Sdc 2006 i Will if You Will

I will if you willTowards sustainable consumption

About the Sustainable ConsumptionRoundtable

This report is the concluding work of theSustainable Consumption Roundtable, jointlyhosted by the National Consumer Council(NCC) and the Sustainable DevelopmentCommission (SDC) for 18 months fromSeptember 2004 to March 2006.

Funded by the Department forEnvironment, Food and Rural Affairs(Defra) and the Department of Trade andIndustry (DTI), the Roundtable broughttogether a small group of leading expertsin consumer policy, retailing andsustainability to advise government on howto create consumer choices that staywithin environmental limits.

Work of the Roundtable

The Roundtable has conducted its ownprimary research into a range of possiblesolutions and approaches to sustainableconsumption. Our work included:

> A major two-day Consumer Forum,facilitated by Opinion Leader Research,with findings reported in Shiftingopinions.

> A seminar for stakeholders in Cardiff,with the participation of Welsh AssemblyMinister for the Environment andPlanning, Carwyn Jones.

> Roundtable input into an event onsustainable consumption withSustainability Scotland Network and SDCin Stirling.

> A General Consumer Council for NorthernIreland event – led by RoundtableMember Sinéad Furey – on responsibleconsumption.

> A high-level Business Dialogue event,facilitated by Cambridge Programme forIndustry, with 30 senior managers, retailersand manufacturers from internationalbusinesses, exploring the respective rolesof consumers, government and business indriving change.

> Seeing the Light: a report based on in-depth interviews with 30 households,with and without micro-generation,about their awareness of how they useenergy in the home.

> Double Dividend?: a detailedsustainability appraisal of expertnutrition guidelines on diet, and a surveyof the evidence on how schools can offermenus that are both more sustainableand nutritious.

> Looking Forward, Looking Back: a surveyof how more sustainable products havebeen mainstreamed in the past, yieldinglessons for future markettransformation.

> Communities of interest - and action? Abriefing on the opportunities andbarriers for community-level action,based on ten in-depth interviews withproject leaders.

All these reports, and a series of smallerinternal research papers referenced in thereport, are available from www.sd-commission.org.uk orwww.ncc.org.uk.

Following this final report, the governmentwill set out a plan for further action onsustainable consumption.

Roundtable members

> Ed Mayo (chair): chief executive, NCC

> Alan Knight (chair): head of corporateaccountability, SABMiller

> Rita Clifton: chair, Interbrand

> Tim Jackson: professor of sustainabledevelopment, University of Surrey

> Jill Johnstone: policy director, NCC

> Sinead Furey: General Consumer Councilof Northern Ireland

> Andrew Lee: director, SDC (campaignsdirector, WWF-UK to Febuary 2006)

> Chris Pomfret: senior associate,University of Cambridge Programme forIndustry

Secretariat

> Convener: Joanna Collins

> Researcher: Paul Steedman

> Policy assistant: Poppy Maltby (toNovember 2005)

> Administrative assistant: Ahmed Khayyam(from November 2005)

Acknowledgements

Gillian ThomasJudith DobbynPeter MelchettEmma NobleKevin MorganMike GreenRoberta SonninoMike PearceGraeme TraynerViki CookeJo HillierSara EppelScott GhaganMaxine HoldsworthMargaret AdeyTerence IlottSue MacDonaldAphrodite KorouBob RyderPhilip StampJack FrostJohn ManoochehriTom MortonMelanie HowardRohit TalwarAdrian MonaghanPaul WhiteFred StewardRoger LevettAlex MacGillivrayHannah PearceBarfoots of Botley Ltd...

...and many others who contributed theirtime and perspectives.

Production

Editing: Greg Stevenson and Beth Keehn

Design: Greg Stevenson

Photography: Cristian Barnett(www.crisbarnett.com)

Printing: Seacourt cleaner design and print(www.seacourt.net)

ISBN: 1 899581 79 0May 2006

sustainable consumption roundtable

a joint initiative from SDC and NCC

Preface

Executive summary

Introduction: from a three-planet economy to one

One: people – the first corner of the triangle

Two: business – the second corner of the triangle> Recommendations for helping business

Three: government – the third corner of the triangle> Recommendations for implementing the framework> Recommendations on procurement

Four: linking the triangle through a product and lifestyle approach > Recommendations for our homes> Recommendations for the food we eat> Recommendations for getting around> Recommendations on holiday travel

Five: show people they are part of something bigger> Recommendations for community-based action

Six: the long-term challenges> Recommendations on long-term challenges

Conclusion

Appendix one: Glossary

Appendix two: Consumer forum methodology

Appendix three: Business dialogue methodology

References and notes

Contents

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This report is about the good life:the good life that is possible ifpeople, business and government allshare responsibility to open the wayto new solutions.

These drawings are by ordinarypeople who worked with us in ourresearch. They are a selection of thepositive dreams and aspirationspeople have for their future life andfor the well-being of their loved ones.

With the right imagination andapplication, the conditions can beright for all to live a good life andfulfil these aspirations, sometimes innew and smarter ways. And we cando so with the essential bonus ofliving in ways that are sustainable sothat they generate quality of life forall, and for good. This report isdedicated to that opportunity.

Preface: future life

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On the key environmental issues ofour day, progress depends on enablingpeople to act together. This reportsets out how a significant shifttowards more sustainable lifestyles ispossible and positive all round.

Some of the building blocks arealready in place, in terms of anextensive evidence base and anexisting set of commitments fromgovernment. The key now is to takeaction that enables people to take upthe more sustainable habits andchoices that they want.

The focus needs to be on creating asupportive framework for collectiveprogress, rather than exhortingindividuals to go against the grain. Thisis the approach that we heard time andagain in our engagement withconsumers and business – encapsulatedin the notion of ‘I will if you will’.

It is possible to make sustainable habitsand choices easier to take up, bydrawing on insights about consumerbehaviour and using people’spreferences for purchasing shortcuts,and what we call the trend towards‘choice editing’ (see glossary).

People, business and government – the three groups at the corners of our‘triangle of change’ – will play a keypart in this. This report looks at eachgroup in turn, and then at policies thatcan link them: while no one of thethree can lead alone, a co-ordinatedapproach can create the opportunitiesand responsibilities to acceleratechange. The right policy approach willfocus on positive solutions that workwith the grain of people’s aspirationsrather than against them. And it willput consumer lifestyles, and theeveryday products and services thatpeople use, centre stage.

The illustrations we offer to achievethis do not solve all the issues of asustainable future. But, by openingpeople’s minds to the impacts of theiractions and demonstratingalternatives, they can also help build the space for more mandatorypolicies to tackle the most difficult issues.

In our deliberations, we focusprimarily on the environmentaldimensions of sustainability, whiletesting the implications of ourrecommendations for social justice.In part this is in recognition of thecomplexity of the debate and ourown limitations. But morefundamentally, it is because werecognise that living within ecological limits is the non-negotiable basis for our social andeconomic development.

We view the challenge of sustainableconsumption as a spectrum. At thenear end of this spectrum aremeasures that require less in terms ofintervention and active change.A simple technological intervention –a mini wind turbine on the roof, or abig cut in standby powerrequirements for TVs and set-topboxes, for example – could have avery positive environmental impact.In the centre of the spectrum aremore deep-seated changes to habitsand routines, like restoring a sense ofseasonality to what we eat, turning off lights and opting to walk or cycle

Executive summary

‘Living within ecologicallimits is the non-negotiablebasis for our social andeconomic development.’

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in the neighbourhood rather thantaking the car. At the far end ofthe spectrum are innovations andmeasures that allow people to change behaviour or aspirations in amore fundamental way, such asaround air transport.

The purpose of public policy onsustainable consumption should be toenable government, business, and allof us as individuals to moveprogressively along this spectrum,tackling the right issues at the right points.

To start this, and improve quality of life for all and for good, we nowneed a step-change forward. Thegovernment’s sustainabledevelopment framework for the UKaims to deliver a ‘strong, healthy andjust society within global limits’. Thechallenge is to move to patterns ofconsumption that achieve bothprinciples at once. The governmenthas already made a commitment to‘set out a plan for further action onsustainable consumption’. On theright, we set out our headline findingsand principal recommendations.

This report details practical solutions.While its recommendations are aimedat the UK government, they have aneye to the implications for futurewider development. Rather than arigid set of rules, we have establisheda Sustainable Consumption ActionFramework as a guide forgovernment policy. We see that short-term action can also contribute tolonger-term solutions on morecomplex issues. In our concludingchapter we examine some of thesedeeper challenges that we face on thepath to a more sustainable future.

There is space forchangeGovernment can be bolder aboutdriving markets, as there are win-winoutcomes. A mass of people areready and willing to see new policiesintroduced that will help them changetheir behaviour in the face of climatechange and global poverty. But theyneed the government to set anexample and make it easier for themto do the right thing.

> Set a visible example to the public,by making all central governmentbuildings and transport carbon-neutral by 2012, and putting apriority on changes such assustainable food and on-siterenewable energy in public settingslike schools and hospitals.

Start from wherepeople areFour areas of our lives generate four-fifths of our overall impact on theenvironment around us: how we runour homes; the food we eat; how weget around; and how we travel on ourholidays. The way to connect withpeople’s aspirations in these areas is topromote symbolic and effective actionthat touches their everyday lives.

> Advance practical initiatives suchas these catalysts for behaviourchange:

• giving airlines a clear incentive tointroduce carbon offset on an ‘opt-out’ basis to wake people upto the impact of flying;

• making on-site energy generation acommon sight in new homes andpublic buildings, to connect peoplewith climate change;

• rolling out smart meters, to help people get to grips withenergy use;

• enabling schools to serve balanced,seasonal, quality food, to getchildren into good eating habits;

• giving serious incentives to low-carbon cars.

We believe that action on all fivecatalysts together would have apowerful cumulative impact onindividuals, helping to break habitsand shape new behaviours. It will alsohelp to open minds to other morechallenging lifestyle changes neededin the long term.

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Don’t put theburden solely ongreen consumersGovernment and business must focusfairly and squarely on mainstreamconsumers, rather than expecting theheroic minority of green shoppers toshop society’s way out ofunsustainability. Choice editing bymanufacturers, retailers and regulatorsalready has a track record in gettinghigh-impact products off the shelvesand low-impact products onto them –so bring out the responsibleconsumer in everyone by makingsustainable products the norm.

> Collaborate with businesschampions to plot tensustainability ‘product roadmaps’by 2007 for rapid change inpriority high-impact products. Thiscould accelerate the switch to:

• low-carbon cars;

• low-energy home entertainment;and

• the next generation of energy-efficient lighting.

Show peoplethey’re part ofsomething biggerPeople are willing to change, but they need to see others acting around them to feel their efforts areworthwhile. Fairness matters.A combination of incentives,community initiatives and localfeedback will reassure people that theyare part of a collective movementthat’s making a real difference.

> Reward households for careful useof energy and water via taxes andtariffs, and penalise excessiveconsumption. The government’sEnergy Review is an opportunityto enable such incentives onenergy use.

> Empower and resource localauthorities to help people playtheir part in sustainablecommunities. Councils should givestreet-level feedback on recyclingand other achievements, rewardthose who pledge to adoptsustainable behaviours, andsupport community-level action.

Develop the toolsand momentum totackle moredifficult issuesThere are ways in which sustainabilityimperatives collide with contemporaryconsumer aspirations, particularlywhen it comes to foreign travel andthe car culture. With the rightprocess, government should not bescared to engage people and businessin dialogue on thorny issues.

> Commit to an ongoing programmeof deliberative fora with the public,at a national and regional level,working with media partners toenable as many people as possibleto engage with what they can do tomeet the carbon reduction targetsof 20 per cent by 2010 and 60 percent by 2050.

> Develop a working economicmodel for HM Treasury that cantrack the links between nationalincome and resource consumption,by 2008. This must beunderpinned by comprehensiveaccounts for high-impact resourceflows within the UK(1).

We live in a consumer society, withunprecedented individual comfort,convenience and choice. What we buymay come from shops and businessesthat in turn may buy from factoriesand farms. All these supply chainsstart in the same place – nature.

The connections between how we live and the natural systems of theplanet are made opaque by thecomplexity of today’s economy. Yetthe simple truth is that if everyone inthe world consumed at the averagerate we do in the UK, we would needthree planets.

This report is about how we shouldlook after that end of the supplychain to ensure our continuedprosperity – wherever we are. Fromwater conservation to climate change,the solutions range from simple tocomplex, but a common theme iscollaborative action. We cannotexpect business or the government todo it alone; but they can enablepeople to take part. With co-ordination and a little courage,solutions are available.

Even so, it might be tempting to duckthis issue, taking comfort inuncertainties in the scientific data orsimply expecting markets to ensurewe innovate our way out of trouble.But consumption – a field whichcovers not just shopping, but how weuse things and how we get around; allthe ways in which we use the planet’sresources in our everyday lives –cannot be sidelined. Production-sidesolutions are crucial, but cannotprovide the whole answer:

> Products like fridges can bedesigned to use less energy, but wequickly start to expect larger onesand it becomes normal to own

two. Then along come thepromotions for ice-makers andbeer-chillers.

> On average, cars have becomemore energy-efficient, but we usethem more(2). Thanks to greatercar-dependence and the uptake ofhigher-emission models, includingSUVs, UK CO2 emissions fromroad transport in 2004 were nineper cent higher than 1990(3).

The sustainable developmentframework for the UK, agreed bygovernment, aims to deliver a betterquality of life within global limits.The challenge of sustainableconsumption is about ways of livingthat can achieve both principles. Theopportunity we explore is whether wecan update our lifestyles, and getsmarter about how to do this.

This has an irreducible internationaldimension. On current growth rates,Chinese consumer spending will makethe country the world’s second largestmarket in terms of householdconsumption by 2014(4). Over thesame time horizon, the UNMillennium Development Goals aimto cut human poverty. TheCommission for Africa has arguedthat significant economic growth isrequired to lift Africa from poverty.They set out recommendations toenable African countries to achieve

and sustain growth rates of seven percent by 2010(5). These are urgentimperatives, but, equally, where will allthe natural resources to make theproducts to fuel such growth comefrom? Sustainable consumption is nota luxury concept for the rich to worryabout. It is a necessity for all.

Our findings, which are upbeat andpositive, build on what has beenachieved, through the recognition ofthe wider challenge of ‘sustainabledevelopment’ in so much of businesslife and government policy. This workwas set in train by the government’sUK sustainable development strategy,Securing the future, which establishessustainable consumption andproduction as one of four priorities.The principles enshrined in thisstrategy for the government, UK-wide, make clear for the first timethat sustainable consumption is themodel we need to realise the twingoals of ‘living within environmentallimits’ and ‘ensuring a strong, healthyand just society’, underpinned bygood governance, sound science anda sustainable economy.

Building on the thinking first set outin Changing Patterns, alongside workfrom the Prime Minister’s StrategyUnit, Securing the Future illustrates thegovernment’s increasinglysophisticated model of behaviourchange for sustainable consumption(6).Our findings flesh out some practicalsteps for putting these ideas intoaction with consumers.

Our findings also build on existinggovernment action relating to the roleof business and the products theymake and sell in achieving sustainableconsumption. We have drawn on therecommendations of the

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Introduction: from a three-planet economy to one

‘The simple truth is that ifeveryone in the worldconsumed at the averagerate we do in the UK, wewould need three planets.’

government’s Advisory Committeeon Consumer Products and theEnvironment, as well as pioneeringsectoral strategies co-ordinated byboth DTI and Defra, including thedraft Food Industry SustainabilityStrategy(7). In turn, we have set some future challenges for the new Sustainable Consumption and Production Business Task Force.

Consumer behaviour

Enabling behaviour change is notrivial task. Our consumptionpatterns offer a complex, yet tellingpicture of the kind of society wehave become and of our relationshipto material goods and services.

Getting to grips with the forces thatdrive consumer behaviour ischallenging. But there is already aconsiderable evidence base on whichto build change. Two or three keylessons emerge from that evidencebase(8). We know, for instance, thatthere is a considerable gap – the so-called ‘value-action gap’ – betweenpeople’s attitudes, which are oftenpro-environmental, and their everyday behaviours.

We also know that consumer goodsand services play a huge variety ofroles in people’s lives. Some of theseroles are purely functional. Foodsatisfies a need for subsistence,housing for basic protection. Butmaterial artefacts also have anothervital purpose. Cars, houses, fashions,gifts, trophies, photographs: all thesegoods are called on to play vitalsymbolic roles in our lives. Fromfootball matches to weddings, fromfamily holidays to dinner parties,from the work environment to socialoccasions, the ‘evocative power’ ofmaterial goods and services is used toshape our social world(9). Throughthem we negotiate status, understandour identity, interact with our family

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‘People often findthemselves “locked in” toconsumption patterns thatare unsustainable.’

and friends, and even pursue thedreams and aspirations which give ourlives meaning.

It is legitimate to ask, of course,whether this heavy reliance onmaterial things for social andpsychological ends is a good thing.In fact, this may turn out to be one of the most important questions ofall in our search for sustainableconsumption. But the reality is that‘stuff ’ shapes our lives and we neglectthat insight at our peril.

Another hugely important lesson forsustainable consumption is that, farfrom being able to exercise freechoice about what to consume andwhat not to consume, people oftenfind themselves ‘locked in’ toconsumption patterns that areunsustainable. The literature on this isvery clear and goes a long way toexplaining the value-action gap.‘Lock-in’ occurs in part through‘perverse’ incentive structures –economic constraints, institutionalbarriers, or inequalities in access thatactively encourage unsustainablebehaviours. It also flows from socialexpectations and cultural norms.Sometimes we act unsustainably out of sheer habit. Sometimes we do so because that’s what everyoneelse does(10).

This evidence emphasises thedifficulty associated with negotiatingsustainable consumption. But it alsohighlights the potential for policy toestablish new opportunities forsustainable living and to intervenemore creatively to unlock ‘bad habits’and negotiate new social norms.

Our findings

We have drawn extensively on thisbody of knowledge. We have alsoadded to it, albeit in a modest way,through limited primary research withconsumers and businesses. Ourfindings draw from our deliberativeanalysis of these sources and focuson the policy framework that couldmake a difference.

It is worth noting that, while ouranalysis is informed by a UK context,many recommendations relate topolicy issues that are devolved.Because it has been commissioned asa joint initiative by Defra and theDTI, such recommendations in thisreport apply to England only.However, many of the underlyingissues – for example, about the spacefor change, the psychology of choice,or the evidence of markettransformations – will apply in equalmeasures to all four nations. We hopethis work will be a resource for eachof the devolved administrations, asthey explore specific strategiesappropriate to their context.

Our headline assessment is that acritical mass of citizens andbusinesses is ready and waiting to acton the challenge of sustainableconsumption(11). But to act, they needthe confidence that they will not beacting alone, against the grain and tono purpose. One thing we haveobserved though, is that both thebusiness world and citizens are

increasingly willing to embrace keyaspects of a smarter, more sustainablelifestyle, but on one reassurance: thatothers, whether your neighbour athome or your competitor in business,act likewise – the simple idea of ‘Iwill if you will’(12).

It is government, at all levels, that isbest placed to co-ordinate a collectiveapproach to change, through anenabling policy framework.

People, business and governmenteach occupy a corner in a triangle ofchange. No one, or even two groups,can lead on sustainable consumptionalone. Different corners lead atdifferent times by doing what theycan do best. Until now this has oftenbeen accidental. The change might beprofound if it were co-ordinated.

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‘People, business andgovernment each occupy a corner in a triangle ofchange.’

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PeopleBusiness

Government

Figure one: the ‘triangle of change’

The products and services peopleuse, and the infra-structure available,

link government with business and people

Fewer than one in three people haveheard of the term ‘sustainabledevelopment’; and qualitative studiessuggest that very few, even of these,can explain what it means(13). So itmakes sense to start from how people understand their own lives,and the connections to the worldaround them.

‘It’s scientific jargon, isn’t it? So maybe

you don’t understand exactly what point

they are getting to because it’s not

highlighted in, like, say, our language Ó

layman’s terms. You don’t take notice of

it… and I believe in recycling and love

talking over the environment, but… I don’t

seem to understand what they’re saying.’

Consumer forum participant

To do so, we used the researchtechnique of a structured, deliberativeConsumer Forum. We commissionedOpinion Leader Research (OLR) torun an event in which over a hundredpeople, from all walks of life,deliberated on their aspirations andhow these fitted with ideas of policiesto encourage more sustainableconsumption. (See appendix two formore about how this operated.)

In designing this, and learning fromit, we also drew on a previous pilotevent run by Defra, as well asqualitative and quantitative work byBrook Lyndhurst, MORI and otherson public attitudes on theenvironment(14). Together these hadconfirmed that:

> People recognise the issues,and there are a high proportion of people that want to ‘do theright thing’(15).

> The arrival of recycling bins onpeople’s doorsteps helped peopleto take ‘environmental’ action. Yetrecycling can also dominate theirframe of reference and somestruggle to think about other waysin which they can make adifference(16).

> In a world of information-overload, it is not moreinformation campaigns or leafletsthat are needed(17).

Those at the Forum were able to befrank about the gap between whatthey felt about the urgency of thechallenge and what they felt able todo as individuals in the currentcontext of their lives(18). The barriersthey cited resonated clearly with thoseidentified by a well-developed body of research(19):

> we are creatures of habit, reluctantto make changes that challenge ourroutines;

> we are highly influenced by thesocial norms we see around us;

> we often lack access to facilitieslike doorstep recycling or goodpublic transport;

> we perceive sustainable options tobe expensive and niche;

> we are preoccupied with short-term household budgets and, forlow-income consumers, withmaking ends meet on a weeklybasis; and

> we often do not trust thegovernment bodies and businessesthat are exhorting or enticing us to change.

