Consumption and the environment (SOER2010) - European ...

Thematic assessment | Consumption and the environment
1 Introduction
…the sheer weight of the combined aspirations and lifestyles of 500 million Europeans is just too great. Never mind
the legitimate desires of many other billions on our planet to share those lifestyles .... We will need to change the
behaviour of European consumers. To work on people's awareness, and to influence their habits.
Janez Potočnik, European Commissioner for Environment (March 2010)
…the major cause of the continued deterioration of the global environment is the unsustainable pattern of consumption
and production...
UN Agenda 21, Chapter 4 (1992)
1.1 Why do we need to address
consumption?
Demand for natural resources worldwide has increased
tremendously over recent decades. The main drivers have
been growth in population, wealth and consumption,
with high population growth mainly in developing
countries and highest levels of wealth and consumption in
developed countries.
This demand is causing major, irreversible impacts on
global ecosystems and ecosystem services: 73 170 km 2
of forest were cleared each year in the period 2000–2005
(FAO, 2009). In addition, since 1960 a third of the world's
farmland has been abandoned, exhausted as a result
of overexploitation and soil degradation (Schade and
Pimental, 2010).
Moreover, emissions and wastes emitted during the
processing and conversion of resources into goods and
services have caused further damage to the natural
environment and human health. Nitrogen pollution,
ground-level ozone and particulate pollution are on the
increase, as is the prevalence of synthetic chemicals in the
environment (EEA, 2010a), with negative impacts on the
environment and health.
If one isolates different activities in the economy, it is
production activities across sectors, such as mining,
agriculture, and manufacturing, that are directly
responsible for the majority of the environmental
pressures caused by economic development. However,
private and public consumption of goods and services
is the fundamental causal factor and driver of change in
production activities and the resulting flows of resources
and wastes from and to the environment.
Although an increasing global population is a factor
in rising pressures, it is consumption and production
patterns in developed countries, with developing
countries catching up rapidly, that are the key drivers of
global environmental problems. This was recognised in
Agenda 21 in 1992 and again at the Johannesburg World
Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002, where
governments agreed a Plan of Implementation strongly
focused on sustainable consumption and production
(SCP) and a commitment to develop a 10-year framework
of programmes on SCP (UNCSD, 2002).
Consumption leads to direct environmental pressures
from the use of products and services, for example,
through driving a car or heating a house with fossil fuels.
Of greater interest and magnitude, however, are the
indirect pressures created along the production chains
of goods and services, including, for example, food and
other consumer goods, but also energy services. Since
an increasing share of the final and intermediate goods
consumed in Europe is imported, a growing proportion of
impacts caused by our consumption takes place in other
parts of the world.
A consumption-based perspective for assessing
and responding to environmental pressures
highlights various leverage points for reducing them.
Complementary actions to reduce environmental
pressures throughout the life cycle from resource
extraction and production through consumption to final
use are shown in Figure 1.1.
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The European environment | State and outlook 2010