By Brian Johnson - 30th May 2006
A ‘carrot and stick’ approach of fiscal incentives and consumer education is needed to turn shoppers into environmentally friendly purchasers, according to experts meeting in Brussels on Wednesday.
Discussing the issue of green consumerism at a Friends of Europe summit, part of Brussels Green Week events, guest speakers and experts agreed that much more needs to be done both politically, and by Europe’s businesses to lessen the impact of consumption on the environment.
Setting the scheme for the discussion, European Environmental Agency director Jacqueline McGlade said that almost everything the agency observed about the environment “concerns consumption patterns.”
“Consumption growth is outweighing efficiency gains, our material consumption rate is currently 16.5 tonnes per person per year and we generate between 20-25 tonnes of waste each year.”
McGlade said that fiscal policies that make greener products more attractive and competitive such as “internalising” environmental costs were urgently needed.
Rodrigo Gouveia, the secretary general of Eurocoop said that consumers also had to be educated about their buying patterns.
“Education gives consumers the means to deal with the information they receive about environmentally friendly purchasing.”
The European commission’s Timo Makela said more should be done during the upstream processes, to improve the environmental costs of producing products.
“Instead of looking at combating pollution [caused by end products] we should be looking upstream at what goes into the products.”
“It’s about what fiscal instruments can be used to internalise external costs. Environmental costs must be factored into prices.”
Green procurement, said Makela could lead to a dramatic reduction in the price of environmentally friendly products.
Chairman of Unilever UK, Gavin Neath said there was clear evidence that consumers were concerned with environmental issue, but failed to heed their concerns “at the supermarket.”
“If you want to be hard nosed about it, consumer behaviour is mainly led by greed, fear and self interest.
“To encourage consumer change we need a carrot and stick approach”.
Governments have to use fiscal instruments, said neath, and ensure that external environmental costs are included in products, to put real costs, such as ‘food miles’ into the equation.
Food miles would factor in the environmental costs such as the aviation CO2 emissions produced by flying runner beans from East Africa to Europe, or chilli peppers from Thailand.
Swedish MEP, Anders Wijkman said he believed that consumers could make a difference in tackling increasingly unsustainable consumption rates, but needed incentives.
“The main responsibilities lie with business, but consumers have a role to play.”
Wijkman said the EU was not doing enough to promote sustainable friendly production to make “it more profitable for businesses to do the right thing.”
And the Swedish MEP said that the EU’s efforts to reduce the impact of goods and services on the environment was a “joke”
“The eco-labelling system is a joke; it’s not backed up by enough resources. And where is the promised 2006 review of the eco-labelling directive? I have seen nothing from the European commission. There are too few products being labelled.”
Wijkman backed calls to promote public procurement as a tool to improve the take up of eco-friendly products, and reduce costs.
“Europe’s public procurement is between 16-17 per cent of GDP. That’s a lot of money.”
“If used properly we could see fantastic developments in the future [for sustainable procurement]”
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