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One: people Ó the first corner of the triangle

The space for change

We were struck by the number ofspontaneous references toenvironmental concerns at ourConsumer Forum, when people whoparticipated took the time to thinkand talk freely about their aspirationsin relation to consumer trends(20).These were not often mentions ofthe ‘environment’ as a word, per se.Instead, a number of people of allages in each group spoke up aboutglobal warming, food additives,pollution, Hurricane Katrina andflooding. Most apparent was agrowing sense of insecurity about thechaotic impacts of climate change.

‘I remember a pretty hot summer five

years ago when I bought four fans. The

next year I had to get air conditioning.

What will it be like in ten years time?’


This finding runs alongside otherevidence that suggests there iscurrently political space for moreaction to make sustainable living areality. In pre-election polling byMORI, in 2005, 28 per cent of voterscited ‘the environment’ as an issuethat would be very important to themin deciding which party to vote for –more than the number mentioningIraq or Europe(21). Of course, duringelections these issues tend to slipdown the campaign agenda, yetfollow-up polls in September 2005revealed that 47 per cent of votersthought the quality of theenvironment would get worse in thenext few years compared to only 22 per cent who thought it would get better(22).

‘The environment is at the forefront

really, at the moment, of people’s

agendas. And it’s the world, isn’t it? If we

don’t look after the world, it won’t be

here for the grandchildren or the great-

grandchildren.’


In looking to the future, many peopleat the Forum placed their emphasison non-material aspirations. This isnot to downplay the lively interestshown by some in powerful cars andbig houses, especially many youngerpeople. But across the whole socialspectrum there was a preoccupationwith wanting to be healthy, safe andsecure and to have more time toinvest in good relationships withfamily and friends.

According to research, 25 per cent ofpeople between the age of 35 and 50from across all social groupingsreport that they have taken asignificant reduction in income inorder to put their family and qualityof life first(23).

‘There is a growing awareness that

consumption does not equate to personal

happiness.’

Deborah Mattinson, Joint CEO, OLR(24)

Drawing on the way in which peopledescribed their aspirations and relatedto the issues under discussion at theConsumer Forum, we have identifiedfour areas of our lives that peoplemay connect to for action:

> how we run our homes,

> the food we eat,

> how we get around, and

> holiday travel.

Together these add up to four-fifthsof our impact as households on thelocal and global environment(25). Thegood news is that smart synergies canbe found in these four areas betweenmany of our aspirations and moresustainable ways of living.

The right approach

‘I totally agree you need someone to be in

control… it’s not just about the

government, it’s about us as well… but you

need a leader and that’s it, that’s the only

way forward really.’


‘Somewhere along the line somebody’s

got to take responsibility, haven’t they?

And every single person as an individual is

not going to, ever. Somebody that we

look up to and is supposed to be looking

after us, needs to do something, needs to

take control…’


There was a clear appetite amongparticipants at the Consumer Forumfor government to take action tomake sustainable habits and choiceseasier. But this had to be the rightkind of action, for them to be willingto support it. The Forum providesadditional evidence to illustrate fourkey guidelines(26).

1. Make it fair

Fairness matters. People want toensure that interventions are fair andnot open to abuse by free-riders ormanipulation by ‘rich’ people(27).Interventions are perceived to be fairwhen the polluter pays in proportionto their impact, the interests of lower-income groups are safeguarded andno-one is let off the hook.

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‘I think it would make you more aware of

what you were actually throwing away.’


‘I would certainly reduce the amount of

waste I had if I knew I was paying between

50p and a £1 for a bag.’


There was also openness towards theidea of banding council tax in linewith home energy efficiency ratings,on condition that support is availableto help low-income groups makeimprovements(29).

‘I think it’s a good idea in principle as long

as people who can’t afford to insulate

their house are given help to insulate it.’


Even on the contentious topic ofcars, there was support for wideningthe tax gap between high and low-emission vehicles in line with the‘polluter pays’ principle. The conceptof pay-as-you-drive taxation,compared with a flat road tax, splitparticipants on grounds of fairness.Many in the group liked the conceptof a direct and fair connectionbetween the amount you drive and theamount you pay, but there were alsoreal concerns that it would unfairlyimpact on less affluent groups.

When it comes to cutting back onflights, participants judged thatcompulsory rises in ticket priceswould be effective but unfair, in thesense that less affluent consumerswould lose out. However, the conceptbecomes more acceptable if the taxwere to be assigned in a transparent manner, and go into makingimprovements and cost reductions ininter-city train services.

‘We don’t like being taxed but… if I knew

it was going to a good cause, then I’d be

more willing to part with that money than

if I was told that it was an extra 20 quid

tax on my flight.’


In fact, the group was accepting ofthe idea of paying extra to offset thecarbon from each flight, eveninsisting that this should be on anopt-out rather than an opt-in basis.

‘I don’t see the opt-in, I just see there

being a different figure for me to pay

for my flight… I’d be happy to see that,

but I’m not going to make any choice

about it…’


2. Help people to act together

‘Well, I don’t mind if we collectively

sacrifice, but I don’t want to sacrifice Ó

me and my family Ó when the bloke next

door isn’t.’


When thinking about interventions,people wanted assurance that theywould be acting in collaborationrather than isolation. Among many,there is a default assumption that they would be making an individualsacrifice for no guaranteed outcomeor benefit. Indeed, acting in isolation is seen as futile and counter-productive(30).

New behaviours, prompted byinterventions, need to become ‘social norms’ to be truly effectiveand successful. Interestingly, supportfor paying to deal with carbonoffsetting was on the grounds thatthis could become a new socialobligation that people would feel

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Fair for all

As participants acknowledged,there is a need for care, toensure that policies to tackleexcessive consumption support,rather than overlook, theinterests of low-income groups.Recent work, for example, hasshown that, with careful design,policies to promote water andenergy efficiency, and discouragewaste, can be progressive, andmake low-income householdsbetter-off, rather than worse(28).

Similarly, with careful design,sustainable consumption couldhelp poorer groups by givingadded impetus to investment inenergy-efficient homes; gettinghealthy, fresh food into allsupermarkets, schools andhospitals; and ensuring that the26 per cent of householdswithout access to a car are wellserved with alternatives.

ashamed of ducking. Some evensuggested that those who ‘opt-out’should be made to sit at the back ofthe plane!

‘Would all the opt-out people please go to

the back row?’


Thanks, perhaps, to the interventionof Jamie Oliver, there was unanimoussupport expressed at the Forum byparents with school-age children forpaying more for healthy andsustainable school dinners.

People acknowledge that it does nottake them long to adjust to newhabits, even when they were averse tochange before it happened(31). Thisadjustment effect was also evidentfrom the sharp rise in support for thecongestion charge among Londonersafter its introduction(32), and theincreased local popularity ratings forwind-farms after their construction(33).

‘There should be more things like recycling…

It was a pain when it happened, but now you

don’t think about it.’


3. Make it positive and tangible

Participants liked the idea of beingable to pay in instalments, throughtheir bills, for a mini wind turbine togenerate electricity for their homes atthe same time as getting the savingsfrom drawing less from the NationalGrid. Microgeneration, therefore,proved to be an appealing prospect,because it is something very positiveand tangible that everyone could doin a visible way(34).

Participants thought a recyclinglottery would be a fun way ofcreating a buzz around recycling. InNorway, a scheme like this wasdesigned by the packing and fillingindustry, to avoid a direct levy, andcarton recycling has increased from35 to 68 per cent(35).

4. Win people’s trust

Of course, people can be sceptical ofthe motives of government andbusiness. As part of this, somepeople saw fiscal incentives as ‘justanother tax’. Significantly,transparency helps overcome this(36).Above all, interventions need to beseen to be motivated byenvironmental concerns, rather thanraising revenue(37). Likewise, there is astrong perception that business’motives are often not ‘pure’ when itcomes to sustainable issues, as in thecase of supermarkets putting aperceived mark-up on organic foods.

A dominant theme of the event wasthat consumers are looking togovernment representatives to set anexample and make it real. This isespecially true on the difficult issuesof flying and car use. People wantedto see politicians putting their moneywhere their mouth is, both in termsof public procurement (investing inmicrogeneration for public buildingsand school meals), and in terms ofpersonal behaviours (flying less anddriving hybrid cars).

‘What do you think would happen if Tony

Blair started driving around in a hybrid

vehicle? I think sales of them would go up

1000 per cent overnight.’


The four ‘E’s

If people are asking for governmentto set an example, and to makeinterventions tangible, fair and thenorm, then these challengescorrespond well to the three ‘E’s –Exemplify, Enable, Encourage –which the government signed up toin its 2005 Sustainable DevelopmentStrategy. Helping people make betterchoices, the strategy said, requiresmore than just persuasion. The taskfor government was represented in adiagram (figure 2)(38).

The fourth ‘E’ is Engage. As Securingthe Future recognises, engagement isnot just a one-way process ofcommunicating at people or relyingon conventional ‘above-the-line’persuasion. It requires a realcommitment to community action,deliberative processes and involvingpeople in change on their own terms.The distinguishing feature ofsustainable consumption policy willbe the way in which it engageshonestly and courageously withpeople to create and retain its mandate(39).

The four ‘E’s are a theoreticalframework. The challenge is to putthem into practice. One practicalapproach, which is gatheringmomentum internationally, is ‘socialmarketing’. There is a strong evidencebase in relation to health and widerpublic policy goals(40). The NationalConsumer Council (NCC) definessocial marketing for government as ‘a systematic process using marketingtechniques and approaches to achievebehavioural goals’(41). The startingpoint for this approach is to identifythe behaviours that are a priority tochange, or perhaps sustain.

12

It is easy to become sidelined intopromoting behaviours that are easy toachieve but trivial in terms ofenvironmental benefit. Equally, itmakes little sense to focus efforts onbehaviours that are worthy andimportant, but have no chance oftaking off in the immediate termacross the mainstream. Some formsof behaviour bring knock-on benefits.For example, people can act insymbolic ways that bringpsychological or social benefits thatextend beyond the immediatelymeasurable environmental ones.Whose behaviour it is also matters.For some, what is needed may bebehaviour change. For others, such aspeople using public transport, it maybe supporting and sustaining existingpatterns of behaviours that mightotherwise be eroded.

What matters is what is most effectivefor more sustainable outcomes. But,above all, there is a need to choose

priorities and design interventionsthat segment and target the rightpeople and behaviours. For thepurpose of illustration only, aselection of indicative targets, relatingto climate change, are set out here.

These are, however, one step back fromprecise behaviours and are far fromdefinitive. They only prompt the moredetailed, thorough analysis that is neededto determine the relative significanceof potential lifestyle changes.

13

Learning from health

Improving public health, from smoking to diet, all too often means changingpeople’s behaviour. Across a number of countries, including the USA, Canada,Australia, New Zealand and the EU, ‘social marketing’ has been used to achievethis, for example by:

> being clear about what behaviour could be like and focusing on the right ways toachieve very specific improvements;

> focusing on the right people, by using ‘segmentation’ approaches which gobeyond their immediate circumstances to capture what they think and feelabout issues, what moves and motivates them;

> taking a long-term approach and using a mix of interventions and ways ofreaching people; and

> using communication and information only in the context of an overall, co-ordinated marketing mix, rather than in isolation.

The evidence is clear that social marketing of this kind can be a practical andeffective approach for achieving behaviour change.

Figure two: as attitudes and behaviourschange over time, the approach evolves

> Remove barriers> Give information> Provide facilities> Provide viable alternatives> Educate/train/provide skills> Provide capacity

> Tax system> Expenditure – grants> Reward schemes> Recognition/social pressure -

league tables> Penalties, fines and enforcement

action

> Leading by example> Achieving consistency in policies

> Community action> Co-production> Deliberative fora> Personal contacts/enthusiasts> Media campaigns/opinion formers> Use networks

CatalyseIs the packageenough to break a habit andkickstart change?

Enable

Exemplify

Encourage Engage

14

With the right focus on behaviour,and its nature and drivers, the nextstep is to build an in-depthunderstanding of where people arestarting from.

This points to the importance ofdesigning the right approach, ratherthan falling back on whatever policylever is in favour at the time. Each ofthe components of the four ‘E’sapproach has radically different policyimplications – for example, aroundinvestment (enabling), aroundcommunity (engaging) and aroundfiscal incentives and regulations(encouraging).

Starting from where people are, andchoosing the right mix ofinterventions can make sustainablehabits for people easier to achieveand more attractive to do.

Top tips: illustratingbehaviour change goals

The average person in the UK isresponsible for 9.6 tonnes of CO2 ayear. To meet the target of a 20per cent cut by 2010, this willneed to come down to 7.9 tonnes,and to meet the 60 per centreduction target, this will need tocome down to 3.5 tonnes by2050(42). What behaviours couldbegin to address this?

How we run our homes

1. Raise the number of peopleswitching to all-renewable greenenergy tariffs.

2. Promote key energy-efficienthabits, such as the installationof home insulation and prudentuse of high-efficiency, energy-using household products(43).

The food we eat

3. Cut down on excess meat anddairy produce.

4. Increase the consumption ofmore in-season produce.

How we get around

5. Raise the market share of carsthat are B or above on newenergy ratings(44).

6. Increase the percentage ofcommuters that work fromhome, car-share or opt forcycling, the bus or train(45).

Holiday travel

7. Stabilise and then increase thenumber of people choosing toholiday in Britain, rather thanoverseas.

8. Raise the number of peopleoffsetting carbon emissions(46).

The things people buy – productsand services

It must be true that, as shoppers, wehave more options than ever before.If we selected every item in a typicallarge superstore, we would have up to26,000 different products in ourshopping trolley(48). So, because wecan’t weigh up the pros and cons ofevery one, it is natural that we usedecision-making shortcuts: price,branding, promotions, shelf positionand packaging. For most, theseshortcuts form the basis of ashopping routine that does not easilyaccommodate wider concerns(49).

First, the shortcuts are tellingshoppers that today’s green productsare a luxury (or risk, depending onthe branding) and for the few, not themany. Also, when people act asshoppers, they expect some issues tohave been dealt with. They may notbe aware that government andretailers are delegating to them muchof the responsibility of choosingsociety’s way out of unsustainability.As a result, people’s concerns ascitizens often do not get reflected intheir choices on the shop floor.

Of course, there has long been awelcome minority of ethicalconsumers, taking up opportunitiesfrom local food to responsibleinvestment and banking. They areattracting growing attention, fromcelebrity endorsement of low-carboncars, the use of organic cotton by

fashion designers, the ‘Red’ label(raising global funds to tackle AIDS,championed by entertainers), throughto a range of imaginative ‘how tomake the world a better place’ booksand columns in the media. This is 20years on from the pioneering book,The Green Consumer by John Elkingtonand Julia Hailes.

Even so, this remains, on balance, aminority activity. But it would bewrong to conclude that people’sconcerns don’t matter to them. Thetruth is that the complexity ofinformation required to make ajudgement on product sustainabilitycan leave even the most dedicatedgreen consumer confused anddisempowered(50). Our concern is,then, how sustainable lifestyles can betaken up, perhaps in new ways, by themainstream of society.

At the Consumer Forum, peoplereported feeling confused by aproliferation of logos and their lackof consistency. While some pointedto the success of labels like ‘dolphin-friendly tuna’, most believed that costand convenience would generallytrump them.

‘If people are driven by convenience and

cost, they won’t give a damn about a

pretty logo on a piece of chicken or a logo

on a fish and chip shop, it wouldn’t mean

anything to them.’


15

‘I want to see the day when consumers can expect thatenvironmental responsibility is as fundamental to the productsthey buy as health and safety is now...’(47)

Tony Blair

Can people lead change as consumers?

‘The only problem is you can have so many

labels on the products that it gets so

confusing for the people that are buying

things… and all they do is they put the

price up.’


So who leads?

The solution could be the trendtowards what we call ‘choice editing’.From the magazines we read, theradio stations we listen to or theshops we visit, consumers look toothers to organise the choices thatthey face. As the psychologist AricSigman puts it: ‘Choice is beneficialup to a point. But limitations,restrictions and boundaries can have astrangely liberating effect.’(51)

So, in relation to the threat to fishstocks, for instance, the consensus atthe Consumer Forum was thatendangered species like cod should beremoved from sale entirely until theyhave recovered. This echoed thefindings of a MORI poll on behalf ofthe NCC in 2005 in which 74 percent of people surveyed agreed that‘if fish like cod are endangered theyshould not be available to buy’.

‘If you go to a fish shop, there’s a whole

range of fish and if there’s no cod, you

can’t buy cod. End of story really.’

Consumer Forum participant

The long and complex evolution ofmoving away from being a hunting,gathering, farming society to a fast-moving consumer goods society hasresulted in rapid development,flourishing economies and better lifeexpectancy. However, it has separatedpeople from the natural processesthat underpin their lives. Some might

say that their food comes fromsupermarkets, not farms and notfrom soil. There is nothing wrongwith this, except that it is harder forpeople to see the link between ahealthy natural environment and thefood they eat when the food comespre-made in a plastic bag. We are notarguing that society should return to amore basic lifestyle. What we arearguing is that the lead for ensuringenvironmental stewardship must liehigher up in the supply chain.

Looking back at consumer choices

To test such an assumption, theSustainable Consumption Roundtabledecided to list some consumerproducts where there had been adistinct shift towards a moresustainable supply chain. All theproducts listed were significant inmarket terms in their own right butare also now made and supplied in away that embraces at least some ofthe principles of a ‘one-planeteconomy’. A panel reviewed theavailable evidence on the history ofthe development of 19 products andidentified as far as possible what theprincipal driving forces were that ledto the innovation and, moreimportantly, what link in the valuechain was creating those drivingforces. Although it is difficult toestablish exact causal links from thecase study data, our analysis doesidentify some significant patterns.

The summary for each is set out inthe table on the next three pages.After it, we set out our broadconclusions, illustrated with two case studies(52).

16

Simpler sustainability

Choice editing for sustainability isabout shifting the field of choicefor mainstream consumers: cuttingout unnecessarily damagingproducts and getting realsustainable choices on the shelves.In the context of high consumerconcern, but low levels of action,the idea of integrating the mostcompelling issues of sustainabledevelopment through choiceediting makes sense. Consumersbenefit from the assurance thatthe issues they care about areconsidered, rather than facing thedemand that they grapple withthose complexities themselves.

17

Learning from success

How we run our homes Product story and market share Key drivers

Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) wood The FSC launched in 1993 with a forestcertification and labelling scheme. Now12 years old, the total global market hasreached $5bn of which the UKconstitutes approximately a third of thedemand.

Retailer leadership by B&Q, committingto edit out non-sustainable wood,creating the market for the FSC as a new sustainable certification. Littleconsumer pressure, but no perceivedconsumer compromise needed on priceor performance.

Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) inpaint

In five years to 2003 there has been anestimated 21 per cent reduction inharmful VOC content of paint. The EUmarket share of water-based paints hasrisen to 70 per cent.

Mainstreamed in industry through retailerleadership followed by voluntary industryagreement. Little consumer awareness,but no perceived consumer compromiseneeded on price or performance.

Ozone depleting chemicals Ozone-damaging CFCs had been phasedout in EU by 1995, five years after theMontreal Protocol. Further choice editingnow needed as HCFCs are a potentgreenhouse gas.

International legislation aided byavailability of alternative technology(HCFCs) and industry-NGO initiatives byUnilever, Coca-Cola and Greenpeace onice cream and drinks refrigerators.

A-rated cold appliances Market share of A-rated models increasedfrom one per cent to 76 per cent in fiveyears to 2005. The least efficient newfridge freezer on sale today consumesonly half as much energy as the leastefficient products on the market eightyears ago. However, demand for secondfridges has risen so that total energyconsumption only reduced by 2.2 percent(53) over the same period.

Labelling alone had limited effect, butenabled the key drivers which were EUlegislation to raise minimum standard,price incentives via EEC, and choiceediting by retailers. Consumers werehappy to adopt A-rated appliances asthey were offered at cost parity byfamiliar brands.

A-rated washing machines The market share of A-rated machinesrose from 0 to 85 per cent in seven yearsto 2005.

Labelling alone had limited effect, butenabled the key drivers which were amanufacturer agreement to raiseminimum standard, price incentives viaEEC, and choice editing by retailers.Consumers were happy to adopt as theywere offered at cost parity by familiarbrands.

A-rated dishwashers Market share of A-rated dishwashers rosefrom 0 per cent to 74 per cent in sevenyears to 2005. Around one in four UKhouseholds have a dishwasher, relativelylow compared to the rest of Europe.

Labelling alone had limited effect, butenabled the key drivers which were amanufacturer agreement to raiseminimum standard, price incentives viaEEC, and choice editing by retailers.Consumers were happy to adopt as theywere offered at cost parity by familiarbrands.

18

How we run our homes Product story and market share Key drivers

Recycled paper The proportion of recycled content innewspaper increased from under 30 percent in 1990 to over 75 per cent in 2004.More widely, consumer demand forrecycled products remains low due tohigher price, poor availability, andperception of poor quality.

Newspaper recycled content driven by anindustry-led initiative without the needfor high consumer awareness. Barrier: for recycling paper generallythe marketing mix is less attractive toconsumers than alternatives because ofprice and quality.

Washing powder Tablet powders have been calculated toreduce packaging by 26 per cent andreduce both detergent consumption anduse of low degradable materials. Tabletsand liquid tablets now account foraround 40 per cent of the UK market.

