The Need for Sustainable Consumption and Production

Whenever a product or service is produced or consumed, natural resources are used (water, energy, material, etc.) and pollutants or emissions are dumped in the biosphere. However, ecosystems can only absorb a certain amount of pollutants before they break down. Therefore, there are natural limits to how much each person can consume and produce. Humankind's current ecological footprint exceeds the carrying capacity of the Earth by 1.3 times! Moreover, with an expected world population of about 9 billion in 2050, our allocation of resources will be even more constrained in the future. It is with this in mind that there is a clear and very crucial need for more sustainable patterns of consumption and production.

In 1987, the World Commission on Environment and Development (Brundtland Commission) of the United Nations defined sustainable development as "meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." Most definitions of sustainable consumption and production (SCP) are now going beyond this understanding and also include aspects of economic and social development. Sustainability in consumption and production activities means to use natural resources and the absorption capacity of the biosphere at a rate at which replenishment and restoration is possible. Given that there are limits to the capacity of the Earth's ecosystems to absorb pollution and provide natural resources, the only way to maintain economic progress in the long term without approaching these limits is to decouple economic growth from environmental degradation.

The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) promotes the concept of eco-efficiency in production and consumption cycles because there is a need to expand the scope of the SCP debate beyond products to encompass infrastructure and services as well.Conventional economic development planning has primarily focused on the supply side of the economy: emphasising the building of more power plants, dams and highways to increase the supply capacity for energy, water and roads as opposed to improving the efficiency of energy and water consumption. The promotion of eco-efficiency, however, requires policy options for demand-side management, such as expanding public transportation and railroads, licensing the right to purchase private passenger cars, and regulating water and energy prices to improve society's efficiency of consumption. This is all the more pressing in view of the limited ecological carrying capacity of the region and the prospect of continued rapid economic growth in the Asia and the Pacific.

In line with this, ESCAP pushes for public policy that provides for improved, eco-efficient infrastructure with increased access to resources in order to improve the eco-efficiency of consumption. While eco-efficiency can be implemented on a business level to improve the triple bottom line, the concept can also be adapted to the whole economy, in order to address rebound effects. As the progress obtained in production processes of individual products can easily be outstripped by the absolute increase of the social demand for goods and resources, it is important to apply the eco-efficiency concept to the economy-wide levels. In this context ESCAP is developing a framework for eco-efficiency indicators (EEI) to assess the macro-level environmental impacts on society and identify policy measures that can improve the eco-efficiency of the economy to achieve greater ecological, economic and social benefits. EEIs will also help to measure the eco-efficiency of economic growth of different countries which can be used for performance comparison to enhance regional and/or sectoral eco-efficiency.

The underlying principle of SCP is the need to reduce the ecological impact of consumer patterns, rather than reduce the well-being that consumption is intended to produce; in other words, to improve the quality of consumption, by reducing the quantity of resources used in production. Making the "business case" for a sustainable consumption ethic is a great challenge and requires courageous political and cultural leaders. Compelling arguments for sustainable consumption must appeal to both the humanity (that is, "it is the right thing to do") and the collective desire to remain globally competitive on all fronts. Farsighted leaders will recognize the innate competitive advantages presented by cultural values and traditional resource management practices, and engage them for building greener, more competitive economies.

Material vs. Spiritual Wealth

The 'traditional' resource intensive and inefficient approach to consumption and production in the Asia-Pacific region is detrimental to the environment and to economic growth in the long run. Other negative side effects of the resource and waste intensive organisation of economies include the lack of focus on happiness and well-being, the quality of life, and the spiritual dimension of society. The materialistic way of life that industrial capitalism has fostered may have created a more convenient life for many through the improvement of infrastructure, the availability of water, sanitation and electricity, etc. However, the increasingly fast pace of urban working life, wasteful use of material goods, and a lifestyle characterized by a high level of consumption may actually have a negative effect on our well-being. This is evident in the increasing rates of obesity, psychological disorders, and drug abuse in developed countries.

The high rate of production and consumption can satisfy many peoples' material needs but there is little proof whether a life saturated with goods, services and material gadgets is really more fulfilling. In fact, the GDP of economies only indicates the rate of economic growth; it is not at all concerned with the overall well-being and happiness of citizens.This is because the market is not an ethical construct and without adequate regulation the market itself will not seek to distribute goods and wealth equally. Unregulated capitalism has a way of running rampant, because while the overall access to material wealth may have increased on a global scale, the gap between the haves and have-nots is widening.

