What is Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP)?

From climate change to economic crises, the world is not short of challenges. To help alleviate some of the challenges we face, the global community needs to adopt more sustainable consumption and production patterns. This will help reduce the use of natural resources and carbon dioxide emissions as we move closer towards low carbon lifestyles and green economies.

SCP aims to do “more and better with less,” by reducing resource use, degradation and pollution along the life cycle of goods and services, while increasing the quality of life for all.

SCP is about promoting resource and energy efficiency and sustainable infrastructure while offering opportunities such as creating new markets and generating green and decent jobs, such as markets for organic food, fair trade, sustainable housing, renewable energy, sustainable transport and tourism. SCP is especially beneficial for developing countries as it provides an opportunity for them to “leapfrog” to more resource-efficient, environmentally sound and competitive technologies, allowing them to bypass inefficient and polluting phases of development.

One of SCP’s main goals is to ‘decouple’ economic growth and environmental degradation by increasing the efficiency of resource use in the production, distribution and use of products. SCP aims to keep the energy, material and pollution intensity of all production and consumption functions within the carrying capacities of natural ecosystems.

SCP uses a “life-cycle perspective” as a means of increasing the sustainable management of resources and achieving resource efficiency in all stages of the value chain. SCP paves the way to accelerating the transition to an eco-efficient economy, while turning environmental and social challenges into business and employment opportunities.

Background

When the world convened in 1992 at the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, sustainable consumption and production (SCP) was recognized as an overarching theme to link environmental and development challenges. Two years later, in 1994, at the Oslo Symposium on Sustainable Consumption, the working definition of SCP was agreed upon.

Sustainable consumption and production is about providing goods and services to meet basic needs of the world without compromising the already burdened environment. The world needs a shift in the way goods and services are produced and consumed to avoid worsening development and environmental degradation.

To meet the Millennium Development Goals, the world needs to produce goods and services more efficiently, using fewer resources and generating less waste and pollution. Despite recent improvements in resource efficiency, developed countries economies continue to be based on resource-intensive consumption and production patterns, therefore, increasing the use of resources.

Ten years after the Rio Conference, world leaders signed the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (JPOI) at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002, declaring that “fundamental changes in the way societies produce and consume are indispensable for achieving global sustainable development. All countries should promote sustainable consumption and production patterns.” At this summit, the world also called for the development of a 10-Year Framework of Programmes (10 FYP) to accelerate the shift towards sustainable consumption and production, and to promote social and economy development within the carrying capacity of ecosystems.

For more information on SCP, read the ABC of SCP: Clarifying Concepts on Sustainable Consumption and Production.