Promotion by manufacturers onconvenience.

Lightweight packaging Packaging was the first priority wastestream to be legislated at EU level andthere are business cost savings fromlightweight packaging. But consumerpreference for convenience still driveshigher levels of packaging Ó one retailerreports that 45 per cent of vegetablesare now sold as pre-packaged.

EU legislative pressure.

Double glazing Double-glazing started to take off duringthe 1970s fuel crisis. It has becomemainstream despite the fact that it is not generally cost-effective on energysavings alone, due to secondary benefitsincluding easier maintenance, highersecurity and noise insulation, andimprovement to property values.

Promotion and marketing bymanufacturers, with many perceivedconsumer benefits, such as noiseinsulation, warmth, energy saving, andsecurity.

Limited transformation:Energy-saving light bulbs

Low energy light bulbs, such as CompactFluorescent Lightbulbs (CFLs) have beenon the market since the early 1980s butat current levels of uptake their marketshare is only predicted to be around 13per cent by 2020.

Barrier: Low consumer demand becauseCFLs perceived to offer poorer designand performance at much higher upfrontcost than tungsten bulbs. Unless cheaptungsten bulbs are phased out,manufacturers will perceive little marketfor low-energy lighting and will notinvest in innovation to improve design.

Condensing boilers Moved from 16 per cent of the market to95 per cent in two years from 2003.Space heating and hot water represent80 per cent of domestic carbonemissions. 1.3m new boilers are replacedevery year with boilers lasting onaverage ten to 14 years.

Announcement in 2003 that from 2005Building Regulations would mandateminimum B-rating (86 per centefficiency) for new and replacementboilers. This effectively banned allmodels other than condensing boilers.Low consumer awareness, but noperceived disadvantage.

19

The food we eat Product story and market share Key drivers

Fairtrade coffee In the UK, the proportion of Fairtrademarket (roast and ground coffee) is nowaround 20 per cent of the market, upfrom 14 per cent in 2002.

Marketing mix is equal to competitionand the price differential is within theprice norm.

Limited transformation:Organics

While successful in terms of high growthin recent years, this is from a low base.Organic products had a market share ofonly 1.2 per cent in 2004 and around 56per cent of organic food is imported fromabroad.

Labelling has enabled the developmentof a niche market willing to pay premiumfor perceived higher quality.

Barrier: mainstream consumers do notyet perceive benefits to merit pricepremium. Marketed as niche luxuryproduct.

Unleaded petrol Unleaded petrol was introduced into theUK in 1986 and leaded petrol was phasedout over 14 years, being banned finally in2000. Industry objections over costs ofchange imposed significant delay on thisphase-out. Fiscal support, makingunleaded cheaper, won consumer supportdespite some early concerns about carperformance.

Early legislation in US stimulatedinnovation on lead removal.EU and UK legislation, introduced inconjunction with fuel duty incentives,drove phase-out of leaded petrol by2000. Cost and performance paritymeans no perceived disadvantage to consumers.

Catalytic converters All new cars sold in the UK from 1993had catalytic converters, eliminatingharmful carbon monoxide, nitrogenoxides and volatile organic compoundemissions. Initial concerns from someconsumers about car performancedisappeared, given the benefits tohealth, so the technology has proveduncontroversial.

EU legislation, implemented in UK in1993.

Free range eggs Four out of ten eggs sold in shops arenow either free range or barn eggs.However, there is still a large market forcheaper battery eggs, particularly thosedestined for use in other foods orcatering.

Combination of perceived consumerbenefits Ó freshness, taste, animalwelfare that overcome price premium.

‘Dolphin friendly’ tuna In 1988, a campaigner filmed horrifyingimages of hundreds of dolphins dying intuna purse nets, sparking a tuna boycottthat spread rapidly from the US to othercountries including the UK. Over 90 percent of tuna sold is now classified‘Dolphin Safe’.

NGOs built awareness on an emotionalissue. Solutions offered involved noquality or price compromise forconsumers.

How we get around

‘Choice editing’ in detail: energy-efficient fridges and freezers

A combination of product policymeasures, and ‘choice editing’ byretailers, has helped to make asignificant shift in the market towardsmore efficient fridges and freezers.Mandatory A-G labelling wasintroduced by the EU in 1995, but A-rated models still remained stuckbelow three per cent market shareuntil a European regulation removedanything rated below C in 1999. Thenin 2001, thanks to price incentivesfrom energy suppliers under theEnergy Efficiency Commitment(EEC), the market share of A-ratedfridge freezers leapt from ten to 70per cent within three years. Avirtuous circle has ensued in whichretailers have only wanted to stockhigher-rated appliances andmanufacturers have responded todemand by raising performancefurther and instigating a voluntaryagreement which cut out C-ratedfridges in 2004(54). Comet, forexample, made a policy decision notto stock products below a C.

From the consumer perspective,choice editing held no disadvantages,as A-rated products were offered byall their favourite brands at normalprices and improved performance.From the edited range, the customercould choose their favourite modelusing the criteria they have alwaysused – price, quality, looks and utility.

Now there may be a case for furtherchoice editing to grow the market fornew A+ and A++ models, which are23 per cent and 46 per cent moreefficient respectively than A-ratedproducts. Despite the opportunityunder EEC for energy suppliers topromote A+ and A++ models, and

product labelling within the EnergySaving Trust’s Energy SavingRecommended Scheme, UK sales ofA+ and A++ products accounted foronly three per cent of sales during thesix months to December 2005,compared to 18 per cent of sales inBelgium and the Netherlands. Thereis a challenge now to reinvigorate thepace of improvement in the UKmarket(55). This is particularlyimportant given that demand forsecond fridges has cancelled outmuch of the efficiency gain to date,so that, while average unit energyconsumption went down 16.2 percent from 1996-2005, total energyconsumption by fridge-freezers onlyreduced by 2.2 per cent(56).

Where consumers have led: freerange eggs

The size of the UK free range eggmarket has grown from around sevenper cent in 1987 to 30 per cent in2005 (40 per cent of retail sales).Consumer choice has led the changebecause of the health scare ofsalmonella, the perception of bettertaste and public concerns aboutanimal welfare. The price premium ismodest. Legislation has helped. From2004, EU legislation has made itcompulsory for eggs to be labelledaccording to method of production(57).However, lack of consumertransparency in the catering sectormeans that demand for eggs fromcaged hens remains over 50 per cent.Choice editing by caterers orregulators would be needed to drivefurther market transformation.

20

1996-7 1997-8 1998-9 1999-0 2000-1 2001-2 2002-3 2003-4 2004-5

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

EU regulation removesfridges below C-rating(chest freezers below E)

EEC price supportintroduced in2001

Industry agreementcuts out C-ratedfridges (D and E-rated chestfreezers)

Fridge freezers (76%)

Fridges(50%)

Chest freezers(13%)

Upright freezers (43%)A-G energy

ratingintroduced in 1995

Figure three: market share of A-rated cold appliances (1996-2005)

The mainstreaming of moresustainable products, whether greenor more socially beneficial, is alreadytaking place in some market sectors,and has growing consumeracceptance. So the simplisticstatement that the consumer is notinterested is no longer valid.

However, from our work on Lookingforward, looking back, we would focuson eight observations:

1. There is not enough evidence thatgreen consumers on their own areable to change mainstream productmarkets. These consumers may, insome cases, have played a role asearly adopters, but the translationto the mainstream depends on anumber of other factors.

2. The crucial requirement is for theproduct to perform up to theexpectation of the relevant market.The successful products studiedwere largely not sold on a green orethical platform, unless theyappealed strongly to the emotions,as in the case of dolphin-friendlytuna. People do not eatsustainability, or drive it. They eatfood and drive cars, and productperformance has to be the primaryfocus of marketing, even forsustainable products. If themarketing mix and price are withinthe expected norms of therelevant market then any ‘good’attributes like sustainabilitysuddenly become attractive to the consumer.

3. Choice editing for quality andsustainability by regulators,retailers and manufacturers hasbeen the critical driver in themajority of cases. Providinginformation failed to get morethan a minority of people buying

the most energy-efficientdishwashers, fridges and washingmachines, even when it pointed tosavings on running costs.Inefficient machines were still thenorm in the shops, and they werecheaper. But when labelling wascombined with action on the partof regulators, retailers andmanufacturers, rapid efficiencygains meant even the least efficientnew fridge freezer on sale todayconsumes only half as muchenergy as the least efficientproducts on the market eight years ago.

4. Labelling of performance ratingsfrom A-G is a key enabler forchoice editing, but does not byitself drive significant markettransformation.

5. Early announcement of legislationto set minimum standards drives avirtuous cycle of rapid innovationand further choice editing byretailers and manufacturers.

6. Voluntary industry initiatives are animportant ingredient. In the case ofdishwashers and washing machines,manufacturers averted regulation bynegotiating to remove models ratedD or below voluntarily. Butvoluntary industry initiatives rarelyplay a leadership role.

7. Fiscal incentives only work if theyclose the price gap for moresustainable products or createsignificant tax rebates for their use.Incremental VAT reductions onproducts like CFLs and insulation do not by themselvescreate demand.

8. Where a sustainability issueacquires emotional resonance,consumers can lead some degreeof market transformation. To date,

this has generally been confined tofood-related issues that align withpeople’s emotional concerns forpersonal health and animal welfare.External events like non-governmental organisation (NGO)campaigns, a food scare or aclimate-related event, can suddenlycause background concerns to bemanifested in consumer behaviourchange. Businesses that move inanticipation of this type ofexternal influence, and suddenconsumer awareness, can becomemarket leaders.

Interestingly, nearly all the productscovered in the case studies have hadtheir critics. ‘Single issue’ products arecriticised for ignoring wider issues.Even products attempting to addresswider issues are challenged over theinevitable trade-offs that sustainabilityrequires. Success means finding theright ways to manage dialogue anddebate, without it spilling over intodamaging criticism.

Government as ‘choice editor’

The general observations above makeit clear that, if more sustainableproducts are to be mainstreamed, theyneed to be a close equivalent to thenorm in price, quality or availability.Where the market is not able toachieve this product parityspontaneously, then governmentintervention is needed. The conclusionfor government is that there is a broadrange of regulatory options availableto make more sustainable products theaccepted norm.

Standards can be set to phase out theworst performing products, as in thecase of EU legislation on fridge-freezers, or the 2005 UK BuildingRegulations on minimum boiler

21

Lessons learned from Looking forward, looking back

standards. But regulation needs to besignalled clearly in advance, overtimescales that correspond tobusiness design and investment cycles.Timing is critical, as is working withforward-thinking businesses. Andhaving the confidence at times not tobe influenced by the entire sector isimportant. This clearly supports thelogic of having a dedicated productbody tasked with developing clearroad maps for rapid product change.

Such action can also drive innovation,by setting performance criteriabeyond the reach of today’s products.California’s zero-emission vehiclesmandate unleashed serious investmentin hybrid and hydrogen vehicles forthe first time. It signalled 13 years inadvance that by 2003 zero-emissionvehicles should comprise ten per centof all new car sales (sales of hybridscan offset this obligation).

It is worth remembering the lessonfrom 1970s Japan, where tight fuelefficiency standards drove Japaneseinnovation and their subsequent take-over of the global car market. It isclear that choice editing bygovernment for sustainabilityrepresents a big innovationopportunity for UK business. Ourstrengths in R&D and skilledmanufacture means we are well-placedto benefit from demand for a newgeneration of hi-tech, lean and cleanproducts, like low-carbon vehicles andmicrogeneration.

Business as ‘choice editor’

In 1995 the DIY store B&Q – ownedby Kingfisher – set a target for all thetimber it sold to be certifiedsustainable by the Forest StewardshipCouncil (FSC) by 1999. The idea wasthat consumers at B&Q stores should

not be presented with a two-tiersystem of sustainable andunsustainable products – they shouldbe free to choose the door or shelfthey liked best, secure in theknowledge that risk to rainforests hasbeen ‘edited out’ by the retailer.

In a similar way the multinational,Unilever, joined forces with WWF toset up the Marine StewardshipCouncil (MSC), an independent bodyto certify sustainable fisheries. Theimpetus was the need to secure long-term supply of fish and this couldonly be guaranteed if the fisheriesconcerned became sustainable. After aslow start, the MSC has now certifieda number of key fisheries. This willenable consumer recognition of theMSC logo to be built and, hopefully,this will become part of their choicecriteria. Retailers’ ‘choice editing’ byonly stocking sustainable fish wouldsignificantly speed this up.

Retailers are not the only choiceeditors. Big-brand manufacturers canshift their product portfolio towardssustainability if they see a supply-sidesaving, or a new market stimulated bygrowing public concerns or created bypolicy or public procurement.Companies consider hundreds ofinnovation opportunities a year andfilter these before they are launched.Relative sustainability should be oneof these filters.

There are 200-plus models ofdomestic appliance and a retailer maystock only 20. Since they make thischoice for their consumers, they willwant to stock the best – so whyshouldn’t those 20 be A-ratedappliances? The John LewisPartnership has, for instance, as amatter of company policy, made thischoice where a sufficient range ofA-rated models is available.

As we have shown, however, choiceediting for sustainability is not just theresponsibility of business.Government has a responsibility toact as choice editors on behalf ofcitizens, who often struggle tounderstand what issues of concernmean for their shopping routines.

‘A lot of businesses respond to purchasing

behaviour rather than offer customers

something better… Business needs to be

brave Ó to go out speculatively and push

technology that makes sustainable

development economically viable. But

government needs to help businesses to be

brave Ó by incentivising and supporting

innovation.’

Patrick Burrows, Tesco plc

The work of the Advisory Committeeon Consumer Products and theEnvironment (ACCPE)

These observations connect with thefindings of ACCPE. In three reportspublished from 2000 to 2003,summarised in their last report in2005, ACCPE made some importantobservations:

> Given that sustainability is made upof many different environmentaland social issues, and that therange of products available in themarket are so very different, wehave to accept that a simplestrategy for a catch-all eco-labellingsystem will also be problematic.

> Labels have driven change, butonly when they are designedspecifically for a small number ofkey issues closely associated withthat product. Forests, for example,are clearly linked to wooden gardenbenches so a bespoke labelconnecting forest harvesting with a

22

garden bench works (the FSC); alabel that links fish harvesting withfish meals is logical; while a gradedenergy label on energy-consuminggoods like fridges and freezers islogical. The design and governancesystems behind these threeexamples are fundamentallydifferent but have been designed tocreate a system that works for thatvalue chain. This further reinforcesthe flaws in any catch-all genericschemes, and could explain thecontinued failure of the EUEcolabel Scheme to find appeal inthe market place.

The other important hunch thatACCPE had, that our work nowsupports with evidence, is that while alabel may be seen as a consumercommunication, the real user is theretailer and the manufacturer. If youshop at B&Q you do not have todistinguish between wood productson the grounds of sustainability.Consumers can focus on theaesthetics and price of a shelf ordoor, safe in the knowledge that allwood products are FSC-certified. It isthe buyers at B&Q who specify FSC,on behalf of all B&Q consumers.

These insights led ACCPE to developtheir ‘Tool Box Approach’. Theyrecognised that different productshad different sets of impacts and thatit often takes bespoke tools to drivechange. Defra’s Market TransformationProgramme builds on this principleand, while under-resourced, is a goodstarting point for the more proactiveproduct policy approach that is nowneeded. Labelling, as described above,is only one of the possible tools thatACCPE recommended: legislation, taxadvantages and retail procurement policies were judgedequally important.

ACCPE concluded its work in 2005with the headline recommendationthat the government establish aproducts body dedicated to workingwith the entire value chain for keyproducts to get a framework in placeto drive environmental improvements.In December 2005, Defra publishedfor consultation a proposal toestablish a government ‘sustainableproducts unit’. We would support thisproposal on the condition that thisunit is given a clear mandate todevelop roadmaps for rapid change inpriority products – in consultationwith businesses that havedemonstrated best practice – andnegotiate their implementationthrough standard-setting and othermeasures at UK and EU level.

‘Regulatory frameworks can be very

valuable. An interesting model is provided

by Siemens seizing brand advantage by

marketing the fact that their Fujitsu

laptop is a year ahead of impending EU

regulation on hazardous substances.

They can do this in the knowledge that

regulation is coming along to back

them up.’

Dominique Gangneux, Deloitte & Touche,

Business Dialogue

The role of the consumer andmarketing

Of course, if sustainable products areto become the norm, consumers haveto back them up. The examples aboveare precedents where consumerbehaviour has changed and wheremore responsible products arebeginning to flourish.

Sustainability considerations willimpact on all markets at some time inthe future. This may be now, as is the

case with fish; imminently as thegrowing awareness of climate changedevelops further; or still some timeaway. However, the impetus formarket change is often outside thecontrol of business or government.External events, like food scares orabnormal weather may come at themost unexpected times and seriouslychange attitudes.

Products which anticipate thesepotential changes will be the leadersof tomorrow, and companies whoprioritise these will increase theirchances of long-term success and survival.

Too often we hear ‘we cannot do thisbecause consumers do not ask for it’.But the consumer did not ask for theiPod. Inspired marketers recognisethe signs, or insights, translate theseinto anticipated future behaviour andthen launch products, branded, tomeet these anticipated needs. Or,technological advances are made and then sold in a way that creates a‘want’. We appeal to business to do more of this, but in moresustainable ways.

Often, the climate for change can beaccelerated by civil society andcampaigners. But we have also shownthat successful products are rarely soldon either a ‘do-good’ platform or on anegative platform. Advertising andpromotion can play a vital role, as wesaw with detergent tablets or perhapswith the Toyota Prius, by ensuring thatthe consumer sees the product as equalto or better than the competition. Thesustainability benefit then becomes asecondary but still important sellingproposition. However, the bottom lineis that it will rarely be the ‘unique’selling proposition.

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Product roadmapping

‘Product roadmaps’ represent a policyapproach for addressing high-impactproducts. Looking forward overtimescales that businesses and peoplecan respond to, the main elements ofthis will be:

1. understanding the issues and rangeof possible solutions

2. clear deadlines for achieving thedesired level of transformation

3. labelling products as a basis forincentives and standard-setting

4. robust incentives tied to productsustainability

5. supportive public procurementspecifications

6. raising the bar through progressiveregulation.

One example could be for homes.Reducing VAT on loft insulation, forinstance, will not itself prompt peopleto go out looking for it. Linkingproperty taxes, like stamp duty orcouncil tax, to A-G home energyratings would, however, transform themarket for energy-saving measuresand microgeneration.

When it comes to products like cars,the evidence shows that we need tomove beyond applying labels from A-G, important first step though thiswas. As MORI told the Departmentfor Transport (DfT), ‘Environmentalperformance is not paramount in carbuyers’ minds when choosing a car -and this is a barrier to the potentialimpact of introducing the labels inshowrooms.’(59) As we saw whenlooking back on transformation in thewhite goods market, labelling startsworking when it is the basis for realincentives and standard-setting.

Environment Direct

Our conclusions on the potential roleof choice editors have implicationsfor the new government-backedconsumer information service,Environment Direct, to be launchedin late 2006. The Roundtable believesthat this service could play fourconstructive roles (in declining orderof importance):

1. Choice editing: if it lives up to theambition of its conception, andpublicises independent, bold andcredible advice on productsustainability, this will helpgalvanise companies into moreactive choice editing.

2. Market research: it can demonstrateto government and business that asignificant section of people areactively interested in the issues(60).

3. Connections: by being interactive,giving feedback on outcomes, anduniting many disparate actions intoa more coherent ‘army’ ofconsumers, Environment Directcould also make people feel theiractions are more worthwhile and part of the bigger picture –alleviating the ‘lonely burden of choice’.

4. Converting interest into action: it cangive clear and credible guidancethat may help some people takeaction, especially among moreaffluent individuals who have bothhigh levels of environmentalconcern and high impacts(61).However, as we have argued, theevidence shows that information israrely sufficient to overcomebarriers of price, convenience,habits and norms.

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Products and services will play acentral part in the creation of asingle-planet economy, but theevidence suggests that, historically,the green consumer has not been thetipping point in driving greeninnovation. It follows, therefore, thatbusiness, as providers of thoseproducts and services, must have acritical role.

On the one hand, this is clearly aresponsibility for individualbusinesses. Supermarkets areimportant ‘gatekeepers’ of whatconsumers spend and arguably, theyare, therefore, associated with a majorproportion of the UK’s consumptionimpacts. What responsibility shouldsupermarkets have as companies, formoving this to a sustainable level?

On the other hand, the constraints ofcompetitive markets mean that it isoften difficult for companies to actalone, outside of a business case forsustainability. So, it is likely thatgovernment has an importantenabling role to play, in using policylevers to create the business case forall companies to deliver moresustainable products.

Through a Business Dialogue event,convened on the Roundtable’s behalfby the University of CambridgeProgramme for Industry, more than30 senior managers from retailers andbig-brand manufacturers gave theirviews about the way forward forsustainable products. It is importantto acknowledge that the individualswe spoke to held positions whichmeant they were natural enthusiastsfor this agenda. As a result, theirsuggestions were focused on whatwould make their own goals easier toachieve within their ownorganisations and help overcome thenatural resistance other seniormanagers may have to this agenda.We wanted insights into what was

needed to create change, rather than a list of reasons why change wasimpossible.

These participants saw government tohave three critical roles:

1. Engaging in genuine partnershipwith those businesses who want tomove the agenda forward (asopposed to working through anegotiated compromise positionwith the entire sector).

