SUSTAINABLE PRODUCTION & CONSUMPTION WORKING GROUP

Current working group projects

Making SPAC an Overarching Objective in Europe
Continuing the network collaboration with ECO Forum and EEB begun in Ostend, we are now participating in an NGO campaign to raise the status of SPAC within the Environment for Europe process as well as within the ECE region overall. The first step in this process involved a joint effort with ECO Forum's SPAC Issue Group to produce and present to UNECE officials a collective NGO statement on SPAC, as part of preparations for the 2007 Environment for Europe conference in Belgrade. We will be working more closely with ECO Forum in advocacy and side event activities at the Belgrade meeting.

TransAtlantic Civil Society Dialogue on SPAC

In addition to efforts to develop regional and national policy frameworks on SPAC, ANPED members and other NGOs are slowly developing a "TransAtlantic Dialogue" to share experience, ideas and support on regional efforts to understand and promote SPAC policies and practices.

Regional SPAC policy frameworks
ANPED and its members have been playing a leadership role in organizing NGO participation, positions and advocacy in developing and promotilng regional policy and initiatives on SPAC. The most recent actions have been in:

North America: At the 2-day workshop, "Towards a North American Framework on Sustainable Production and Consumption,"(Washington, DC 31 May-1 June, 2005) participants produced the regional statement (US/Canada) Producing and Consuming in North America: A Call for Action and Leadership on Sustainability.

Europe: At the European Union regional stakeholders consultation on SCP (Ostend, Belgium on 24-26 November, 2004),, ANPED joined wilth EEB and ECO Forum to produce and deliver the Ostend NGO Statement Towards Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns . )

National SPAC policy frameworks
Over past years, ANPED WG members have encouraged efforts to develop (and implement) national policy frameworks on SPAC.  See Resources for more on ANPED's work to deelop Country Reports .

SPAC Watch
Internationally, ANPED is a partner in the SPAC Watch NGO initiative which monitors and reports on global, regional and national progress towards sustainable production and consumption. The idea of SPAC Watch emerged in 1999 at ANPED's conference "From Consumer Society to Sustainable Society," which then organized a series of three international roundtables on the 10-Year framework as well as the report Waiting for Delivery, delivered in Johannesburg at the World Summit on Sustainable Development. Currently, SPAC Watch is developing a report pulling together a series of regional assessments of progress towards SPAC. ANPED and the North American Sustainable Consumption Alliance (NASCA) are leading contributors to the Europe and North America chapters.

For details on SPAC Watch, visit the project home page .

Accountability of International Systems

The aim of this project is to develop guidelines to support bringing coherence and a greater balance to the current economic rules system of WTO and Bilateral Investment Treaties on the one hand and Standards and norms for consumer and environmental protection on the other hand.

Project page

Background documents

Genetically Modified Organisms

The objectives of ANPED's GE campaign in Central and Eastern Europe and NIS is to build capacity and support NGOs in building resistance to genetic engineering in food and agriculture in their countries.

Project Home Page

Consumer Guide

The project aims to make consumers even more aware of ethical and green aspects of the products they are buying by publishing Consumer Guides. In this project, ANPED's work included harmonizing criteria for company assesment and to produce a joint publication assessing different products on their ethical and green performance.

Project home page

New project proposals

Green Farm Network for Europe?
This draft proposal suggests setting up a Europe-wide network of small-scale food producers and rural businesses. It would be open to organisations and individuals committed to the economic, social and environmental sustainability of the countryside. See proposal. For more info contact:

Oz Osborne,
Westden Rural Links

Gellings Park West

Harewood Rd., Calstock

Cornwall :L18 9QN

31822 832897

07866 451538

oz@rurallinks.wanadoo.co.uk

www.rural-links.com

Past working group projects

Export Credit Agency Reform

This project aims to generate and share accurate information on the function of ECAs and the role ECA's can play in sustainable development. It also aims to build an inventory of official, non-governmental, trade union, and business-association views with regard to the need and content of developing social and environmental guidelines for the functioning of ECA's.

Project home page

Extended Producer Responsibility

The aim of ANPED's EPR campaign was to get the European Commission to pass a strong Waste Electronic and Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive. Under this campaign, ANPED organized a strategy meeting on EPR and published a report. It is also running a listserver on the topic.

Project home page

Corporate Accountability and Responsibility

ANPED has been a part of several activities and coalitions that ensure that governments around the world take the problem of the lack of corporate accountability in sustainable development seriously, and push for the development of globally binding rules for sustainable corporate behaviour. To that end, the the Working Group played a part in the Taskforce on Business and Industry (ToBI), the UN CSD's Voluntary Initiatives and Agreements Review and the Review of the OECD Guidelines for MNEs.

Project home page