production techniques and more sustainable consumption patterns in an integrated
way. At first glance, cleaner production and sustainable consumption activities may appear to have little in
common, except their shared goal of promoting sustainable development. However, a closer look reveals
that the approaches are closely interrelated. The overall goal of cleaner production techniques is to
manufacture products or provide services with minimum environmental impact. Sustainable consumption
activities, on the other hand, aim to make possible the most efficient use of a product or service, thus
combining the maximum satisfaction of consumer need with the least environmental impact. The two
approaches thus converge on the same target, the product, but from opposite directions.
20. UNEP is helping to build a framework for action in which producers and consumers can move
together along the road to sustainable development, as called for in the World Summit on Sustainable
Development Plan of Implementation. Embracing this new approach will require transcending traditional
sectoral lines and engaging a broad range of stakeholders in the search for solutions. UNEP thus plans to
build broad-based alliances for the shift to more sustainable patterns of production and consumption,
including by helping to build capacity among key decision makers in developing countries. UNEP also
intends to continue to work to improve production processes; to accelerate innovations in product design; to
promote science-based, reliable tools for assessing the environmental impacts of products throughout their
life-cycles; and to encourage environmentally and socially sensitive purchasing decisions by individuals,
industries and public institutions. To accomplish these goals, UNEP plans to shift its focus away from
specific products and industrial sectors towards a more integrated approach that focuses on meeting human
needs for critical services and fulfilling key functions, such as providing nutrition, shelter, clothes, health,
knowledge, mobility, leisure and security.
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21. The World Summit Plan of Implementation details a number of specific areas where action is needed
under the broader rubric of 10-year initiatives at the regional and national level to change unsustainable
patterns of consumption and production. These specific initiatives include life-cycle analysis,
awareness-raising programmes, increased investments in cleaner production and eco-efficiency, and
providing training programmes to small and medium-sized enterprises (see box below). Chapter III of the
Plan of Implementation (Changing unsustainable patterns of consumption and production) also discusses
ways to enhance corporate environmental and social responsibility, to encourage relevant authorities to
integrate sustainable development goals into their decision-making, to promote energy and transport for
sustainable development, and to encourage sound management of chemicals throughout their life cycle.
UNEP is strengthening its efforts to support these initiatives at the regional and national levels in
cooperation with other agencies and actors.
Key elements of the World Summit on Sustainable Development’s Plan of Implementation on
changing unsustainable patterns of consumption and production

A 10-year framework of programmes in support of regional and national initiatives to accelerate the
shift towards sustainable consumption and production to promote social and economic development within
the carrying capacity of ecosystems.

Adopt monitoring and assessment mechanisms, including, where appropriate, life-cycle analysis
and national indicators for measuring progress.

Apply polluter-pays principle.

Improve the products and services provided, while reducing environmental and health impacts
using, where appropriate, science-based approaches, such as life-cycle analysis.

Develop awareness-raising programmes, particularly among youth and the relevant segments in all
countries, through education, public and consumer information, advertising and other media, taking into
account local, national and regional cultural values.

Develop and adopt on a voluntary basis effective, transparent, verifiable, non-misleading and
non-discriminatory consumer information tools.

Provide financial support for capacity-building, technology transfer and exchange of technology.

Increase investment in cleaner production and eco-efficiency, through incentives, support schemes
and policies directed at establishing appropriate regulatory, financial and legal frameworks.

Establish and support cleaner production programmes and centres.

Provide incentives for investment in cleaner production and eco-efficiency.

Collect and disseminate information on cleaner production and eco-efficiency, and promote
the exchange of best practices and know-how on environmentally sound technologies.

Provide training programmes to small and medium-sized enterprises on the use of information and
communication technologies.

Integrate the issue of production and consumption patterns into sustainable development policies,
including into poverty reduction strategies.
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
Enhance corporate environmental and social responsibility and accountability through voluntary
initiatives, environmental management systems, codes of conduct, certification and public reporting.

Encourage relevant authorities at all levels to take sustainable development considerations into
account in decision-making, including on national and local development planning, business development
and public procurement.

Promote internalization of environmental costs, and the use of economic instruments.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
22.
The Governing council may wish to consider the following questions:
(a)
What policies have been most effective to date in encouraging more sustainable patterns of
consumption and production?
(b) How can the polluter-pays principle and other approaches be better utilized to ensure that prices
of products reflect the full environmental costs of their production and use?
(c)
How can we stimulate the development of new technologies that are far more efficient in their
use of energy, water and materials and that minimize the creation of waste?
(d) How can we ensure that the shift to more sustainable patterns of consumption and production
also contributes to poverty eradication and social progress?
(e)
What should UNEP's role be in the development of the 10-year framework of programmes on
sustainable consumption and production? For example, how can UNEP contribute to awareness raising
activities, to the preparation of guidelines on eco-labelling and other consumer information tools, and to the
establishment of regional programmes aimed at identifying priorities and promoting action?
DRAFT RECOMMENDATIONS ON PROMOTING SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION
AND PRODUCTION PATTERNS
23.
The Governing council may wish to consider the following recommendations:
(a)
The Executive Director should strengthen UNEP’s sustainable consumption and production
activities as part of the overall framework of programmes on sustainable consumption and production
patterns in support of regional and national initiatives;
(b) The Executive Director should strengthen the existing Life-Cycle Initiative to identify
life-cycle based policies and tools, including by preparing guidelines on establishing clear and reliable
consumer information tools, thereby avoiding non-tariff trade barriers and encouraging the transfer of
environmentally sound technologies;
(c)
The Executive Director, in pursuing these recommendations, should take fully into account the
regional characteristics, and in particular the situation in developing countries and countries with economies
in transition, so that all countries can benefit from the process, by setting up or contributing to regional
programmes, building upon existing networks and activities;
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(d) The work should involve experts of Governments and local authorities, other United Nations
organizations, multilateral environmental agreement secretariats, business and industry, civil society partners
and in particular consumer organizations, workers and trade unions and environmental non-governmental
organizations, to identify actions currently undertaken or planned and identify gaps to be addressed in the
work programme;
(e)
The Executive Director should regularly report to the Commission on Sustainable Development
on the progress of the work done to implement the decisions related to changing unsustainable patterns of
consumption and production taken at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg;
(f)
The Executive Director should report to the next session of the Governing Council/Global
Ministerial Environment Forum, in 2004, on progress made in implementing the present recommendations.
Key sources
Consumers International and UNEP, Tracking progress: Implementing sustainable consumption policies – A
global review of implementation of the United Nations Guidelines for Consumer Protection, May 2002
United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report, 1998
UNEP, “A function-based approach to sustainable consumption and production,” discussion paper,
December 2002
UNEP, Industry as a Partner for Sustainable Development – 10 years after Rio: the UNEP assessment, 2002
UNEP, Global Status 2002: Sustainable consumption and cleaner production
World Resources Institute, UNEP and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development,
Tomorrow’s markets: Global trends and their implications for business, 2002
Worldwatch Institute, Vital signs 2002, in cooperation with UNEP, and State of the World 2002
World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), in collaboration with UNEP-World Conservation Monitoring Centre
(WCMC), and Redefining Progress, Living planet report, 2000 and 2002
1
See General Assembly resolution 55/2.
2
Report of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, Johannesburg, South Africa, 26 August – 4 September
2002 (United Nations publication Sales No. E.03.II.A.1, chap. I, resolution 2, annex.
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