2. Providing future market certaintyvia fiscal and regulatory frameworks.Companies that invest early in betterstandards, without proof ofcommercial advantage, need toknow that policy levers will be usedto eliminate any competitiveadvantage for peers that persist inunsustainable practices.

3. As a procurer practising what itpreached. If industry andcommercial firms are being askedto cut carbon then public sectorbuildings and car fleets should beone step ahead, and public sectorprocurement should give a marketto progressive firms by specifyinghigh standards.

The underlying theme is once again:‘I will if you will’. Businesses want toact, but cannot do so in isolation,without the support of a businesscase. They need a policy frameworkto create that business case, and giveothers reason to follow.

These business leaders called forcross-party consensus on key issueslike climate change, to give businessmore confidence that targets andpolicies will not be at the mercy ofparty politics and electoral cycles.Sustainable consumption represents abig innovation opportunity for UKentrepreneurs and manufacturers.But they cannot create the market on their own.

Two: Business Ó the second corner of the triangle

27

‘Business will tend to lead where they see

a business case, but the government has

an opportunity to take a major leadership

role and establish the frameworks from

which all else flows.’

Ian Blythe, Boots Group plc

Certainty about future marketframeworks

Above all, the businesses that areprepared to make strategicinvestments in low-carbon services, orintroduce other aspects ofsustainability into products, needmore certainty about future markets.Given clear goals over defined time-frames, business can start planningand also create a competitive edge.Competitors will then be obliged tofollow and markets would betransformed. Once again, thisreinforces the potential role of agovernment-sponsored product body.What our studies have shown,however, is the potential value ofshaping policies and supportingframeworks around the products thatbusiness supplies rather than thebusiness operation itself (as was thecase with catalytic converters andenergy-efficient white goods). Forexample, regulation on solventemissions from a paint factory’schimney would not be necessary ifthere were a market incentive to sellonly water-based paint.

The new corporate socialresponsibility

A company with a good corporatesocial responsibility (CSR)programme has, we can assume,processes to manage and report onthe social and environmental impactsof its operations. Improvements areclearly being made but the gapbetween ‘good CSR’ and sustainableconsumption is intuitively large and,more importantly, unknown. Howmany CSR reports, for example, lookat how the company’s product rangesupports the principles of a single-planet economy?

What we need to avoid is aperception that a good track recordon CSR matches the requirements ofsustainability when there has been noevidence gathered to support such aperception. A company can have agood CSR record, but this does notmean that its operations and productsare sustainable, nor that sustainabilityis embedded into the company’sculture and decision-making. Core tothis is moving beyond an internalframe of reference, coupled with anengagement with key stakeholders, toaccept responsibility for the impact of the products and services it sells toconsumers(62).

‘Businesses can make the customer much

more aware of environmental issues to do

with products. Stores should be seen as a

place for discussion, where employees

proactively talk to customers about

sustainability. Point-of-sale material should

have simple, interesting messages so

customers feel engaged and encouraged to

find out more information.’

Scott Keiller, Starbucks Coffee Company

(UK) Ltd.

The new corporateresponsibilityA corporate responsibility approachthat demonstrated a company’scommitment to sustainableconsumption would include:

• explanation of how the principle ofsustainable consumption is shapingtheir business strategy;

• a focus on the company’s products,through an environmental and socialanalysis of their key lifecycle impacts;

• proactive engagement withgovernment and NGOs in developinga public policy framework thatcreates a business case for moresustainable products;

• a research and developmentstrategy that focused on beating thecompetition at productsustainability Ó in terms of supplychains and product use Ó alongsideother consumer priorities;

• designing features that helpconsumers use their product orservice in a more sustainable way Ósuch as economy wash options onwashing machines, and zero energystandby function on TVs;

• a serious and intelligent justificationfor any products offered that havethe potential to drive consumptionpractices in highly unsustainabledirections (for example, patio-heaters and domestic airconditioning units);

• marketing strategies that wouldappeal to people’s values and ethics,and a broader sense of well-being,and avoid creating new unnecessaryand unsustainable wants or playingon insecurities;

• partnerships with innovativeenterprises developing moresustainable products or serviceapproaches; and

• partnership enterprises with NGOsand policy-makers, where businessexpertise and skills can be marriedwith the skills of the others to bringbenefit to all parties, as in the case of the MSC venture.

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29

Roundtable members with seniorbusiness experience were compelledby a hypothetical scenario: they wereoffered the chance to inspire theboard of a FTSE 100 company toembed sustainable consumption intothe heart of their business strategy.

The individuals recognised that thebest place to start would not be along report but a short, hard-hittingpresentation to the main board ofthat business. It would not talk aboutthe challenges facing the planet, butthe risks to, and opportunities for,their business plan.

Such a presentation was producedand tested at the business dialoguedescribed above. While there wereconsiderable challenges in writing astandard ‘off the shelf ’ presentationfor all the FTSE 100 companies, therewas a consensus that if the rationalefor a sustainable consumption casewas presented, it would highlight risks and opportunities which can be summarised into six key business objectives:

1. Continuously improving shareholder value

To grow a business, suppliers andinfrastructure must also grow, or bediscontinued. Reliance onunsustainable supply chains is a risk,but one that tends to be consigned tothe unpredictable medium to long-term. But many of these risks arehere now, or are imminent: fishsupply, climate change and energyconsumption, water shortage in manycountries and regions, the finite limitof many raw materials.

Unless businesses move now todiversify into resource-light productsand services, supply chains willbecome unreliable, reducingprofitability long before they actuallycollapse, and others will seize theopportunity missed and fill thevacuum with innovative and creativesolutions that eliminate the problem.

It is also often said of sustainabilitythat it is something that is expensiveand unaffordable, or that the costs arepassed on to the consumer. Again, inmany cases, this is a myth. Ifsustainability in supply chains meansreduction of inputs such as energy,water or materials, then it is clear thatsignificant cost savings are to be had.The same logic can apply to the useof video conferencing to reduce airtravel, or the use of local materials toreduce transport costs and, therefore,material miles.

2. Building brand value by meetingand exceeding customerexpectations

Awareness of what concerns peopleas citizens can help companiesidentify innovation opportunities andstay ahead, and therefore avoid beingvulnerable to brand attacks. We havedemonstrated that it is a mistake toassume that consumers do not wantsustainable products because they arenot asking for them. Consumers canonly choose what exists today; theycan only express desires on the basisof today’s goods. McDonald’s failureto anticipate changes in consumerattitudes about health and localculture has weakened the company.

Building and protecting brand valuealso requires attention to people’sbackground concerns as citizens, evenif they do not often bring these tothe shops(63). Corporate-level brandingaims to encourage consumers to buyinto a set of values identified with thecompany, reassuring them that oncethey are in the store, they can restassured that anything that they putinto their trolleys has been producedto a standard in line with these values.When it turns out those citizenshipstandards have not been met – be itsweat-shop labour, or ‘slash and burn’agriculture, or dolphins in tuna nets –the consumer feels cheated andaffronted by the revelation. They feelduped into having bought somethingthat was not what it purported to be.

3. Operate efficiently withinregulatory boundaries

Environmental regulation isincreasing on an EU and internationallevel. As the evidence strengthensbehind the need for urgent action, inparticular, on climate changegovernments will be under pressureto raise their regulatory game.

Being proactive about governmentpriorities gives businesses theopportunity to influence the policyagenda, and ensure it is designed topromote business certainty andopportunities for innovation. Wetalked earlier about the benefits ofpartnerships, of codes of practiceand road maps developed jointly with governments and otherinterested parties.

Businesses reacting early should gain,not lose, competitive advantage.

Why business could get serious about sustainable consumption

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4. Enthuse investors with a long-term strategy that ensuresprofitability

Anticipating or initiating shifts inresource availability, regulatoryframeworks and consumer demandcreates huge opportunities for business.In emerging markets resource scarcityis particularly pertinent.

5. Build pride and satisfaction intothe workforce and attraction forfuture employees

As awareness of the issuessurrounding the over-use ofresources, of global climate changeand poverty grow, it is essential forcompanies to respond. If not, thentheir values will become distant fromemployees, and potential employees,sapping morale and efficiency.

6. Responsible behaviour

Even if there is no compellingcommercial reason for responsibleand sustainable behaviour, there is amoral obligation for business to playits full role in helping society to meetits aspirations, without endangeringthe aspirations of the disadvantagedor future generations. In other words,sustainability should be embedded inthe culture, philosophy and values ofthe business if it is to be seen asethical and responsible.

Helping business get serious

As we see it, businesses fall into oneof four categories:

> those that understand theprinciples of sustainableconsumption and are embeddingthose principles into their businessplans, culture and values;

> businesses that understand thebroader principles of sustainabledevelopment, and recognise thebusiness case for action but not the unique contribution theconsumption angle brings. They areat various stages of including theprinciples of sustainability into theirprocesses, policies and cultures;

> those businesses that recognise thegrowing challenge ofenvironmental and socialresponsibilities. These businessesmay be addressing this throughemerging CSR departments andpolicies, but their CSR programmeis shaping communication morethan strategy; and

> those businesses that do notrecognise the business case forCSR, let alone for sustainabledevelopment.

There are a number of actions thatgovernment could take to supportbusiness opportunities aroundsustainable consumption.

It is essential that an initiative is put inplace to start some systematiceducation about the issue, the businesscase and the opportunity. After all, weknow that businesses will only act ifthey know that others will, so we haveto reach as many as possible. Defraand the DTI should convene a smallteam to make contact with the boardsof the FTSE 100 and, where possible,other business events, where access tosmall and medium-size enterprisescould be gained(64).

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Business should engage with government to make innovation work for sustainable consumption, not against:the Sustainable Consumption and Production Business Task Force should take the lead in establishing a partnershipapproach between government and business to address the issue of high-impact emerging products, like domesticair conditioning. Agreement should be reached by the end of 2006 on how energy-use data on pre-commercialproducts can be made available to the proposed sustainable products unit, to enable them to advise governmenton appropriate pre-emptive measures to manage the potential impact on climate change targets.

The DTI should champion policies that can promote new markets for low-carbon, material-light goods andservices. These should include product roadmaps and should ensure that sustainable consumption objectives arefully embedded in all government strategies towards business, with application to sponsorship, science andtechnology, innovation and skills.

The DTI should use its Horizon Scanning Programme to identify at an early stage new products that couldundermine sustainable consumption goals. The department should withhold innovation and science funding fromsuch proposals and direct it to more sustainable innovation.

The DTI should undertake a gap analysis of how the FTSE 250 CSR reports correspond to the challenge ofsustainable consumption, and issue a clear challenge to the FTSE 250 to improve voluntary reporting along theselines by 2010.

Recommendations for helping business

1.

2.

3.

4.

Actions not involving major lifestyle changes, but that have a big impact on sustainability

What government can do

A Sustainable Consumption ActionFramework is a guide to policy, ratherthan a rigid set of rules. It recognisesthe complexity, as well as thepossibility, of behaviour change.It also views the sustainableconsumption challenge as a spectrum.At the near end of this spectrum aremeasures that require very little in theway of changing people’s aspirations.A simple technological intervention –a mini wind turbine on the roof, or abig cut in standby power requirementsfor TVs and set-top boxes, forexample – could have a very positiveenvironmental impact. Such a changewould require changes in the marketand changes in business practices. Butwith appropriate ‘choice editing’ itdemands very little in the way ofactive change from people.

In the centre of the spectrum aremore deep-seated changes to habitsand routines, like restoring a sense ofseasonality to what we eat, turning offlights and opting to walk or cycle inthe neighbourhood rather than takingthe car. Even in this middle ground,supportive policies and investmentsare essential in order to encourage,enable, and engage people in therequired changes. And it is criticalthat government sets an example.At the far end of the spectrum areinnovations and measures that requirepeople to change their behaviourssignificantly, and perhaps even to findnew ways of expressing theirunderlying aspirations. Persuadingpeople to drive less (particularly overshort journeys) or, worse still, to flyless, is going to be difficult to achieve;but should be considered bothpossible and essential.

The purpose of public policy onsustainable consumption should be toenable government, business, and allof us as individuals to moveprogressively along this spectrum.Tackling the more intractable issues at the difficult end may require adeep-rooted shift in societal values,but even here government can effect change through its policies and practice.

The Sustainable Consumption ActionFramework is based on five elements:

1. Use the mandate for action

2. Focus on behaviour

3. Put products and services at thecentre

4. Build collective action

5. Widen the mandate.

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Three: government Ó the third corner of the triangle

PeopleBusiness

Figure four: the spectrum

Government Opening up space and support to move all three groups along the line

Actions that require major changes in the way we meet our needs and aspirations

1. Use the mandate for action

Without a mandate, government cando little to help people change theirbehaviour. But now, from theevidence we presented earlier, peopledo appear ready and willing to seenew policies introduced that will helpthem change their behaviour in theface of challenges such as climatechange and global poverty. They arelooking to government to make iteasier for them to do the right thing.

Having a mandate is not, of course, ablank cheque. There are limits. And aswe argued earlier, people are mostlikely to support interventions thatare seen to be fair, that prompt acollective response and create newnorms, and that are positive andtangible. Equally, if you don’t use amandate for action, you lose it.

2. Focus on behaviour

The goal for policy action is to enablepeople to live sustainable lifestyles.There is therefore a need to identify,and set priorities around, thebehaviours that need to beencouraged or sustained.

This does not mean that the emphasisfor policy action is about waiting for alead from ordinary people. But anypolicy action needs to be rooted in anunderstanding and awareness ofconsumer behaviour. To bring theissues of sustainable consumptionalive, for example, people need to seesymbolic, effective solutions in theireveryday lives. Some actions act ascatalysts – creating a deepercommitment to sustainability than theaction itself. The effects of theseinterventions ripple outwards byopening people’s minds to ways ofdoing things differently.

3. Put products and services at the centre

Collaborative partnerships betweenbusiness and government hold thekey to making sustainable productsand services the norm in our lives.This means harnessing enterprise,rather than shackling it. The key toachieving this is for policy-makers toset long-term sustainability ‘product roadmaps’ for key productsand services.

4. Build collective action

In a consumer society and a marketeconomy, the role of government isto facilitate collective responses tocollective problems that cannot besolved by individual choice.Sustainable consumption fallssquarely in this camp. It is extremelyhard for any one individual orbusiness to deviate widely from thecollective norms. Only the minoritythat seek to define their identityaround sustainability will do so.So we will need to move together.

5. Widen the mandate

These are practical steps. As theyprogress, there will be a need todeepen the change and foster amandate for further action throughappropriate pauses for reflection.After all, there are many tensions,trade-offs and dilemmas at the heartof a complex challenge such assustainable consumption. The rightprocess can help to acknowledgethese, to bring them out into theopen and sometimes resolve them,allowing society as a whole to movefurther along the spectrum of changerequired for a sustainable future.

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At present, there is a fragmentedresponse by government to thechallenge of sustainable lifestyles. Arange of bodies and initiatives arecharged by Defra with encouragingbehaviour change, including theEnergy Savings Trust, ConsumerCouncil for Water, Waste andResources Action Programme(WRAP), the Environment Agencyand Defra’s own Climate ChangeCommunications programme. Thereis also the welcome new adviceservice, Environment Direct.

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6.

Recommendations for implementing the framework

1.

2.

3.

4.

Defra should review whether resources currently spent on sustainable lifestyles in a fragmented way could bebetter co-ordinated to achieve more effective strategic direction to the sustainable behaviour change agenda(65).Quality and success, in terms of behaviour change, might appear at present to be variable. We recommend thatthey would be better co-ordinated within a framework of a government social marketing strategy designed topromote key behaviour change goals.

As part of this, government should set a limited number of priorities for promoting lifestyle changes.We encourage a new focus on food and diet (responsible for a third of consumption impacts on climate) and onthe need to find positive ways to reduce the impact of meat and dairy products. Action on these, and otherpriorities, could be taken forward through ‘delivery coalitions’ of non-profit organisations, consumer groups and business.

To harness the scope for choice editing in relation to these, government should collaborate with the newSustainable Consumption and Production Business Task Force, and other business champions, to plot ten ‘productroadmaps’ by 2008 for rapid change in priority high-impact products. Road maps for mainstreaming low-carboncars, energy-efficient lighting, low carbon domestic cooling systems, consumer electronics with low standbyconsumption, and more sustainable fish, are all possible examples that could be developed.

We therefore support the Defra proposal for a Sustainable Products Unit, on condition that this unit is given aclear mandate to develop roadmaps for rapid change in priority products Ó in consultation with businesses thathave demonstrated best practice Ó and negotiate their implementation through standard-setting and othermeasures at UK and EU level.

As a practical way to advance these recommendations, we propose that a dedicated Sustainable ConsumptionDirectorate is established in Defra, with resources appropriate to the challenge of this departmental priority, andwith the support of a cross-departmental group (modelled on the Sustainable Energy Policy Network(66)) to takeforward the objectives of the Sustainable Consumption Action Plan from 2006/07.

The DTI should formally review, by mid 2007, the potential positive and negative contribution of consumer andcompetition policy to the objectives of sustainable consumption. The DTI oversees a framework of consumer andcompetition policy, including advice, advocacy and enforcement that will be critical in enabling more sustainablepatterns of consumption.

The Better Regulation Commission should review by the end of 2007 the evidence on the role of well-designedregulation as a cost-effective tool to raise product sustainability standards and help achieve the government’ssustainable development targets. This work could usefully be done in partnership with the Sustainable DevelopmentCommission (SDC). The Better Regulation Commission should also consider how assessments of regulatory burdenscould better evaluate the contribution of regulation to making sustainable behaviour easier for consumers.

The government should advocate an ambitious EU action plan on sustainable consumption, with a focus on product standards best introduced at an EU level. Priority should also be given to sharing evidence and goodpractice with EU and other international partners, for example, through the Swedish-led Sustainable Lifestyles Task Force. International grant programmes should consider incorporating sustainable consumption as a cross-cutting objective.

5.

7.

8.

‘I mean, at the end of the day, they’re the

biggest landlord in the country, aren’t

they? So if they want change to happen,

you start with the biggest person, not the

smallest person.’


Transforming governmentprocurement is essential, not onlybecause of the current scale of itsenvironmental impacts, but also – andeven more importantly – as apowerful, symbolic and highly visiblesignal of changing norms.

The government has acknowledgedthe power of public procurement totransform markets, in setting up thebusiness-led Sustainable ProcurementTask Force. However, less politicalattention is currently given to makingsure that public procurers at all levelsmake sustainable consumption visiblein people’s everyday lives throughschools, hospitals, council facilitiesand government vehicle fleets(67)

.

Sustainable procurement is an issueof credibility and trust. It is alsoabout making sustainableconsumption front-of-mind forpeople in the settings in which theylead their daily lives, pointing tosolutions.

‘There is no substitute for ‘walking the

talk’ Ó government has a significant

opportunity as a major procurer to embed

sustainable procurement into its supply

chain. And this is just one of many areas

where leading by example will influence

learning and behaviours.’

Ian Blythe, Boots Group plc.

The Sustainable ProcurementTaskforce, led by Sir Neville Simms,will report in Spring 2006. The roleof the public sector procurementspend of £125 billion in drivinginnovation will be an important focus.As Jack Frost, Director of JohnsonMatthey Fuel Cells and Chair of theEnvironment Innovation AdvisoryGroup has argued, public procurerscould do more to help unblockinvestment in innovative sustainabletechnologies. By issuing procurementcalls committing the government topurchasing only products that meetstringent standards – if they can bedelivered below a specified costthreshold and by a specified date - the risk can be shared betweenmanufacturer and buyer.

Setting an example

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Recommendations on procurement

1.

2.

All direct impacts of central government, notably buildings and transport, should be carbon neutral by 2012.Global bank HSBC and media company Sky have both committed to making their operations carbon neutral. Thegovernment should adopt a broader vision of a carbon neutral public sector by 2015, with a commitment to year-on-year progress towards this.

The government should adopt a strategic set of procurement priorities to make sustainable consumption visible tothe public in all public sector buildings and transport, as part of the goal to make the UK a leader on sustainableprocurement by 2009. We recommend that the government commits to delivering on the following procurementtargets by 2009:

a. All public sector bodies to have over 25 per cent of their car fleet at 125g C02/km emissions or below(68).

b. An ambitious programme for public sector procurement of micro-renewables, with a focus on schools, drawingfrom a dedicated fund additional to the Low Carbon Building Programme.

c. A clear shift in public sector catering, especially in schools and hospitals, towards an emphasis on less meat-intensive diets maximising the use of fresh, seasonal fruit and vegetables and promoting more sustainablefish species.

The way we runour homesThe homes we live in have a biginfluence on our sense of identity andhow we look out on the world. Onefascinating finding of some in-depthhousehold interviews we conductedwas the impact that moving into ‘eco-housing’ had on people with noprevious awareness of how theiractions at home affected theenvironment or their bills(69).

‘We felt it was better to work with the

house than against it. Because it was a

low-energy house we were really careful

with the lights, bought A-rated appliances

and became frantic recyclers. We were

really excited about it, we thought it was

going to be a whole new way of living.’

Teenage couple, C2D, Craven Arms

People at our Consumer forum sawtheir homes as a place in which theycould take control of their impactsand make a real difference to theenvironment. However, it is clear thatmost people find it hard to picturehow they use energy in the homes,and do not make a natural connectionwith climate change.

‘Electricity? Well it comes from that little

meter. It comes straight in here. I have no

idea where it comes in from before that.

I’ve never thought about it.’

Female, 30s, C2D, London

‘Oh yes, climate change. That’s about the

weather changing. I’ve heard about that…

yeah, it’s an issue Ó you don’t know what

to put on in the morning.’