The concept of Economic value often dominates the sustainability debate. On a macro-economic level economic value, often used as a synonym for the (economic) progress of a society, is measured according to the concept of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which is based on the monetary value of the outputs from given economic activities.This system however, does not fully account for the real value of the "human and natural capital" and a broad range of its services. For some time progressive ecological economists have been working on developing alternative indexes to measure and compare benefits and costs of growth, such as the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW) and the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI). ISEW compensates for the loss of natural capital and provides an effective measure of welfare, adding some measures of untraded benefits and by correcting for income inequality.

Some countries in Asia and the Pacific have recognised the importance of using Gross National Happiness (GNH) as a means to measure the welfare of society. For the last two decades the Kingdom of Bhutan has followed the guiding principle enunciated by His Majesty King Jigme Siongye Wangchuck, who stated that "Gross National Happiness is more important than Gross National Product". The principle describes development as a continuous process towards a balance between material and non-material needs of individuals and society. The country's philosophy of development, while recognising the importance of economic growth as essential to support and nurture the spiritual and social needs of the community, is not an end in itself, but one among many means of achieving sustainable development.

The Economic and Social Cost of "Business as Usual" Growth in Asia and the Pacific

The speed of economic growth in Asia-Pacific developing countries has been surpassing global growth rates for several years. The region's contribution to global GDP has been steadily rising over the last decade but its role as a global production centre has also brought about major environmental pressures. Due to industrialization and increased trade flows, fast-growing Asian and Pacific developing countries are shouldering an increasingly greater share of regional and global environmental production-related burdens. Evolving production patterns and their impacts are both driving, and driven by, changes in consumption patterns. Despite the region's high poverty levels, current consumption pressures, as measured by the ecological footprint, exceed the available bio-productive area (or the productive natural resource endowment) per capita in at least 18 countries.

While this may be a global problem, the Asia-Pacific region in particular is growing beyond its given bio-capacity. It is estimated that the region will be unable to sustain its current economic growth rates over the long-term. The increasing pressure on the environment can be observed using the Ecological Footprint (EF) method.ESCAP's regional environmental report indicates that the environmental pressures as gauged by its ecological footprint are real and mounting. Examining the link between economic growth and environmental sustainability, the report stresses that these environmental pressures are beginning to limit the region's long-term prospects for economic growth.

The key issues for the national economies of Asia-Pacific are related to water and water availability, which will affect billions of people. Changes in the water cycle will cause severe draughts in some parts of the region, while other parts will encounter flooding. Water is already a limiting factor for not only agricultural, but also for industrial production. India's industrial water use, for example, is expected to almost quadruple by 2050, but water shortages at the height of drought have temporarily slowed industrial activity in parts of the country. In China, water shortages have been responsible for an estimated annual loss of some US$28 billion in industrial output in recent years.

The number of people affected by drought in Asia and the Pacific between 1995 and 2004 is almost equalled by the number affected by flooding in the same time period. Climate change is predicted to result in even more highly differentiated temporal and spatial variations in the distribution of water resources across the region, some places will flood while others are hit by droughts.This threat points to the need for new investments in infrastructure. Yet, urban centres, the engines of regional growth, continue to be poorly equipped to meet these challenges. Increasingly extreme weather events serve as a sinister reminder of the importance of incorporating climatic vulnerability assessments into infrastructure planning.Fortunately, these goals can be achieved synonymously with action to adapt and mitigate climate change, and are becoming increasingly compatible with overall economic objectives. One of the ways to achieve the double objective of climate action and energy security can be achieved by moving towards sustainable consumption and production.

Global Initiatives on SCP

Commitments to promote sustainable consumption and production (SCP) patterns were first elaborated in Agenda 21 during the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio de Janeiro. In 2002, the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) or Earth Summit took place in Johannesburg, South Africa where all countries agreed that achieving SCP was one of the three main priorities to realize sustainable development. As a result of the Earth Summit the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (JPOI) called for support to be given to regional and national initiatives to accelerate the shift towards SCP. The first meeting to discuss a 10 -Year Framework of Programmes (10YFP) on SCP was in Marrakech, Morocco, hence the name - The Marrakech Process.

UNEP and UNDESA have been overseeing the global drive towards sustainable consumption and production. For an overview of the SCP task forces and other initiatives to promote SCP please download the this document.

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