Tag: sustainable consumption and production

INTERVIEW / The Dutch multinational Unilever wants to boost its participation in EU research programmes to develop the breakthrough technologies it needs to cut the water use and CO₂ emissions of its products by half – two of its key environmental objectives.

Flagship environmental scheme fails to win support of big names amid criticism it is too complex and may disadvantage the poor.

European consumers are being flooded with confusing, misleading and corporate-friendly product information about carbon footprints, according to a new report by the European consumer rights watchdog for standardisation.

The European Parliament has called on the EU to take the lead in preparing global green actions for the UN Rio+20 Earth Summit next year.

Fresh environmental statistics ranging from household waste to energy consumption are expected to help the EU define the right mix of policies to decouple economic growth from natural resource use.

The European Commission's in-house research facility, the Joint Research Centre (JRC), has developed new product lifecycle indicators to assess the progress of the EU-27 towards achieving a greener economy.

Biodiversity and ecosystem conservation offer an array of new opportunities for business, which can either develop green products and services or trade biodiversity 'credits', argues a new European Commission report on the economics of nature.

The Belgian EU Presidency wants to clean up industrial processes in Europe by promoting a "cradle-to-cradle" approach to resource management in the manufacturing sector, EurActiv has learned.

Environment Commissioner Janez Potočnik yesterday (7 April) announced that he is preparing new measures for 2011 to reflect the true cost of natural resources in products and services and substitute virgin raw materials for waste wherever possible.

A European Commission handbook published on Friday (12 March) hopes to give businesses and politicians the right tools to assess the life cycle of all products and services in order to help boost the green economy. 

Assessing the environmental impact of products throughout their whole lifecycle - from raw material extraction to transport, consumption and final disposal - is being touted as the new mantra in environmental policymaking and sustainable business decision-making.

Today (25 September) marks 'Earth Overshoot Day', after which date humanity begins to live beyond its ecological means for 2009, according to the Global Footprint Network, an NGO. As of tomorrow, the world will be living at an ecological deficit, consuming natural resources more quickly than the planet can regenerate them over 365 days.

Britain's Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) has identified 19 "breakthrough ideas" to make UK living spaces and the economy more sustainable in the long run. 

Business and politicians are failing to seize the opportunity presented by the economic crisis to introduce systemic changes in favour of sustainable consumption and production, stakeholders argued at a roundtable discussion last week.

European retailers will today (3 March) launch a forum to promote the sector's environmental sustainability and help consumers to buy green. The move follows last week's presentation by the food industry of an intiative to decrease the carbon footprint of products. 

EU environment ministers have asked the European Commission to find ways of calculating carbon footprints and assessing environmental performance of products throughout their life cycles. But the idea has attracted fierce criticism from industry.

Energy efficiency was a central topic of discussion in Paris last week (3-5 July) among EU environment and energy ministers concerned about high oil prices. But to date, efforts to decrease the energy intensity of the EU economy remain lacklustre.

Europe's electronics and electrical engineering industries say they can make big contributions to cutting EU CO2 emissions, especially through energy efficiency improvements. But investment incentives and greater certainty on exemptions to emissions rules are needed, they say. 

An existing EU labelling scheme for energy-using products should be expanded to cover all manufactured goods, says the latest draft of an upcoming Commission action plan on sustainable consumption and production (SCP), scheduled for official publication on 14 May.

Current standards and labelling schemes for appliances and office equipment are insufficient in the light of the EU's climate change agenda and need to be expanded to a range of non energy-consuming products, according to draft Commission plans seen by EurActiv.

The Commission has repeatedly delayed publication of its sustainable consumption and production strategy, an indication of the difficulties the EU executive faces in defining its approach to a highly complicated issue that affects a wide range of consumer groups and industry sectors.

The European Commission has opened a public consultation on how to make products greener and lure shoppers towards low-carbon and more resource-efficient products.

Two industry groups have promised to reduce the environmental impacts of mobile phones and wooden garden furniture. Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas calls on other industries to follow their example.

Increased eco-efficiency, new ecotaxes and abolishing harmful subsidies are the main elements of the new generation of EU environment policy advocated by the Finnish Presidency during the informal meeting of environment ministers in Turku.