Female, London

The latest research tells us that ouruse of energy for heating andpowering lights and appliances in ourhomes is responsible for 27 per centof our climate change impact(70).However, it has proved difficult toengage people in taking up energy-efficiency measures(71).

As a result, the government hasrevised down its hopes for carbonsavings from household energyefficiency over the next five years bynearly one million tonnes of carbon.Part of the problem, perhaps, hasbeen the failure to understand thatenergy is not necessarily a householdterm. If so, talking to people aboutenergy efficiency could be unhelpful.

‘Of course I know that it’s “energy”… they

promote themselves as energy suppliers,

but in my heart that is not the term I use

Ó it’s gas and electricity Ó if that…’

Female, AB, 30s, London

Energy is an invisible magic in ourhomes. Our research for Seeing theLight has shown that microgenerationhas the power to make energy visible.Feedback from the Consumer forumalso suggested that microgenerationcan have the power to motivate andengage people. Making energygeneration part and parcel of people’shomes and schools may hold the keyto empowering and engaging energyconsumers for the first time. If so,we cannot afford to leavemicrogeneration at the margins of theUK’s climate change programme.

In considering the costs and benefitsof particular measures, this exampleshows that the government shouldattach more weight to its potential toengage and motivate people inrelation to wider goals regardingsustainable behaviour change.

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Four: linking the triangle through a product andlifestyle approach

In the four areas of our lives we havefocused on in our research – how werun our homes; the food we eat; howwe get around; and holiday travel –most of our behaviours are routine,rather than a matter for much activethought. The evidence base onconsumer behaviour suggests that,often, we will need to have ourunconscious routines shaken upbefore we can see the value informing new ones.

The best way to do this is to dropnew tangible solutions into people’sdaily lives, catalysts that will sendripples, get them talking, sweep themup into a new set of social norms,and open up the possibility of widerchanges in outlook and behaviour.

On pages 40-48 we look at practicalcatalysts for each of these four areas,and recommendations forgovernment to take positive action.

‘I tell people all the time that I generate

my own electricity... I love it... I think it’s

fascinating.’

Male, N. Lancashire, with mini-wind

turbine

Positive incentives matched withpenalties for excessive consumption

Householders will be most easilyconvinced that they are not actingalone if inducements to sustainablebehaviour are noticeable in daily life.Reducing VAT on insulation has notproved an effective incentive, forinstance, because the question ofwhether or not to buy insulation isnot on the decision-making radar inthe first place. Linking environmentalbehaviours to local, property orvehicle taxation levels, by contrast,puts them firmly on the radar.

Inducements can involve positiveincentives or penalties. Positiveincentive schemes are attractivepropositions if they can be funded.But penalties for excessiveconsumption can also be seen asprogressive, in that they safeguardbasic needs and only kick in to targetwasteful behaviours. The basis ofcharging for water and energy use and waste disposal could beaffordable fixed rates up to aspecified threshold (taking intoaccount household size) with steeplyrising charges thereafter(72).

Locking in the gains

What happens if products andservices become more sustainable,but people simply buy or use themmore? The overall impact onresources could increase.

What happens if, alongside suchsustainable offerings, new productsemerge that accelerate environmentalloss. Emerging products, such as low-cost domestic air conditioning, threatento undermine the hard-won energysavings delivered by the government’sclimate change programme(73).

What happens with the money thatconsumers save from somesustainable products? The ‘reboundeffect’ describes how money saved,for example, on energy bills frominsulating your loft, may be spent inways that cancel out theenvironmental gains.

The concept of personal carboncredits, in which people are allocatedan equitable share of carbon emissionrights, is receiving growing attentionas a mechanism for addressing thesechallenges(74). Year on year, in line withclimate change targets, the creditsallocated would decline, in order to achieve the desired carbonreduction at least cost. Those withbelow-average use of electricity,heating and car fuel would be able tosell their surplus credits to the market where they could be bought at a rising price by more profligate users.

40

Practical catalyst 1: micro generationClimate change leadership by this government is not yet being felt where it matters: in everyday lives. The challenge is to raise people’s use of energy in the home from the subconscious to the conscious, and enable them to feel part of the climate change solution.

Our qualitative research, Seeing the Light, with 29 households and three schools,explores what impact micro-generation technologies like solar water heating, mini windturbines and air source heat pumps had on attitudes to energy use. It is clear from in-depth interviews and observations that home energy generation rarely leaves familiesunchanged in their outlook and behaviour. As the researchers say: ‘It seems that micro-generation provides a tangible hook to engage householders emotionally with the issue ofenergy use… Householders described the sheer pleasure of creation and of self-sufficiency: “It’s like growing your own vegetables.’’’

The most striking finding is the energy consciousness shown by those households thathave moved into social housing with micro-generation, compared to that of mainstreamhouseholders from similar socio-economic groups.

A teenage couple, who moved into social housing fitted with solar water heating inShropshire, have since chosen to buy A-rated appliances and investigate theenvironmental credentials of washable nappies.

An elderly widow with a new air source heat pump in Kirklees is experimenting withdifferent settings on her heating control panel to see how she can enjoy warmth atminimum cost: ‘I didn’t realise before that it was the immersion heater running awaywith the money. It’s made me more aware of where power is being used in my house.’

However, it is clear that it is not sufficient to install the technologies and leavehouseholders to make of them what they will. The greatest effects have been felt inhouseholds that were introduced to their micro-generators from the start and given clearexplanations of how they can be used to advantage. A similar lesson can be learned fromschools: the catalytic role of micro-generation comes to the fore only if it is used activelyas a teaching tool and absorbed into wider school life and learning.

At our Consumer forum, people wereaccepting of the concept in principle,but had many concerns aboutpracticalities of implementation, andwhether the system would impact onthe vulnerable.

A substantial research effort involving pilot schemes is neededbefore personal carbon credits can beconsidered as a solution to climatechange. However, this radical conceptneeds to be looked upon as a realpossibility for the medium term, as away to lock in the gains of productefficiency, and create the rightincentive framework for real andrapid progress towards a low-carbon economy.

41

Practical catalyst 2: smart meters and feedback

‘Yeah, clearly we’re all going to have to adjust, but I think I’d like to have a carbonmeter, have a kind of meter in the house so that you can actually become aware of howmuch you are using. Because we don’t know, do we?’Consumer forum participant

Pay-as-you-go Keypad Meters were introduced by Northern Ireland Electricity in 2000 toreplace the Powercard meter that operated using prepayment tokens. Inspiration wastaken from the popularity of ‘Pay as you go’ mobile phones. In December 2005, the utilityintroduced an additional tariff option for existing pay-as-you-go users that providesincentives for switching energy consumption to discounted off-peak times through theintroduction of a higher-cost tariff at the high peak period between 4pm and 7pm. Thishelps reduce demand on the dirtiest power stations, which come on-stream at peak time.

Keypad meters have proved highly popular, with demand coming from customers notpreviously on prepayment. They have already been taken up by one in four consumers inNorthern Ireland. Importantly, they appear to be having a catalytic effect in terms ofenergy awareness. Recent research has indicated that, thanks to the instant displayfeature which gives real-time feedback on energy use, customers have made (on average)consumption savings of 3.5 per cent. Energywatch suggest that smart meters could helpto reduce consumption by as much as 15 per cent(75).

Energy regulator, Alistair Buchanan of Ofgem commented in March 2006 that ‘meters havebecome hot news because energy prices are up 70 per cent in the year, and clearlyconsumers will be interested if they can save costs by having a meter on their kitchenwall.’(76) The Design Council’s innovative work on real-time feedback systemsdemonstrates how smart metering can also be ‘sexy’(77).

In Norway, householders get energy bills complete with bar graphs demonstrating howtheir energy use that quarter has compared with their use in previous years. A review ofthe evidence on this and other schemes has demonstrated average energy use reductionsof five to ten per cent(78). In the UK, focus groups have indicated that on-bill feedbackcould similarly prompt energy use reductions(79).

42

Recommendations for our homes

1.

2.

The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM), with the DTI, should set a 2020 target for roll-out of microgenerationacross new and existing homes. We recommend that the following measures be taken to build on the government’sforthcoming Microgeneration Strategy(80):

a. A microgeneration commitment on energy suppliers to install microgeneration technologies on their customers’properties alongside the Energy Efficiency Commitment, helping to create a viable market for thesetechnologies in the domestic retrofit sector through greater energy services provision.

b. A revised Planning Policy Statement 22 that places a clear duty on local authorities to put in place planningpolicies that require the installation of at least ten per cent on-site renewables in large new developments.

c. A strengthened Code for Sustainable Buildings with carbon savings over building regulations 2005 of ten, 25, 40and 60 per cent for Levels 1 to 4(81), with Code Level 5 requiring zero carbon emissions. Level 3 should berequired for all new homes receiving government funding.

d. A dedicated fund for public sector procurement of microgeneration.

Work by the Energy Saving Trust (EST), supported by positive feedback from our Consumer forum, shows thatincentives to energy-efficiency operate most effectively for householders at the ‘whole house’ level rather than inrelation to specific energy-saving products.

HM Treasury, Defra and the ODPM should review the potential for rebates on council tax and stamp duty land taxto reward more sustainable households, and give a real incentive for investment in energy and water efficiencymeasures. The current Lyons Review of local government finance and structures, due for completion in time forthe Comprehensive Spending Review 2007, offers an opportunity to explore how local authorities can have morediscretion over such measures.

We support the introduction of one-off Council Tax rebates for households that install energy-efficiency measures,as piloted by Braintree Council and identified in the HM Treasury/Defra Energy Efficiency Innovation Review(82). ESTestimates that eight per cent of eligible households would take up this offer, saving 9.8 million tonnes carbon overthe lifetime of the measures(83). Post-2010 council tax re-valuation would enable a revenue-neutral bandingapproach to be introduced in all areas based on A-G ratings in Home Condition Reports, a measure which wassupported by participants at our Consumer forum, on condition that support would be made available to low-income households to make necessary improvements.

Improved householder feedback about actual consumption appears to be a very cost-effective way to tackleenergy demand.

Legislation should be introduced to enable Ofgem to implement a national meter replacement programme by2012, to ensure that all households can benefit from smart meters that will enable them to monitor and managetheir energy use. Smart meters should be capable of displaying real-time consumption, of monitoring exportedelectricity from microgeneration and of being read remotely. As a starting point they should be required for allmeter replacements and in all new connections. This should be implemented within the framework of thegovernment’s Energy Review and the Energy End-Use Efficiency and Energy Services Directive.

3.

4.

The government should work with Ofgem, Ofreg and energy suppliers to pilot different forms of enhanced billingfeedback on energy use in 2006 and build successful models into implementation of the Energy End-Use Efficiencyand Energy Services Directive via a new code of practice for energy suppliers from 2007(84).

The current structure of the energy market, based on competitiveness, actively works against innovative pricingmechanisms that would encourage demand reduction.

In the context of the Energy Review, we recommend that the government align Ofgem’s primary duty with the fourgoals of energy policy: to cut carbon emissions; maintain the reliability of energy supplies; promote competitivemarkets; and ensure that every home is adequately and affordably heated. A fundamental re-examination of thestructures of the energy market should then be undertaken, including the role of Ofgem and the potential oftariffs, pricing or graduated taxes in achieving carbon reductions.

We support the introduction of a requirement for universal water metering by companies in areas under waterstress(85). Most of southern and eastern England has been identified by the Environment Agency as being underwater stress. Water use is very hard to influence without water metering, to enable people to monitor and becharged for what they use. Once metering is in place, tariffs must include a built-in allowance to protectvulnerable consumer groups.

As part of wider work on waste and resources, Defra should conduct a feasibility study into the potential of anational Recycling Lottery to promote new forms of recycling, as recommended by the NCC, drawing on theevidence of incentive schemes supported at a local level.

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6.

5.

7.

8.

We are perhaps more aware than everbefore that what we eat plays a crucialrole in influencing our health andcapacity to enjoy life. We are lessaware of the critical impact it canhave on the well-being of the planet.Food is the average household’snumber one impact on climatechange: responsible for nearly a third(31 per cent) of our climate impact(86).

But this is not a bad news story.The evidence is clear that sustainableconsumption and better nutrition can,and should, go hand-in-hand(87).Seasonal produce, extensively-farmed meat in lower quantities, and a shift away from over-exploitedwhite fish to sustainably-harvestedoily species, are all changes that aredesirable from a nutritional andsustainability perspective.

There are surely few more enjoyableand effective ways of responding toclimate change than by reconnectingour national diet to the flow ofseasons. According to the Institute forGrocery Distribution, two-thirds ofconsumers (and higher across ‘middleEngland’) report being positive aboutbuying seasonal foods(88).

It was evident at our Consumerforum that seasonal, local and organicfood is becoming increasingly topicaland understood. Taking time to buyand prepare quality food for familyand friends is a growing hobby formany people. This is partly due to thecharismatic influence of celebritychefs like Rick Stein, Jamie Oliver,Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall andNigel Slater.

‘And I think I don’t know enough about

when things are in season because I’m so

used to it all year around; I don’t know

when strawberries come.’


However, others were frank abouttheir penchant for, or reliance on,convenience.

‘You want to do your shopping in an hour

Ó you don’t want to spend 20 minutes in

ten different shops that are half a

mile apart…’


Given the market share of thesupermarkets, it is reasonable toexplore what more they can do to‘edit out’ unnecessary food miles,packaging and waste, and to prioritisemore seasonal produce. It may be thatsteps can also be taken, whether atthe local level through planning, ornational level through the work ofcompetition authorities, to ensure thatsupermarkets give people of all socio-economic groups access tohealthy and sustainable food that isalso affordable.

It is not just local supply that wouldreap dividends for carbon reduction.The disappearance of local shops,and their replacement with centrally-located supermarkets, is an importantclimate change issue too. It is worthnoting that the combined greenhousegas emissions of the nation’s weeklysupermarket shop are equivalent tothe impacts from road freighting foodin the UK(89).

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The food we eat

Practical catalyst 3: healthyand sustainable menus inschools and hospitalsOur eating patterns, of course, are noless habitual than our use of energy.How do we influence current trends ofeating too much meat, or habits ofbuying strawberries in December? We can start by getting into moresustainable habits in the first place.The example set by meals served inschools and hospitals will have a rippleeffect on what parents, pupils andpatients assume is a healthy diet forthemselves at home.

Thanks to the spotlight shone by JamieOliver’s Feed Me Better campaign,parents everywhere are now calling forschool meals to set a better examplefor children and get them used to amore healthy diet(90). The agenda ofschool meal reform is a crucialopportunity to get upcominggenerations used to the pattern of theseasons and healthy alternatives toeating cheap meat twice or threetimes a day. So far it is not clear thatthe opportunity will be taken. A narrow focus on nutrients alone risksneglect of the wider synergies withclimate change and local agriculturethat can flow from a shift towardsmore fresh, sustainably-farmed fruitand vegetables.

Defra needs to work more closely withthe Department for Education andSkills, the Department of Health andthe Audit Commission to give localauthorities, schools and hospitalsconfidence that they will not bepenalised for serving up seasonal,sustainable, quality menus rather thanresorting to low-cost options.

In schools, the ripple effect of schoolmeals should be reinforced by aparallel educational programme. It will pay huge dividends for healthand sustainability if cooking classesare viewed as an essential life-skill forall, alongside IT. Evidence from 1,600schools participating in the GardenOrganic for Schools project shows thatgetting children to grow their ownvegetables can make the job ofgetting them interested in eatinggreens a lot easier(91).

45

Recommendations for the food we eat

1.

2.

We recommend that the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) should give the new School Food Trust a clearmandate to help schools familiarise children with more nutritious and sustainable diets. Cooking and nutrition lessonsshould be incorporated into the curriculum as a life skills tool. The DfES Growing Schools programme should be given a dedicated fund to support schools in disadvantaged areas seeking to develop vegetable gardens or make farm visits,to reflect the importance of the ‘outdoor classroom’ experience in getting children more interested in food origins and quality.

Defra, in partnership with the DfES and the Department of Health (DoH), should further develop and agree with theAudit Commission authoritative guidance for public procurers on how they can give due weighting to sustainabilitycriteria in all public sector catering contracts. Building on the work of the Public Sector Food Procurement Initiative(92),procurers should be encouraged to use available powers to specify extensively-reared meat and dairy products,seasonal fresh produce, and fish certified as sustainable by the MSC. Although EU rules discourage specification oflocal or fair trade produce, procurers should be supported in developing such supply relationships for key food items.

Defra and the DoH should give a mandate to the Food Standards Agency to integrate advice to the public on food inrelation to nutritional and sustainability objectives. This will require close attention to the underlying evidence base,but we expect it to highlight:

a. advice on fish consumption that points people towards more nutritious and well-managed species, with an emphasison fisheries recognised as sustainable by the MSC, and away from species the MSC identifies as over-exploited.

b. the value of moving away from meat-intensive diets to those based more around moderate consumption of local,extensively-reared meat, and a greater intake of fruit and vegetables.

Defra should work to reduce the climate impacts of meat and dairy, by working with retailers, public procurers andthe UK livestock sector to develop roadmaps by 2007 for a transition to a more localised supply chain of extensively-farmed meat and dairy products. The department should also promote the use of a diverse range of cuts of meat tocut down on waste.

Defra should fund public-facing initiatives to increase seasonal consumption and familiarise people with lesser knownmeat cuts and well-managed fish species, in the context of wider work on social marketing. These initiatives should bein partnership with UK farmers, retailers, celebrity chefs and NGOs. The campaign will build on the efforts of theSustainable Farming and Food Implementation Group to reconnect people with the origins of food, and should beunderpinned by negotiated commitments from public procurers and retailers Ó as part of the Food IndustrySustainability Strategy Ó to promote sustainable and seasonal produce.

3.

4.

5.

At the Consumer forum, there werespontaneous references to theenvironmental impact of cars, and theneed for cleaner, ‘greener’ ways ofgetting around. People talked aboutthe need for more accessible, morereliable public transport and evenhighlighted the advantages of walkingand cycling more.

‘I love walking. You take in a lot more of

the world.’


But they were also candid about theirpersonal attachment to cars and theconcept of car ownership. It wasclear that for many people the carrepresents a personal symbol ofstatus and identity, as well as a meansof getting from one place to another.This emotional attachment to cars –together with the percievedunreliability of public transport – left people struggling to reconcileenvironmental concerns with theneed to cut back on driving.

Participants were asked to identifymeasures they would be prepared toconsider in tackling the over-use ofthe car. Once again, they placed aparticular emphasis on fairness.Public transport was not typicallyregarded as credible and car clubswere not seen as attractive – partlybecause they fail to meet the need forautonomy, which personal ownershipseems to deliver.

We were able to conclude that theconcept of shifting taxation awayfrom car ownership and onto car usein a transparent way can commandsupport. However, when it comes totaxation of fuel, vehicles and roaduse, people are often sceptical of themotives of policy-makers: they seetaxes as revenue-raisers rather thancarbon-cutters. But clear and visiblehypothecation – from tax revenues topublic transport – as in the case ofLondon’s congestion charge, can helpmake such taxes more acceptable to people.

These findings mirror evidence fromelsewhere about the challenge ofaddressing the car culture. A pre-requisite for achieving change is acommitted effort to improve publictransport services, to tackle long-termissues of access and mobility in asustainable way. But effort is alsoneeded to address our underlyingattachment to cars. One clearopportunity is to work with the grainof people’s pride in their cars andaccelerate the market for desirablelow-carbon cars.

We set out, right, a number ofrecommendations for improving theway we get around. These includesome suggestions for developing aproduct roadmap for mainstreaminglow-carbon cars, which can build onthe work of the Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership(93).

46

Getting around

Practical catalyst 4: hybrid carsWhen the Toyota Prius won Car of theYear at the 2005 Paris and Detroitmotor shows, it became a new must-have. As our Consumer forum madeclear, car ownership is, for manypeople, a symbol of status andidentity, an emotional connection asmuch as a practical requirement. Thefact that the Prius is not just adesirable model but has strongenvironmental credentials means thattheir owners can have all theiraspirations from their car met whilestill buying into environmentallyadvanced technology. On the right, weset out policy options that wouldunleash the investment needed tomake all the new must-have modelslow-carbon for UK drivers.

47

Recommendations for getting around

1.

2.

Local authorities need encouragement from the DfT to incorporate stronger guidance in Local Transport Plans toprioritise behavioural change measures, such as school and work travel plans, and video-conferencing, asrecommended by the SDC. The government should lead by example by adopting departmental travel plans with modalshift targets by 2009.

Local authorities should be encouraged by the DfT to introduce ‘hard measures’ like reallocation of road space,congestion charging and parking charges, to lock in the benefits of behaviour change measures so they are not eroded by induced traffic. Effective enforcement of the speed limit on motorways by the police also helps to reduce emissions.

The DfT should introduce a more explicit focus on carbon reduction into their welcome proposals for a national roadpricing scheme. Local authorities need more political and financial support in introducing congestion charging schemesand public transport services. We welcome the new Transport Innovation Fund as a step in this direction(95).

