IEEP & IES Environmental Policy Forum

Bettina Lorz began her presentation on the Action Plan by stressing the fact that unsustainable production and consumption is a phenomenon at the roots of most environmental problems (degradation of natural ecosystems etc. She then highlighted that 70-80% of the consumption impacts are caused by food and drink products, housing (buildings, occupancy, appliances), and private transport. The Action Plan focuses on products.

The challenges that Ms Lorz identified are to reduce environmental stress in a growing economy, to seize economic opportunities (“do more with less”), and to move towards an energy and resource efficient economy. The response provided by the Action Plan as exposed by Ms Lorz is to stimulate demand for better products and production technologies, to continuously improve environmental products performance over life-cycle, en to empower better choices for retailers and consumers. Ms Lorz then elaborated on the Action Plan core elements (better products, smarter consumption, leaner production, and action at global level) and clearly distinguished the mandatory processes from the voluntary actions (and ensuing monitoring processes). Ms Lorz ended her presentation by providing the audience with a roadmap for future action (see the presentation available below, slide n°16).  

Sebastian Oberthür then gave the floor to Katja Biedenkopf who, in response to Ms Lorz’ presentation, presented some preliminary findings of a research project on sustainable consumption policy that the IES is currently conducting together with IOEW from Germany and SIFO from Norway. The ASCEE project focuses on innovative approaches to sustainable policy (see link below). In January 2009 the final report including policy recommendation will be launched. A main preliminary recommendation is to understand sustainable consumption as a policy field in its own right. Ms Biedenkopf stressed that SCP has two sides: one is the efficiency improvements of products and the other one is changes in consumption patterns and the reduction of consumption levels. With regard to the Action Plan, Ms Biedenkopf regretted that the document focuses too much on products and the supply side. Sustainable consumption does not only include more efficient consumption but also changes in behaviours and life-styles. Sustainable consumption policy should be about enabling consumers to become more sustainable and about changing consumption patterns. When only addressing the product side, there is a risk of rebound effects. Consumers could purchase an efficient appliance but use it in addition to the old one, or the appliance could be used more intensively, or consumers could buy a larger number of appliances. In every of these cases the overall efficiency gain could be negligible or even lead to a higher use of resource. The Action Plan contains some consumer information instruments though. Undoubtedly, provision of information is very important - but not enough. Consumption is shaped by habits, routines and attitudes that require more than informational policy instruments in order to be changed.

The floor was then opened for questions. Among others, the following questions and comments were made: an issue raised by Marc Pallemaerts and that came across several times was whether or not the Commission had gathered sufficient data (for example to set targets, or on the ecological footprint of the activities, sectors considered, etc). It was also emphasised that the life-cycle approach has become the most used one and is endorsed in the Action Plan. As for the Council reaction to this Action Plan, it was reported that the Council had provided the Commission with political support (even though such a support was not equally strong regarding all the Action Plan aspects).