The Sustainable Consumption and Production challenge has a systemic nature. Changes in technologies, production methods, laws and regulation of the economy, as well as in the way we choose and consume products and services can have multiple effects in many different domains. Sometimes an intervention (like laws to increase the efficiency of buildings or cars) can have a direct effect of reducing energy consumption, but because it can lead to making energy cheaper, it might have a more longer term negative effect on the absolute energy consumption as it might induce demand (rebound effect). As a more positive systemic interlinkage, if a city achieves to reduce the total need for urban transport by making the city more compact, cycle friendly and with easy access to shops and services, this can have a multiple co-benefits besides the reduced energy use and carbon emissions. It could increase the quality of life, social cohesion, economic competitiveness, local pollution, stress levels of citizens etc. in the city.

Similarly, there are multiple possible linkages between and knock-on effects on the different areas of the earth’s ecosystems. Producing tomatoes in winter in Spain might be less carbon intensive than producing them in the UK, but the water stress levels of this type of agriculture in Spain might be unsustainably high. As another example of the need to acknowledge the systemic nature of the SCP challenge, we might be able to produce in the future enough renewable energy for the increasing demand for individual car transport and thereby reduce the pressure on climate change. What we won’t solve with this strategy is the pressure on land sealing, habitat fragmentation from the infrastructure needed for car transport in addition to the social impacts from noise, accidents, commuting time, traffic jams etc.

Question for discussion: Do environmental NGOs have the right skills, knowledge and capacity to effectively work towards this systemic SCP challenge? What do people think is needed?

See some ideas and findings about this in the discussion paper “Better & New NGO Strategies to Tackle the Sustainable Consumption and Production Challenge?”. You can download this and other interesting papers of the Action Town project in the Library!