Apply the approach of a product roadmap to low-carbon cars. We recommend that the DfT urgently consider thefollowing(96):

a. Action to require car advertisements to display prominently the A-G efficiency rating of the car Ó making it morevisible on a daily basis.

b. Introduce a new top band of VED, and a £300 gap between each band, as recommended by the SDC. The top bandof VED would rise dramatically to £1,800/yr for vehicles emitting 221gC02/km or more, with a bottom band of £0for vehicles with emissions below 100g C02/km. We propose that this policy should be announced in 2006, butbrought into effect in 2008. The SDC believes that this would dramatically improve the market demand for highlyfuel efficient vehicles such as hybrid cars, achieving carbon savings of around 0.4 to 0.8MtC/yr.

c. After appropriate consultation, announce at the earliest opportunity that the proposed road-pricing scheme will bebanded by vehicle emissions rating.

d. Remove financial disincentives to low-emission vehicles, such as the higher mileage rates given to more powerfulengines in the NHS.

e. Issue a procurement call committing the government to purchasing only vehicles that meet stringent emissionsstandards (to ensure 25 per cent fleet below 125gC02/km by 2009), if such models can be delivered below anagreed price threshold(97).

3.

4.

Recent research suggests that a high intensity application of measures that help facilitate behavioural change, such as school, green and personalised travel plans, telecommuting and video-conferencing, could reduce car traffic by eleven per centover a decade(94).

Overseas travel represents a majoraspiration for many people.Participants at the Consumer forumspoke of their attachment to flyingabroad for sun and for short breaks.Among less affluent groups therewere numerous references to how thelow-cost carrier boom has opened uptravel to a wider section of thepopulation.

People were also shocked when theywere informed of the impact offlying on climate change. For many,flying has always been presented as apositive thing, a chance to broadenyour mind.

‘You just want to experience as much as

you can, and learn about the different

ways of living as well. And you can’t do

that by staying around the same people.’


There is a clear paradox in therelationship between travel andsustainability. Many champions ofthe environment and the developingworld would acknowledge that travelwas a driving force in opening theireyes. Yet there is no question that weurgently need to limit the rapidincrease in carbon emissions fromfrequent flying.

The fact that one of the ten break-out groups at the Consumer forumchose an end to internal flights withinBritain as their ‘best idea of the day’demonstrates that attitudes are opento change. It may be that, with carefuland visible investment ininfrastructure, and improvements ininner-city rail services (where these area realistic and available alternative) morepeople might become receptive toleadership on curbing domestic flights.

Even so, there are fewer alternativesto air travel in some cases. People inNorthern Ireland, for example, canclaim with some reason that air travelhelps to reduce their potentialisolation from the rest of the UK andthe European mainland.

Overseas travel is a more contentiousarea. Of course, projected emissionsgrowth from aviation means thatdemand management is urgent andessential. Bringing aviation into theKyoto Protocol and emissions tradingschemes will be important steps. Butit would be short-sighted to think thatwe can leave air passengers out of theequation when we push for moreradical interventions. As we haveargued upfront, if policy-makers andadvocates are to create and retain themandate for the bold action that isneeded on sustainable consumptionthen policy will need to actively touchthe lives of citizens and engage withthem honestly and courageously. Ourcontribution has been to see howpublic support, and hence politicalwill, can be built for essential demandmanagement measures. This is therationale for rolling out carbon offseton an opt-out basis.

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Holiday travel

Practical catalyst 5: opt-outcarbon offset for flightsCarbon offset schemes are a way totake action on climate change, byputting money aside to make apositive difference. Of themselves,they will only ever be one of a widerange of policy tools needed toreduce the impact of flying andmanage demand, but we believe thata positive approach to offsettingcould have public resonance wellbeyond the tonnes of C02 offset, andwould help to build awareness of theneed for other measures.

British Airways adopted a carbonoffset scheme in 2005, but take-up islow, implying that the issue is notfront-of-mind to most air travellers.

Public sector procurement, with acommitment to implement carbonoffset across all central governmentdepartments from April 2006, islikely to have a positive effect onthis highly competitive sector.However, the scope for significantgrowth in market share is a very tallorder, given competitive pressures.So we propose:

1. An ‘opt-out’, rather than an ‘opt-in’approach for consumers. Data fromthe Travel Foundation (a voluntaryscheme on sustainable development intourism and travel) suggests this canachieve around 60 per cent take-up,far higher than on an opt-in basis.Data from the payroll deductions onpension saving support this(98).

2. Align the incentives on airoperators, within the current, highlycompetitive industry. The AirPassengers Duty may be a bluntinstrument in relation to climatechange. But, as an incentive forairlines that want to promote moresustainable lifestyles, it is a practical option.

3. The market for carbon offset needsto grow and to develop qualitystandards that operate across countries.

Therefore, the Chancellor shouldincrease the Air Passengers Duty, butwaive this for companies that offerconsumers (quality-assured) carbonoffset on an opt-out basis.

49

Recommendations on holiday travel

1.

2.

HM Treasury should introduce a clear incentive for opt-out carbon offset schemes across all airlines. This can beimplemented using a two-tier system for Air Passenger Duty, or similar approach, that gives rebates on the higher ratefor airlines that offer consumers (quality assured) carbon offset on an opt-out basis from 2007.

The government should introduce an emissions charge for internal air travel, as recommended by the SDC, to reflectthe environmental impact of short-haul flights relative to inter-city rail.

There is an urgent need to tackle emissions in advance of EU measures and wake people up to the impacts of flying.

From individuals to communities

The spectrum of action we havedescribed makes community-basedaction an imperative. While changesmay be driven by ‘choice editing’ andby offering more sustainable productsand services, strong communitynetworks are needed to achievechange further along the spectrum.It is simply not possible to achievethe step-change needed for ‘one-planet living’ unless people areenabled to work together, both asconsumers and, perhaps moreimportantly, as citizens.

Breaking out of habits and norms isdifficult as an individual. Groups,however, can create a newmomentum for change. A substantialevidence base suggests that:

> ‘unfreezing’ bad habits is moresuccessful in groups;

> overcoming social lock-in requiresgroup support;

> new social norms are negotiated ingroups;

> social learning is an effective toolfor encouraging new behaviours;

> community-based management ofsocial goods has a long andeffective pedigree(99).

The popularity of walking groups andWeightWatchers-style programmeshas shown that the group setting canovercome apathy and encouragepeople to help each other tackle new challenges(100).

Eco-clubs and other community-levelinitiatives offer a promising wayforward in helping people movetowards more sustainable lifestyles.The have the potential to influencegovernance and decision-making atlocal level, leading to more activecitizenship(101). However, such projects

will never become mainstream unlessthere is an absolute commitmentfrom all levels of government tocreate the conditions which allowthem to thrive(102). At this stage, thepriority must be to learn more aboutwhat works and what does not workfrom existing initiatives.

Defra’s Environmental Action Fundis funding around 35 community-based projects in sustainableconsumption across the country.The initiatives vary from localcommunity-based projects likeWiltshire Wildlife Trust’s ClimateFriendly Towns and Villages, toGAP’s EcoTeams, involving officecolleagues. Other projects are spreadacross communities of interest, suchas the National Trust’s Small Steps,Big Changes. Together, theseinitiatives provide an opportunity tolearn how to achieve effectivecommunity-based social change.

We look forward eagerly to the fullthree-year evaluation of theseprojects. The lessons for stakeholdersand government from theEnvironmental Action Fund projectsshould be combined with other casestudy evaluations, both within thesustainability field – such as the workdone by the ChangeLAB project –and beyond, in areas such as publichealth and anti-social behaviour(103).We have been able to gain someprovisional insights from a series of

in-depth interviews with communityleaders from a selection of theseprojects and from existing evidence inthis area(104).

A number of measures would bettersupport their ability to deliver moresustainable consumption:

> a more robust and agreedmethodology for evaluatingbehaviour change, to help projectsmonitor their own effectivenessand compare with others;

> visible commitment to thesustainability agenda by centralgovernment to convince individualsthat taking part is worthwhile – andto convince funders that the issuesare worth supporting;

> a supportive infrastructure andfiscal environment, to makebehaviour change possible andattractive, and to reward people for their participation incommunity action;

> an ongoing governmentcommitment to provide medium-term funding (as with theEnvironmental Action Fund’sthree-year cycle) for fully-evaluatedpilot and start-up projects. Manyprojects are self-sustaining andpursuing innovative partnershipand funding strategies to reduce the need for further public money;

> consistent and well-resourcedsupport from local government.Beyond waste, sustainableconsumption is often not a key issuefor local authorities. The ODPMmust make sustainable living apriority for local government,through Local Area Agreementsand other tools (see page 53) withappropriate supporting funding;

Five: show people they are part of something bigger

51

‘Breaking out of habits and norms is difficult as an individual. Groups,however, can create a newmomentum for change.’

> a government-funded network forpractitioners to share informationabout resources and effectivetechniques, and to feed into policy-making at local and national levels.This would offer an opportunity forsmall community-level groups andlarger organisations in the UK tocollectively engage with Europeanand international processes, such asthe UN Environment Programme’sSustainable ConsumptionOpportunities for Europe project(105).

Pledges and feedback

Smart communication can help togive people the confidence that theirindividual action is being matched by others and bringing aboutmeaningful change. For example, thepledgebank.com website, with thestrap-line ‘I’ll do it, but only if youhelp me do it’, invites people tocreate a pledge along the lines of:‘I’ll do something, if X many otherpeople pledge to do the same thing’.Pledges currently pick up supportthrough micro-marketing. Once apledge is created, flier and textmessage formats are automaticallygenerated and can be circulated toencourage others in a workplace orneighbourhood to sign up. They are a great device for getting peopleinteracting with others.

The pledge model has the potential tobe scaled up in a range of applications.

> NGOs could use it to get theirmembers implementing masschanges like car-sharing.

> Local authorities could use it toincrease recycling levels or energyconservation. The pledge could bemade by the authority: ‘We thecouncil will provide X, but only ifY thousand local authority citizens

will pledge to do Z’. One examplemight be to commit to improvestreet lighting if enough peoplepledge to start using composters.

Another example might be offeringloft insulation at a discount if over 100people in the same district took it up.

Suppliers of green products andservices could offer local authoritiessignificant discounts if they couldplan to install or sell a fixed numberof measures in a neighbourhood, asthis would reduce their transactioncosts considerably.

To date, Sutton Council have signedup over 1,000 residents to a PlanetPledge, offering advice, support andincentives like discounts on cyclerepair and tube travel in return forpledges to take steps like fitting loftinsulation, recycling supermarketplastic bags and leaving the car athome for short journeys.

Another excellent model for takingpeople on a carbon-reduction journeyis supplied by CRed, the CommunityCarbon Reduction Project, based inthe East of England and focusing onNorfolk and Norwich. Through theirwebsite – www.cred-uk.org – peoplecan follow pledge pathways andreceive advice and feedback on howmuch carbon they will be saving.

Better feedback on the collectiveachievements of a community’sstreet, compared with others, can alsomotivate more individual action.Pilots conducted by GuildfordBorough Council and SurreyUniversity raised the number ofpeople recycling by up to 39 per cent– to a high of 90 per cent – simplyby giving householders feedback onhow well their street was doingcompared with others(106).

Community learningThe mainstreaming of community-basedaction on sustainability requires a strong government framework to create the enabling conditions for it to thrive.

Community projects do have the power to effect significant behaviourchanges(107). Nonetheless, there arecurrently few measures of their long-term impact, or evaluation of successes.

Projects designed with sustainability astheir first objective can often deliver arange of other ‘social goods’. Forexample, Peterborough EnvironmentCity Trust is building neighbourliness,networks and institutions from scratchin a brand new development within thegovernment’s Sustainable CommunitiesPlan. The Trust is also working inpartnership with the RichmondFellowship Employment and TrainingDivision, to provide volunteeringopportunities for people who havesuffered mental health problems, as astepping stone back into the community.Action for Sustainable Living inManchester is introducing people withdifferent socio-economic profiles towork on shared projects. Similarly,Groundwork has achieved a powerfuleffect across the religious divide inNorthern Ireland.

Yet these projects are largelyunrewarded for their contribution to the policy goals of central and localgovernment. Chasing funding from alarge number of different governmentpots, each with different criteria, istime-consuming. It may be that theTogether We Can programme, co-ordinated by the Home Office, offersthe best opportunities to integratecommunity level action aroundsustainability and quality of life.

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53

Government should support local community action, by joining up funding and evaluation programmes forbehaviour change initiatives that deliver sustainable consumption alongside regeneration, social cohesion andhealthy lifestyles. This should build on the Home Office’s Together We Can programme and Defra’s CommunityAction 2020.

The ODPM, as part of its forthcoming white paper on the future of local government, should move beyond wastemanagement to make sustainable living a priority for local government. The tools at its disposal include Local AreaAgreements, Local Public Service Agreements, Best Value Performance Indicators and the ComprehensivePerformance Assessment with appropriate supporting funding and training.

Defra should fund a network for organisations delivering behaviour change for sustainable living at the community-level to: share learning and information about resources and effective techniques with each other and with theresearch community; and to feed into policy-making at both local and national levels. The network should draw onthe experience of the London Sustainability Exchange in building capacity among its partners and should alsofacilitate engagement with EU and international networks.

The ODPM and Defra should work with local councils to pilot two new communications-based approaches to leverup community action, recycling levels and energy conservation:

a. the use of web-based pledges, by local authorities.

b. better feedback on the collective recycling or other behaviour change achievements of a street orneighbourhood by comparison with others. Feedback should be given to households on how their own street’srecycling rate compares with the best-performing street in the area, and with the borough target.

Recommendations for community-based action

1.

2.

3.

4.

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Six: The long-term challenges

Pauses for reflection

As we have already highlighted, ifeveryone on the planet were toconsume natural resources and emitcarbon dioxide at the same rate as we do in Europe, we would needthree planets to support us. If a UScitizen is taken as the model, we willneed five planets. The obvious bearsre-stating: we do not have this many planets!

Throughout this report, we have been concerned with identifyingpractical, positive measures to deliver sustainable consumption.Policy-makers need to know how toact now to make modern lifestylesmore sustainable. Almost everyspecific action that we have identifiedin earlier sections of the report couldbe initiated – given sufficient political will – in the lifetime ofthe current government.

At the same time, we are acutelyaware that some of these measuresmay be more difficult than others toimplement; and that the actions wepropose will not in themselves besufficient to meet the challenge of a‘one planet’ society. There is, as wehave said, the need for action acrossthe spectrum of issues of importancefor a sustainable future.

In this section of the report, we lookat some of the more complex, longer-term challenges we will face on thepath to sustainable consumption.

Consuming differently or consuming less?

An important tension is evident in thedebate about sustainableconsumption. Some people insist thatsustainable consumption inevitablymeans ‘consuming less’. Others

maintain, just as fervently, that it isnot about consuming less at all butabout ‘consuming differently’.

In the first camp are those wholament the ‘rampant materialism’ ofmodern society and suggest that wewould actually be happier and enjoy abetter quality of life by consumingless. They point to evidence ofvoluntary ‘down-shifting’: people who appear to opt for a better work-life balance, more quality timewith their families and a low-consumption lifestyle(108).

In the second camp are those whosuggest that consuming less wouldrestrict choice and reduce the qualityof people’s lives. They argue insteadthat sustainable consumption involves‘consuming efficiently’. They highlightthe transformative power of themarket to deliver greater efficiency inindustrial processes, cleaner andgreener products, and moresustainable consumer choices.

This division suggests two distinctroutes to sustainable consumption.One looks for deeper engagementwith the natural world, aims forincreased self-reliance and simplerlives, and calls for large-scale changesin people’s aspirations and behaviours.The other seeks sustainability in thecontinuing march of progress,opening out the possibility of new,more sustainable products thatsimultaneously improve our lives. Weappear to be offered a choice betweentwo competing alternatives. Whichroute should we choose?

The reality is that this suggestion of a‘fork in the road’ is misleading.Neither model of change is completein itself. The first makes vast andpossibly unrealistic demands onhuman nature. It risks alienating those

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whose behaviour it seeks to change.The second neglects one of the keylessons from the past: that efficiencyimprovements are often outstrippedby growing aspirations and increasedconsumption elsewhere. Neithermodel is yet capable of demonstratingthat it will lead to a ‘one planet’society(109). In reality, elements fromboth strategies are going to be needed.

The divided view highlights some ofthe key issues that lie at the heart ofthe challenge of sustainableconsumption. The first is a lack ofclarity over the term ‘consumption’itself. The second is the link betweenconsumption and economic stability.A third is the role of business indelivering sustainability. A fourth isinequality. The fifth is the complexity of lifestyle aspirations inmodern society.

We will address each of these fiveissues in turn. None of them is simpleto resolve. So rather than attemptingto present quick-fix ‘solutions’, weconcern ourselves here witharticulating some of the issues. At thesame time, we suggest some practicalways in which government canincrease its competence in addressingthese challenges.

Consuming less of what?

Whether you believe we will need toconsume less or consume differently,it helps to be clear about what youmean. The ‘consumption’ of materialresources is not necessarily the samething as the ‘consumption’ ofeconomic goods and services. But theargument often proceeds as though itwere the same. Or else it assumes thatthe one can easily be ‘decoupled’ fromthe other.

Those who argue for a simpler lifetend to look at the existing structureof consumer society – built on theever-increasing accumulation anddisposal of material possessions – andassume that the only way to stop thedamage is to curb the economicsystem which feeds it. This viewalarms those responsible for keepingthe economy going, as well as thosewho have an economic interest in theexisting system.

Those resisting any notion ofconsuming less have a tendency tolevel charges of naivety at the down-shifters, and insist that it is possible toreduce environmental and socialimpacts without compromisingeconomic consumption. This view isseen by the ‘down-shifters’ as adefence of the status quo which isunlikely to deliver the radical changesin consumption that appear to beneeded. And so the debate getsincreasingly polarised. How can wenavigate a constructive course throughthe middle?

In the first place, it is plain that not allthings that people buy and do havethe same resource implications.Downloading MP3 tracks is treadinglightly compared to shopping for atable made from illegally felled teaktrees. It is certainly possible inprinciple to restrict resourceconsumption while growing theeconomy. We can cut the amount ofenergy and materials that go into

today’s products. We can encouragepeople to purchase new kinds of‘material-light’ products and services.

At the same time, it is clear that, as asociety, we will need to consume a lotless of certain things. We must burnfewer carbon-rich fuels if we are tomeet our national targets for climatechange. We must stop harvestingwood and fish faster than they canrestock. We must restrain our use offinite mineral resources if we are notto face severe economic shortages inthe future. We must eat less meat. Wemust throw away fewer disposableproducts if we are to reduce thevolumes of waste going to landfill.

It is crucial that we acknowledge theseconstraints and place them at theheart of a sustainable economicpolicy. It is worth remembering that,in some cases, consuming less can bea straightforward case of cutting outwaste – less energy and money leakingout of people’s homes, less unwantedpackaging on supermarket products.

And yet, at present, it is hard to seehow rising economic consumption isto be made compatible with theselimits. It certainly cannot be taken asself-evident that efficiencyimprovements will do all the work forus. To date, despite much rhetoric tothe contrary, there is little hard andfast evidence of decoupling economicgrowth from environmental impact.Rather, we in the West appear to beexporting our production impacts todeveloping countries and thenimporting the products to consume.

To get a better handle on this, weneed to dramatically improve ourunderstanding of the reliance of theeconomy on material resources. Ourstatistical frameworks are, for themost part, well-developed where

‘We must stop harvestingwood and fish faster thanthey can restock. We musteat less meat.’

economic flows are concerned. Butthe same cannot be said of thoserelating to material flows, resourcerequirements or environmental andsocial impacts. Until we have robuststatistical frameworks for thisimportant information, it will remainimpossible to address the overallresource and environmentalimplications of economicconsumption patterns, and impossibleto validate or refute the claim that de-coupling is possible. The work ofWWF and Biffaward in developing thefirst comprehensive set of UKmaterial flow and energy accountsprovides the ideal platform on whichto build.

Beyond the ‘consumer economy’

A whole chapter of Securing the Futureis devoted to the idea of the one-planet economy – but what does thismean? Consumption is intimatelylinked to economic stability. Vigorousconsumer spending signals a boomingeconomy, a thriving production sector,full employment, healthy tax revenuesand plenty of money in the publicpurse. By contrast, as every economicscorrespondent knows, the first sign ofrecession is a slump in high-streetshopping. Like it or not, oureconomies go hand in glove withconsumer activity and – for themoment at least – that means thecontinued purchase and use ofmaterial goods.

This is surely one of the reasons whycalls to reduce consumption are sofiercely contested. It’s not just materialthings that are at stake here, but theentire structure of the moderneconomy. Without consumptiongrowth, it is argued, output woulddrop, jobs would be lost, incomeswould fall, and there would be

insufficient funds in the public purseto treat the sick or educate ourchildren. The call to a simpler life isnot so simple after all.

Of course this immediate realityshould not preclude us from searchingfor alternative patterns ofconsumption. If economicconsumption can be decoupled frommaterial consumption, if peoplepurchased high-value services insteadof resource-intensive artefacts, ifconsumer commodities become valueheavy and materially light, then wecould preserve economic stability andstill meet environmental and socialtargets. If people accepted highertaxes and invested more in the future,we might even be able to preserveeconomic stability without a massivegrowth in private consumption. Butthese are all big ‘ifs’.

In the meantime, the existingeconomic structure operates as amajor disincentive to sustainableconsumption.

Models for sustainable businesses

Sustainable consumption hasprofound implications for businesspractices. Delivering the changeshighlighted in this report requiresmore than improved environmentalmanagement or an allegiance tocorporate social responsibility. Itrequires whole new ways of doingbusiness: different profitabilitystructures, different relationshipsalong supply chains, different business models.

Most obviously, companies who havemade their profits from extracting andselling material resources will need toadapt and change. The energy sectoris a case in point. The privatisation ofgas and electricity markets in the late

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1980s and early 1990s resulted in anenergy supply sector whoseprofitability now rests on increasingsales of gas and electricity toconsumers. Attempts to regulate theseindustries to improve energyefficiency and to invest in ‘energyservices’ have struggled against theprevailing revenue structure of theindustry. The regulatory regime forsuppliers and network operators isitself so complex now that it militatesagainst economic efficiency. And thepotentially attractive model of energyservice companies has failed to gainany purchase in the marketplace(110).

But the challenge is not confined tosuppliers of primary energy andmaterial resources. Even in today’s so-called ‘service economy’, businessmodels are predominantly based onmaterial commodities(111). Selling fewercommodities invites lower profits, anoutcome which is never attractive toshareholders. Inevitably, therefore,business will resist changes whichappear to threaten the basis oftheir profitability.

Of course, there will be some‘winners’ in the corporate sector:companies with the foresight andingenuity to respond to the challengeof sustainable consumption anddevise more sustainable products andservices. But isolated examples ofsuccess are not enough. It is going tobe necessary to shift the profitabilitystructures of whole sectors of theeconomy. Without support fromgovernment, it is difficult to see howcompanies are going to respondanything other than defensively to thechallenge of sustainable consumption.

Inequality

Not every UK citizen leads a lifestylethat contributes to the ‘three-planet’economy. Inequalities in income andspending are growing. More peopledie from cold weather in Britain thanin any other European country.Similarly, the boom in car ownershipand frequent flying is still traceable tothe most affluent in society, not thepoorest. Recent research by the CivilAviation Authority found that thepoorest quarter of society took onlyten per cent of the flights last year. Bycontrast, more than half thepassengers on budget airlines camefrom the richest quarter(112).

In a culture increasingly geared togetting around by car, to the value ofconsumer goods and the dictates offashion, there may be social shame formany in not being able to fit in.‘Keeping up with the Joneses’ becomesa powerful and uncomfortable driverof material consumption. The mostenthusiastic young consumers agedbetween 11 and 18, are those from thepoorest households, who can affordthe least(113).

The dynamics of more or lessinequality also play out as a significantfactor at the global level, both withinand between countries. Poverty can beassociated with environmentaldegradation, so development mayhelp. Alternatively, in some of thepoorest regions of the world, climatechange is undermining attempts tochart a way out of poverty. Perhapsthere is much to be learned frompoorer groups and societies that haveplaced a cultural premium onstrategies of self-reliance andefficiency in the use of resources. Yet,in China and India, the growth of theurban middle classes, with aspirationsto eat, travel and drive as active

consumers, inevitably accelerates thepressures that our lifestyles currentlymake upon the planet.

The case for action to address povertyis compelling – and this requires asustainable natural resource base tosucceed. Sustainable consumption hasrelevance for every country. But wherethere are trade-offs or prioritiesaround investment opportunities, thechallenge is to recognise the moralclaim of those in poverty, incomparison with the economic swayof people that are better-off.

Social aspirations

Our work with the Consumer forumhighlighted the importance peopleplace on family, security and thefuture well-being of theircommunities. It even revealed aspontaneous concern about theimpact of modern lifestyles on theenvironment. But there was also clearevidence of some familiar materialaspirations: nice homes, fast cars andholidays in the sun.

These aspirations are often taken as agiven in modern society. Theexpansion of consumer desire is seenas an inevitable consequence of risingincomes and increased choice. Risingaspirations for material goods (both inthis country and in developingcountries) pose a massive challenge tosustainable consumption.

Yet these material aspirations do notemerge out of nowhere. In the firstplace, it is clear that our personalaspirations are influenced by culturalnorms and expectations.We constantly receive signals aboutappropriate or desirable behaviourfrom those around us, fromadvertisers, from the media, fromperformance indicators, some of

them laid down by government.Inconsistent signals from withingovernment can undermine the bestintentions of behaviour changecampaigns. Signals from marketingand the media can do the same. At themoment, the level of understandingof these processes in policy is weak.

Any robust exploration of people’sbehaviour reveals that our relationshipto material things is deeply entwinedwith social and psychological goals.Finding ways to meet these underlyinggoals in ways that involve less materialconsumption offers a relativelyunexplored avenue towardssustainable consumption(114). Researchshows that social and psychologicalgoals are ill-served by materialismanyway(115). Creating opportunities tofulfil our potential in less materialways is a key task for sustainableconsumption policy.

At the very least, the Consumerforum showed that materialaspirations appear to be tempered byreal concerns about family, securityand the future. Understanding howpeople approach this tension iscrucial. Engaging with people tonegotiate more sustainable lifestylesoffers a vital opportunity to do this.

Mass communications andsustainability

Mass communications – advertising,marketing and the media – arepowerful forces in modern society,shaping our aspirations, lifestyles,identities, relationships and, of course,our consumption patterns(116). Inthemselves, it is claimed, these formsof communication are neither goodnor bad. But their impact onsustainability depends critically onhow they are used and whose interests

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they promote. There has been a surgeof academic interest over the last twodecades in how mass communicationhas shaped society. Ironically, little ofthis has looked explicitly at the impact of advertising and the mediaon sustainability(117).

Not all of this impact is negative. Forexample, a recent surge of interest inTV documentaries and docu-soaps onenvironmental issues has certainlyraised awareness in the generalpublic(118). And the creative potentialof the advertising industry to be aforce for sustainability is significant.Some useful recent work has beendone by UNEP and others on howadvertising, branding and marketingcommunications can be used to sellboth more sustainable products andthe concept of sustainableconsumption in broader terms(119).

At the same time, the masscommunication media do pose somemajor risks for sustainableconsumption. Advertising is anenduring reality in people’s lives.The advertising industry in the UK isnow worth over £18.3bn(120).Marketing introduces peoplecontinually to new and differentproducts – and to an expanding rangeof product choice. But some of theseproducts are not sustainable at all.And while the effect of any particularadvert on an individual may berelatively small, the cumulative impactof advertising in shaping social andcultural expectations is known to be very significant(121).

Advertising standards currently dolittle to ensure that advertising isconsistent with the government’s ownenvironmental or social targets.Voluntary initiatives in the advertisingindustry – such as those of the World

Federation of Advertisers on‘responsible advertising’ are to bewelcomed(122). But most of these focusexclusively on advertising to children;and even in this critical area there isevidence that voluntary initatives arenot working(123). The impact ofmarketing and the media on a widerrange of sustainability issues over abroader range of the populationremains virtually unexplored andalmost completely unregulated.An urgent policy initiative is needed to address this.

Opening out policy

We have discussed these problemareas as distinct issues. But they are, ofcourse, related. A growing economyrequires thriving businesses. Thrivingbusinesses encourage risingaspirations. Rising aspirations lead to ahigher demand for economic goods.And so the consumer economy drivesitself. On a narrow view, this ‘virtuouscircle’ seems profitable for allconcerned and far superior to thevicious cycle of economic depression.But it is not sustainable.

We need ways to deepen learning andreflection on these problem areas andto build the mandate for new actionto address the full spectrum ofsustainable consumption.

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Defra should commit to an ongoing programme of deliberative fora (and other events) with the public, at anational and regional level, to inform policy planning. They should build on the existing commitment to aDeliberative Forum in 2006, by working to secure partnership from broadcasters, and thereby get more peopleengaged with what they can do to meet the carbon reduction targets that have already been agreed Ó 20 per centby 2010 and 60 per cent by 2050.

HM Treasury should develop a working economic model by 2008 that can track the links between national income,consumption growth, and resources.

As a precondition of this, Defra, the DTI, HM Treasury and the Environment Agency should (by 2007) co-fund apartnership programme with the Office for National Statistics to establish a comprehensive resource flow accountsframework for the UK, building on the work of WWF, Biffaward and others, with the aim of developing robustperiodic accounts for priority resources and impacts by the end of 2008.

The new Sustainable Consumption and Production Business Task Force should define new sustainable businessmodels in different sectors, based on high service provision and low material output, and engage with governmentto develop supportive policy frameworks, in close connection with the work on ‘product roadmaps’.

The government's Foresight programme should, as part of its next round of research, conduct a thorough review ofthe future impact of the cultural signals received by children, parents, consumers and citizens encouraging highmaterial consumption. People are routinely exposed to such images and ideas through, for example, the mediaand advertising. The review should focus on the impacts relating to the sustainability of UK consumption patterns,with particular attention to ecological limits and personal well-being.

Recommendations on long-term challenges

1.

2.3.

4.

5.

The Sustainable Development Commission and the National Consumer Council will work closely together to champion andtake forward all the recommendations in this report, through their own business plans and workstreams, and through activedialogue with government departments.

The long-term goal of sustainableconsumption must surely be: societalaspirations that are fair for everyone;business models which add humanvalue without taking awayenvironmental value; an economywhich is stable and yet sustainable.This is the vision set out in thegovernment’s sustainable developmentstrategy, Securing the Future. This is thedefining challenge of our century:how to fulfil our true potential and yetlive within our means.

We believe government can be bolderabout using the mandate it has to usepublic policy to influence marketsolutions. We set this out as aframework for policy on sustainableconsumption, with illustrations foraction. We do see win-win outcomesfrom short-run action in a number offields. In turn, these can alsocontribute to building a mandate forlonger-term solutions on complexissues. These include deeperchallenges, such as our aspirationswhen it comes to foreign travel andthe car culture, which at presentwould simply appear intractable.

We do not claim to have found all theanswers. The best way of learning,after all, is by doing.

It is now time for the government toget the policies in place to supportand reward people working to makesustainable consumption a reality inschools, hospitals, businesses andtheir own homes. The crucial missingpieces of the puzzle will be suppliedby them.

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Conclusion

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Pre-selecting the particular range of products and services available toconsumers. Choice-editing is seen by consumers as increasingly desirable as theylook to others to organise the choices that they face. Choice-editing is done bymanufacturers and service-providers when they decide which products andservices to offer, and to what specification; by retailers when they decide what toput on their shelves; and by governments in the product standards which theyset. Choice-editing happens every day according to a wide range of criteria,though currently sustainability is not a significant factor.

A systematic process using marketing techniques and approaches to achievebehavioural goals for social good.

A policy approach for addressing high-impact products, in which governmentsets out a long-term series of environmental performance objectives for aparticular product type. They are usually backed by a timetabled programme ofsupportive interventions, including forward procurement calls, fiscal incentivesand rising minimum product standards. Product roadmaps respond tobusinesses’ need for confidence in the future regulatory environment, whiledriving continuous reductions in the environmental impacts of key products.

The relationship between people as individuals and communities, businesses, andgovernment, indicating their shared responsibilities in taking action forsustainable consumption. The groups at each corner lead at different times bydoing what they can do best. Co-ordinated actions can lead to profound change.

A term used to describe the fact that if everyone in the world consumed at thesame rate as the average person in the UK we would need three planet Earths toprovide the resources and absorb the waste. This assessment comes from ecologicalfootprinting studies and is contrasted to the goal of a ‘one-planet economy’.

The observed disparity between people’s reported concerns about keyenvironmental, social, economic or ethical concerns and the lifestyle orpurchasing decisions that they make in practice.

The production of heat and/or electricity on a small-scale from a low carbonsource. Various technologies can be used for microgeneration – air source heatpumps, ground source heat pumps, fuel cells, micro-CHP, micro-hydro, micro-wind, bio-energy and solar (thermal and PV(photovoltaic)).

A company’s approach to being accountable to its stakeholders in all itsoperations and activities, with the aim of achieving sustainable development, notonly in the economic dimension but also in the social and environmental aspects.

Appendix one: glossary

Choice editing:

Microgeneration:

Value-action gap:

Three-planet economy:

Triangle of change:

Product roadmaps:

Social marketing:

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

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The Sustainable ConsumptionRoundtable commissioned OpinionLeader Research to conduct a majordeliberative event looking atsustainable consumption. The aims ofthe forum were:

> to explore views and attitudestowards potential interventions;

> to understand current consumeraspirations; and

> to provide insights that can shapeand influence future policy-making.

The event took the form of aConsumer forum with 105 peoplerecruited from the Manchester area.People were recruited to reflect thedemographics of the area. The eventwas conducted in Manchester on the6th and 7th October 2005. TheForum lasted over 1½ days andinvolved a mixture of plenary andsmaller breakout sessions.

During the first evening, we exploredconsumers’ aspirations. No referencewas made to the environment andsustainable consumption by theOpinion Leader team. The event waspositioned to participants as a forumon future consumer trends. Differentbreak-out groups looked at specificareas of consumption and life – foodand drink, getting away, gettingaround, their homes, and theirfamilies and community.

At the start of the second day,Andrew Lee from the Roundtablepresented the evidence on climatechange and three-planet living.This introduced the topic of the day, and ensured that participantswere brought ‘up-to-speed’ on the key issues.

Consumers then looked at specificareas of consumption – food anddrink, getting away, getting around, athome, carbon use – and interventionsin those areas. We ensured that thevarious breakout groups looked atinterventions in an area in which theyhad explored their aspirations thenight before. The interventionsexplored were:

At home

> Banding council tax – linkingenergy efficiency with council tax.

> Variable waste charging – whereconsumers ‘pay as they throw’.

> Recycling lottery – where recyclingis linked to a lottery scheme.

Food and drink

> MSC logo - an environmentalstandard which fisheries can applyfor to show that their methods aresustainable.

> School dinners reform –introducing a more sustainable dietin schools.

Getting around

> Car labelling – cars are ratedaccording to emissions, and tax isweighted accordingly.

> Road user charging – drivers are charged on a ‘pay as you drive’basis.

> Car clubs – consumers use a poolof cars, rather than owning theirown car.

Holidays

> Making flights cost more throughadded tax.

> Carbon offsetting on flights.

Carbon use

> Carbon credits – each person isgiven a certain amount of carboncredits to spend.

> Energy Services Companies –where people can pay back energyefficiency investments throughtheir bills.

Appendix two: consumer forum methodology

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The Sustainable ConsumptionRoundtable commissioned theUniversity of Cambridge Programmefor Industry to conduct a day-long‘Business Dialogue’ event in London.This drew together more than 30senior business managers for debateand discussion on the way forwardfor sustainable products.

Individuals were invited to participatein the Dialogue from a range of UKbusinesses that had some experiencein addressing the issues of sustainableconsumption. Participation from awide spread of sectors was achieved,including representatives from retail,manufacturers of consumer goods,utilities, business-to-business service,business-to-business manufacturing,and SMEs (small to medium-sizedenterprises).

A significant number of participantsin the Dialogue had specificresponsibility for sustainability issuesin their companies, but over half hadwider strategic responsibilitiesincluding CEOs, directors (business,strategy, environment), chairs,marketing executives, and risk andcommunications managers.

The Dialogue looked at fourquestions:

1. What might drive changes inconsumption patterns in the UKover the next ten years?

2. What discourages or preventspeople from consuming moresustainably?

3. What actions can business take todeliver goods and services thatencourage and enable people toconsume more sustainably?

4. What can government do toencourage and enable moresustainable consumption?

Each of the four questions wasdiscussed in turn although, inpractice, discussion of Questions 3and 4 tended to overlap. Question 1was considered in plenary; the otherswere discussed in break-out groupswith reports back fromrepresentatives of each group.

Participants were also asked to review a sustainable consumptionbusiness case narrative presented bythe Roundtable.

Appendix three: business dialogue methodology

References and notes

1. WWF, SEI, CURE, Biffaward,2006, Counting Consumption- CO2emissions, material flows and ecologicalfootprint of the UK by region anddevolved country.

2. CO2 emissions for the averagenew car sold in 2004 in the UKwere 9.7 per cent below 1997levels. SMMT (2005) UK New CarRegistrations by CO2 Performance,SMMT The total domesticpassenger distance travelled by carincreased by 15 per cent from1990-2004; source: DfT (2006)Transport Trends 2005 editionDfT.

3. www.defra.gov.uk/environment/statistics/globatmos/download/xls/gafg06int.xls

4. Supachai Panitchpakdi (2006)‘What’s Good for China is Goodfor the World’, in Global Agenda,2006, World Economic Forum,Davos, pp102-103.

5. Commission for Africa (2005) OurCommon Interest: Report of theCommission for Africawww.commissionforafrica.org/english/report/thereport/english/11-03-05_cr_report.pdf

6. Defra, DTI (2003) ChangingPatterns: UK Government Frameworkfor Sustainable Consumption andProduction; Halpern, D. (2004)Personal responsibility and changingbehaviour: the state of knowledge andits implications for public policy PrimeMinister’s Strategy Unit; HMGovernment (2005) Securing theFuture: delivering UK sustainabledevelopment strategy TSO

7. www.defra.gov.uk/environment/consumerprod/accpe;www.dti.gov.uk/sustainability/bo/sa.htm ;www.Defra.gov.uk/corporate/consult/fiss

8. For summaries of this evidencebase see Jackson, T 2005 MotivatingSustainable Consumption – a review ofevidence on consumer behaviour andbehavioural change. London: SDRN;Futerra 2004. The Rules of theGame; Dawney, E 2005. 10 lessonsabout behaviour change London: NewEconomics Foundation.

9. See for example: Appadurai, A1986. The Social Life of Things:commodities in cultural perspective.Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress; Campbell C 2004. I shoptherefore I know that I am: themetaphysical basis of modernconsumerism, Chapter 2 in Ekström,K and H Brembeck ElusiveConsumption, (New York: BergPublishers). Csikszentmihalyi, Mand E Rochberg-Halton 1981. TheMeaning of Things - domestic symbolsand the self, Cambridge and NewYork: Cambridge University Press;Dittmar, H 1992. The SocialPsychology of Material Possessions - tohave is to be, New York: St Martin'sPress; Douglas, M and BIsherwood 1979. The World ofGoods- towards an anthropology ofconsumption, reprinted 1996.London and New York:Routledge.

10. See for example Darnton, A 2004.Driving Public Behaviours forSustainable Lifestyles, Defra/COISustainable Development Desk ResearchReport 1: London: Defra. Jackson,T 2005. Motivating SustainableConsumption. SDRN; Shove, E2004. Efficiency and Consumption:Technology and Practice, Energy &Environment 15(6), 1053-1065

11. An assessment shared by theEnvironment Agency: ‘The publicis ready and willing to makeenvironmental change’, saysEnvironment Agency’s Chief

Executive. Your Environment, Issue9, Nov 2005-Jan 2006, p.4

12. ‘I will if you will’ also reflects theimportance of ‘co-production’ andstate-community-individualpartnerships in deliveringsuccessful policy outcomes. SeeHalpern, D. et al (2004) Personalresponsibility and changing behaviour:the state of knowledge and itsimplications for public policy PrimeMinister’s Strategy Unit. Actingtogether for sustainability may alsosupport – and be supported by –the development of ecologicalcitizenship in the UK. SeeDobson, A. (2003) Citizenship andthe Environment OUP.

13. Darnton, A. for Defra (2004) TheImpact of Sustainable Development onPublic Behaviour: Report 1 of DeskResearch commissioned by COIon behalf of Defra.

14. See report at www.sustainable-development.gov.uk/publications/documents/Sustainabledevelopment-pilotstudyforpublicdeliberativeforum.pdf; Brook Lyndhurst(2004) Bad Habits and Hard ChoicesBrook Lyndhurst;www..mori.com/polls/2005/pdf/mdi050918.pdf,www..mori.com/polls/trends/mdi-environment.shtml

15. Holdsworth, M.,(2003) GreenChoice, What Choice? NCC.

16. Welsh Consumer Council (2004)High Price to Pay: Consumer attitudesto sustainable consumption in WalesWCC see e.g. p.iii www..wales-consumer.org.uk/Research percent20and percent20policy/pdfs/50full.pdf;MORI survey for INCPEN(2005)

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17. Demos and Green Alliance (2004)Carrots, sticks and sermons

18. The ‘value-action gap’, a termused to describe the distancebetween people's environmentalconcerns and their actions hasbeen much discussed elsewhere.See Blake, J. 1999. Overcoming the'value-action gap' in environmentalpolicy: tensions between national policyand local experience. LocalEnvironment, 4, 257-278

19. For example, Holdsworth, M.(2003) Green choice, what choice?NCC; Jackson, T. (2005) Motivatingsustainable consumption, SDRN;Holdsworth, M. with Steedman, P.(2005) 16 Pain-free Ways to Help Savethe Planet NCC

20. This was before the subject of theevent, and role of the Roundtableas sponsor, was mentioned.

21. MORI/Evening Standard, April2005, 957 adults 18+

22. MORI Social Research InstituteDelivery Index, Sept 2005, 971adults

23. Hamilton, C (2003), seewww.admin.cam.ac.uk/news/press/dpp/2003111901

24. Such observations areunderpinned by a substantial bodyof work on the importance of'well-being' in public policymakingand its non-linear relationship withincome. See e.g. Donovan, N. et al(2002) Life Satisfaction: the state ofknowledge and implications forgovernment Prime Minister'sStrategy Unit; Layard, R. (2005)Happiness: Lessons from a new scienceAllen Lane; Shah, H. & Marks, N.(2004) A well-being manifesto for aflourishing society New EconomicsFoundation. The focus on well-being is recognised in a new Defraresearch programme.

25. Institute for ProspectiveTechnological Studies (IPTS) andEuropean Science and TechnologyObservatory (ESTO) (2005)Environmental impacts ofproducts: analysis of the life cycleenvironmental impacts related tothe final consumption of the EU-25, full draft report, 29 April 2005.p.99 http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/ipp/pdf/eipro_draft_report2.pdf. See also EEA (2005)Household Consumption and theEnvironment EEA

26. At the Consumer forum, weproposed a number of specificpolicy options to participants, suchas carbon offsetting for flights onan 'opt-out' basis and variablewaste charging. A great deal ofwork has been done elsewhere onmany of these ideas and thespecific conditions under whichparticular schemes might be moreor less acceptable to the public,which we do not draw on here. Asa result, we offer insights from theConsumer forum as illustrationsof our broader points, rather thanconclusive evidence in favour oragainst specific policy options.Nonetheless, the results from theForum should be consideredalongside existing evidence whenassessing the viability of particularpolicy options.

27. See, for example, Holdsworth, M.(2003) Green Choice, What Choice?NCC; Brook Lyndhurst (2004)Bad Habits and Hard Choices BrookLyndhurst; Ajzen I, Rosenthal LHand Brown TC (2000) 'Effects ofPerceived Fairness on Willingnessto Pay' in Journal of Applied SocialPsychology (2000) 30(12): pp. 2439-2450 cited in New EconomicsFoundation (2005) Behaviouraleconomics: seven principles for policy-makers NEF; Halpern, D. et al(2004) Personal responsibility and

changing behaviour: the state ofknowledge and its implications for publicpolicy Prime Minister’s StrategyUnit.

28. Dresner, S. and Ekins, P., (2004),Green taxes and charges: reducing theirimpact on low-income households,Joseph Rowntree.

29. Houses on the market will shortlybe required to be rated for energyefficiency as part of the HomeInformation Pack. For more onhome energy efficiency ratings see:www.designcouncil.org.uk/futurecurrents/RR_energy_rating.php.

30. Halpern, D. et al. (2004) Personalresponsibility and changing behaviour:the state of knowledge and itsimplications for public policy PrimeMinister's Strategy Unit; Jackson,T. (2005) Motivating sustainableconsumption, SDRN.

31. Consumer forum participantsreferred unprompted to seatbeltsand smoking as examples.

32. YouGov/Evening Standard poll 5January 2004, 1088 Londoners,available at www.yougov.com/archives/pdf/eve020101002_2.pdf

33. MORI poll, April 2003, Publicattitudes to renewable energy in theSouthwest.

34. See also Hounsham, S. (2006)Painting the Town Green Green-Engage, for further insight on theimportance of positive andtangible or visible communication

35. Holdsworth, M. with Steedman,P., 16 pain-free ways to help save theplanet, NCC.

36. See for example: Dresner, S,T Jackson and L Dunne ‘Social and Political Responses toEnvironmental Taxation in Europe’.Energy Policy Special Issue, 2006.

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37. The importance of revenue-neutrality in environmentaltaxation is discussed in thegovernment's publication HMTreasury (2002) Tax and theenvironment: using economic instruments

38. HM Government (2005) Securingthe Future: delivering UK sustainabledevelopment strategy TSO

39. We discuss a number of methodsfor such engagement elsewhere inthis report, including deliberativefora, community-based projectsand a highly interactive version ofEnvironment Direct. Lessons canalso be drawn from the GMNation debate(www.gmnation.org.uk) and thework of Demos and theUniversity of Lancaster on publicinvolvement in policymaking,research and development aroundthe use of nanotechnology(www.demos.co.uk/projects/currentprojects/ESRCnanotech).

40. See for example: Andreasen, A. R.(1995) Marketing social change:Changing behavior to promote health,social development, and the environment.San Francisco, CA: Jossey -Bass;Andreasen A (2005) SocialMarketing in the 21st century. SagePublications; Brookings Institution2003. Schorr L B Determining 'What works' in social programs andsocial policies: Towards a more inclusiveknowledge base; Chapman, S.,Astatke, H., & Ashburn, K.(2005). The performance of socialmarketing interventions in developingcountries: A systematic review(Working paper). Washington,DC: Population ServicesInternational; Donovan, R. J., &Henley, N. (2003). Social marketing:Principles and practice. Melbourne,Australia: IP Communications;French J Protecting and PromotingHealth - Behavioral approaches. (2001)

Oxford Handbook of public healthpractice. Oxford; Goldberg, M. E.,Fishbein, M., Middlestat, S. E.(Eds.). (1997). Social marketing:Theoretical and practical perspectives.Washington, D.C.; Kotler, P, andRoberto, W. (1989) Social marketing:Strategies for changing public behavior.New York, NY: The Free Press;Kotler, P., Roberto, W. and Lee, N.(2002) Second ed SocialMarketing; McKenzie-Mohr, D2000. ‘Promoting SustainableBehavior: an introduction tocommunity-based socialmarketing’. Journal of Social Issues56(3), 543-554; NationalConsumer Council (2006) SocialMarketing Capacity in the UK:Academic Sector And Social MarketingRelated Work - An initial selectivereview. NCC London

41. Steedman, P. (2005) DesperatelySeeking Sustainability? NCC

42. Figures are for CO2 emissionsonly (excluding other greenhousegases), exclude international traveland assume an equal per capitashare of the UK's annual CO2emissions. Figures assumeprojected population increases andthe figure for a 60 per cent cut isbased on the projected populationin 2044. Sources: Defra,www.Defra.gov.uk/news/2005/050331a.htm; ONSwww.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?ID=950; Government Actuarywww.gad.gov.uk/Population/2004/uk/wuk04singyear.xls

43. Grant-aided loft insulation yields23 per cent household energysaving. Cavity wall insulation yields21 per cent household energysaving These savings are based ona comparison with a totallyuninsulated house. Source EnergySavings Trust:www.est.org.uk/uploads/

documents/myhome/Energy per cent20Slimming percent20Plan.pdf

44. Switching from, for example, a C-rated Ford Focus to a (larger) B-rated hybrid Toyota Prius will save0.33 tonnes of CO2 per year.Based on CO2 emissions figuresof 127g/km for the Ford FocusZetec TCDI manual diesel and104g/km for the Toyota PriusVVT-I and assuming an aunnalusage of 9,000 miles. Source:SMMT www.smmtco2.co.uk/co2search2.asp

45. Halving the annual mileage of thedriver of an average petrol carwould save 1.305 tonnes of CO2,while shifting 2/3 of their travelto the bus would save 1.2 tonnesof CO2 per year. Assuming 9,000miles per year of travel by carand/or bus. Based on CO2emissions of 90g and 298g perpassenger mile for buses and carsrespectively. Sources: Defra,www.Defra.gov.uk/environment/business/envrp/gas/envrpgas-annexes.pdf; Tyndall Centre,www.tyndall.ac.uk/research/researchers/emissions.pdf

46. Through initiatives such asClimate Care and the CarbonNeutral Company. This is not asubstitute for avoiding emissions,but should be a step to engagingpeople with the impact of theirflight.

47. Prime Minister’s Speech onClimate Change to HRH thePrince of Wales's Business andEnvironment Programme, 14September 2004

48. Which? (2005) Which Choice?www.which.net/campaigns/choice/0503choice_rep.pdf

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49. NCC, 2003, Bamboozled, Baffled andBombarded: consumers’ views onvoluntary food labelling. Recentresearch by the NCC found that56 per cent agree with thestatement ‘When I'm out shoppingI don’t think about theenvironmental impact of thethings I buy’. Similarly, the FoodIndustry Sustainability Strategypoints out, ‘price, use by date andtaste are the three most dominantfactors in consumer thinking’ and‘wider sustainability issues…donot feature highly’.

50. The NCC estimates that there areup to 500 competing messages onhow to live in a more sustainableway. Controversies and disputebetween different organisationsover what is important compoundthe difficulties that people face inrelation to advice on sustainablelifestyles. Holdsworth, M. withSteedman, P. (2005) 16 Pain-freeWays to Help Save the Planet NCC

51. Sigman, A, (2004) The Explosion ofChoice: Tyranny or Freedom?

52. The full analysis is published inour separate report Looking forward,looking Back. SCR, 2006.

53. Market TransformationProgramme

54. Fridges got bigger at the sametime as they got more efficient

55. See www.mtprog.com/ApprovedBriefingNotes/BriefingNoteTemplate.aspx?intBriefingNoteID=402for further discussion.

56. Market TransformationProgramme

57. Defra, www.defra.gov.uk/foodrin/poultry/legislation.htm.

58. Ekins, P et al, 2006, A Green LivingInitiative: engaging households to achieveenvironmental goals, PSI.

59. MORI for DfT (2003) Comparativecolour-coded labels for passenger cars

60. NCC research indicates that 19per cent of consumers havesought some form ofsustainability advice.

61. EST/Mosaic: whole lifesegmentation model.

62. See, for example, Carbon Trust(2005), The carbon emissions generatedin all that we consume.

63. Work by the Carbon Trustsuggests that, in relation to climatechange, it is future risk thancurrent brand value that shoulddrive business attention. CarbonTrust, 2004, Brand Value at Riskfrom Climate Change.

64. Presenting a template to theboard of FTSE 100 companies isa reality that could be achievedwith top level political support. Itmay be relevant to think aboutthe small business sector whichoften may not have the capacityto lead in this area.

65. Seewww.defra.gov.uk/environment/climatechange/uk/comms/index.htm andwww.climatechallenge.gov.uk

66. www.dti.gov.uk/energy/sepn/index.shtml

67. We note the valuable groundworkby the small team behind thePublic Sector Food ProcurementInitiative in Defra

68. Building further on the intention,announced in the Government'sSustainable Development Strategyto have 10 per cent of its vehicleslow carbon by 2012

69. Sustainable ConsumptionRoundtable, (2005), Seeing the Light:the impact of micro-generation on howwe use energy.

70. Defra, www.Defra.gov.uk/environment/statistics/globatmos/kf/gakf07.htm

71. Three years on from the energywhite paper, all but the cost-conscious prepayment meter usersin our qualitative survey for Seeingthe Light were unable to think ofways to reduce their bills apartfrom switching suppliers. Mostpeople currently have very littlesense of agency in relation to theirenergy use.

72. Innovative two-tier tariffs forenergy are being considered by theNorthern Ireland EnergyAuthority on this basis, inresponse to the fact that 3 percent of customers use 11 per centof electricity. The averagehousehold uses 4000 kilowatt-hours of electricity a year. Theproposal is that everyone will paythe same unit price for electricityup to 6000 kilowatt-hours, butabove this threshold the unit pricewill go up 50 per cent or 100 percent to discourage excessiveconsumption.

73. SCR briefing: indoor air conditioning

74. Starkey, R., & Anderson, K., 2005,Domestic Tradeable Quotas: apolicy instrument for reducinggreenhouse gas emissions fromenergy use, Tyndall Centre.

75. Allan Asher, Chief Executive,energywatch, speech to NEAconference 20 September 2005,www.energywatch.org.uk/uploads/National_Energy_Action1.DOC;Energywatch (2005) Get Smart:Bringing meters into the 21st Centurywww.energywatch.org.uk/uploads/Smart_meters.pdf

76. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4766460.stm

77. www.futurecurrents.org

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78. Roberts, S. & Baker, W. (2003)Towards Effective Energy Information:Improving consumer feedback on energyconsumption. A report to OfgemCentre for Sustainable Energy,www.cse.org.uk/pdf/pub1014.pdf

79. Roberts, S. et al. (2004) ConsumerPreferences For Improving EnergyConsumption Feedback. Report toOfgem Centre for SustainableEnergy

80. DTI, March 2006, Our energychallenge – power from the people.

81. Based on the new EST bronze,silver and gold standards

82. HM Treasury/Defra, December2005, Energy Efficiency Innovation Review.

83. Report on the Household Sector,Dec 2005, Energy efficiencyinnovation review, Defra/HM Treasury.

84. See also CSE report to Ofgem,2004, Consumer Preferences forImproving Energy ConsumptionFeedback

85. Ekins, P et al, 2006, A Green LivingInitiative: engaging households to achieveenvironmental goals, PSI

86. Tukker A, et al. (2005)Environmental impact of products(EIPRO): Analysis of the life cycleenvironmental impacts related to the totalfinal consumption of the EU25,European Science and TechnologyObservatory and Institute forProspective Technological studies,full draft report.

87. Sustainable ConsumptionRoundtable, 2005, Double dividend:promoting good nutrition andsustainable consumption throughhealthy school meals. The approachto a more sustainable food policymust include tackling global supplychains which have the potential to

drive best management practicesfor basic commodities like sugar,soy or palm oil, and makingfundamental changes to the waysin which the CAP and the WTObear upon them. However, there isalso much that can be done withinthe UK, and it is here, given ourremit, that we have chosen tofocus our attention.

88. IGD (2005) ConnectingConsumers with Farming andFarm Produce IGD, findings fromPart 2: Quantitative Research,www.igd.com/downloads/Curry%20Report.pdf

89. Smith A et al (2005) The validity offood miles as an indicator of sustainabledevelopment: final report. Preparedby AEA Technology for Defra.

90. www.feedmebetter.com

91. Garden Organic,www.gardenorganic.org.uk

92. The Public Sector FoodProcurement Initiative CateringServices and Food ProcurementToolkit gives a useful foundationfor this work.

93. www.lowcvp.org.uk

94. SDC, 2005, Climate ChangeProgramme Review Position Paper.

95. Road pricing:www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_roads/documents/divisionhomepage/032120.hcsp; TransportInnovation Fund:www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_about/documents/page/dft_about_611056.hcsp

96. Without the introduction of oneor more of these additionalmeasures it looks unlikely thateven the modest targets in theDfT’s Powering Future VehiclesStrategy target (that 10% of new

vehicle sales will be cars emitting100gCO2/ vehicle km or lower by2012) and the EU wide voluntaryagreement (that by 2008 averagecarbon emissions for new vehicleswill be 140g carbon dioxide pervehicle km) will be met. SDC,2005, Climate Change ProgrammeReview Position Paper.

97. This generic approach has beenrecommended by theEnvironmental InnovationAdvisory Group.

98. Pensions Commission (2004),Pensions: Challenges and Choices.The First Report of the PensionsCommission,www.pensionscommission.org.uk/publications/2004/annrep/fullreport.pdf

99. The potential of community-levelaction for behaviour change insupport of sustainableconsumption has been suggestedwithin the academic literature forsome time. E.g. Jackson andMichaelis argue that ‘there doesseem to be more potential for ashift in consumption patterns ifpeople are engaged in acommunity dialogue than if theysimply reflect on their own lives’,while Haq and Whiteleggconclude that ‘Developingmeaningful and effectivecommunity based social marketingapproaches and implementingthem within a supportiveinstitutional/social, infrastructuraland fiscal framework should be aprimary goal to fostering voluntarypro-environmental behaviour andmore sustainable lifestyles.’Jackson, T. and Michaelis, L (2003)Policies for Sustainable Consumption. Areport to the SustainableDevelopment Commission; Haq,G. & Whitelegg, J. (2005) Breakingthe Habit: Fostering Voluntary

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Behavioural Change for a SustainableLifestyle forthcoming; submitted tothe Journal of the LocalEnvironment. See also Gardner,Gerald T. and Paul C. Stern, 1996.Environmental Problems and HumanBehavior, Allyn and Bacon, Boston.This assessment draws heavily ona social psychologicalunderstanding of consumerbehaviour. For an overview ofthese social psychological theories,including the relevance of theinternalisation of norms throughsocial learning and the emergenceof a social identity, see Jackson, T.(2005) Motivating SustainableConsumption – a review of evidence onconsumer behaviour and behaviourchange. A report to the SustainableDevelopment Research Network.London: Policy Studies Institute.

100. Reviews of a range of socialmarketing interventions,including community-basedgroup activities, and their impacton a variety of health issues, willbe available shortly from theNational Social MarketingCentre of Excellence.www.nsms.org.uk

101. For more on the burgeoningnumber of local initiatives forchange see Elster, J. & Church, C.(2002) Thinking Locally, ActingNationally: Lessons for National Policyfrom Work on Local Sustainability.York Publishing Services.

102. This is particularly true givencertain social, economic andideological trends which havemade an the development of anethic of local community-management of naturalresources more challenging. SeeJackson, T. and Michaelis, L(2003) Policies for SustainableConsumption. A report to theSustainable DevelopmentCommission.

103. ChangeLAB:www.changelabproject.org; seealso Community-Based SocialMarketing www.cbsm.com;www.toolsofchange.com;www.nsms.org.uk

104. Communities of interest - and action?SCRT briefing, 2006

105. www.unep.ch/scoe/index.htm

106. Uzzell et al, 2005, Increasingrecycling through community action.Report to Guildford BoroughCouncil. Interestingly, existingrecyclers upped their effortsmost when they were givenfeedback on how their ownstreet's recycling rate comparedwith the best performing streetin the area. Non- or low-recyclers, however, were mostlikely to be brought on board ifthey were told their street wasdoing well compared to otherstreets or to a borough target.

107. GAP’s EcoTeams has beenextensively evaluated, and in itsDutch form reductions in waste,energy and water by around 40per cent, 15 per cent and 10 percent respectively have beenrecorded. GAP reports that arecent EcoTeams project withBritish Gas demonstrated a 27per cent reduction in wastegoing to landfill and a 16.2 percent cut in CO2 emissions fromelectricity and gas use.

108. See for example: Frank, R 1999.Luxury Fever (Princeton);Hamilton, C 2004. Growth Fetish(Allen and Unwin); andHamilton C 2003. Downshifting inBritain - a sea change in pursuit ofhappiness (Australia Institute).

109. See note 1.

110. Unlocking energy services:main findings of a joint

SDC/UKERC seminar, April2006.

111. This is true even for many‘service sector’ industries whichstill have significant energy andmaterial footprints.

112. Passengers using Stansted, themain budget airline airportwhich is due to gain a newrunway by 2013, had an averageincome of £51,000 in 2004. Onein six passengers was visiting asecond home overseas. Source:Civil Aviation Authority 2004Passenger Survey

113. Mayo E, 2005, ShoppingGeneration, NCC, London

114. Jackson, T 2005 Live Better byConsuming Less? Is there a doubledividend in sustainable consumption.Journal of Industrial Ecology 9(2).

115. Kasser, T 2002. The High Price ofMaterialism (Allen and Unwin)

116. See for example: Giddens, A1991. Modernity and Self-Identity(Cambridge: Polity Press);Kellner, D 1995. Media Culture:Cultural Studies, Identity Politicsbetween the Modern and the Post-Modern (London, Routledge);Thompson, J 1995. The Mediaand Modernity: a social theory of themedia (Cambridge: Polity Press)

117. Notable exceptions areHamilton, C 2005 Growth Fetish(Crows Nest, NSW: Allen &Unwin) and the work ofAdbusters – a Canadian NGOdedicated to exposing badpractices in advertising

118. For example, BBC2's No WasteLike Home and their Newsnight‘ethical man’ project, as well as‘green living’ editions of lifestyleprogrammes such as Channel 4'sGrand Designs and BBC1'sChanging Rooms.

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119. See for example: CompassNetwork for Sustainable DevelopmentCommunicationswww.compassnetwork.org;Utopies, The United NationsEnvironment Programme(UNEP) and the United NationsGlobal Compact (UNGC)(2005) Talk the Walk - AdvancingSustainable Lifestyles throughMarketing and CommunicationsUNEP www.talkthewalk.net;Charter, M. et al (2002) Marketingand Sustainability BRASS andCfSD www.cfsd.org.uk/smart-know-net; UNEP Advertising andCommunication Forum onSustainabilitywww.uneptie.org/pc/sustain/advertising/advertising.htm;Gordon, W. (2002) Brand Green:Mainstream or Forever Niche?Green Alliance www.green-alliance.org.uk/publications/PubBrandGreen; Forum for theFuture’s ‘Limited Edition’ projectwww.forumforthefuture.org.uk/aboutus/LECS_page1542.aspx;MPG International/SustainableMotivation (2005) The Role ofMarketing at the Business/ConsumerInterfacewww.mpgintl.com/sustain/english/home.htm

120. The Advertising Associationwww.adassoc.org.uk

121. Elliott, R and K Wattanasuwan1998. ‘Brands as SymbolicResources for the Constructionof Identity’, International Journal ofAdvertising 17, 131-144; Streliz, L2002. ‘Media Consumption andIdentity Formation’, MediaCulture and Society 24, 459-480

122. See for example:www.responsible-advertising.org/contact/index.htm

123. See, for example, Mayo, E.(2005) Shopping Generation, NCC;Wilson, N, L Singal, S Nichollsand G Thomson 2006.‘Marketing fat and sugar tochildren on New Zealandtelevision’.Preventive Medicine 42, 96-101.

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Finished with the CD?Contact your council tofind out how you canrecycle it, or seewww.plasticwaste.co.uk.

Also, remember to reusethe detachable CD wallet.

‘The Roundtable's work has clearly demonstrated that citizens can engagepositively, constructively and creatively in the debate on how we tackle the bigenvironmental challenges of our time.’Viki Cooke, Joint Chief Executive, Opinion Leader Research

‘This report highlights that consumers are increasingly looking to government andbusiness to help them live more sustainable lives and make better choices aboutthe products and services they buy. The job for the business community then is tosatisfy this consumer need and to provide clear and practical guidance togovernment on the steps required.’Neil Carson, CEO, Johnson Matthey & Chair of the Business Taskforce on Sustainable Consumption and Production

‘The Roundtable has rightly identified that reconnecting people with the originsof the food they eat can repay powerful “double dividends” for public health andthe environment. I will if you will makes a significant contribution to a criticalpublic debate.’Sir Don Curry, Chair, Sustainable Farming and Food Implementation Group

‘It is hard to go it alone as a green consumer. The Roundtable has set outpractical steps that government can take to make sustainable consumption areality in people’s daily lives and reassure them that their actions are part ofsomething bigger.’Robert Napier, Chief Executive, WWF-UK

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