Marketing and advertising are key tools to allow consumers to make informed choices and to foster new consumption patterns. Since 1999, UNEP has promoted sustainability communications among the advertising sector and other stakeholders (public authorities, companies and the civil society) in order to:

·         work together to raise general awareness of sustainable consumption;

·         use communication skills and techniques to promote sustainable consumption patterns;

·         promote products, services and campaigns that foster sustainable consumption;

·         pursue best practice in environmental management, and

·         inform and inspire each other through workshops, meetings, publications, websites, etc.

Advertisers, advertising agencies, media and relevant associations are invited to provide their experience and support, exchange information and co-operate to promote sustainable lifestyles. 

For more information about our communications activities, please contact sc@unep.fr.

 

Resource Kit on Sustainable Consumption & Production now available in English, French, Spanish, Arabic and Catalan. This kit is composed of 12 fact sheets on different topics: advertising, eco-design, energies, food, housing, leisure, lifestyles, mobility, NICT, textiles, tourism and water.

   

Sustainability Communications - A Toolkit for Marketing and Advertising Courses

This CD-ROM (available in English and French) is a resource for educators training tomorrow's marketing and communication professionals as well as for marketing and advertising trainers in the corporate field. It is not a "turnkey" teaching syllabus but a flexible, interactive tool which provides a synthesis of theoretical and methodological knowledge illustrated by numerous specific case studies.

 

Creative Gallery on Sustainability Communications

This unique database compiles advertising campaigns from all around the world produced by companies, NGOs, governments, local authorities and all stakeholders concerned by the promotion of sustainable development in general as well as by the development of green products and services. The Creative Gallery - freely accessible by all visitors of UNEP website - aim to provide examples and inspire other actors when developing their own communication campaigns on sustainability issues.

Talk the Walk - UNEP/Utopies/Global Compact marketing publication to promote green products and sustainable lifestyles

Talk the Walk - Advancing Sustainable Lifestyles through Marketing & Communications proposes key tips to develop appropriate marketing strategies and communicate effectively on sustainable goods and services.

 

Communication guide for governments and local authorities

Communicating Sustainability - How to produce effective public campaigns proposes guidelines and features 16 case studies from around the world to promote sustainable lifestyles through communication campaigns. It is available in English, French and Spanish.

UNEP has produced resources specifically on this topic to facilitate the transfer of knowledge for sustainable development.

 

UNEP has developed and launched the Global Survey on Sustainable Lifestyles (GSSL) with the support of the Marrakech Task Force on Sustainable Lifestyles led by Sweden and in collaboration with the International Association of Universities (IAU). This initiative, built on partnerships with governmental institutes, NGOs, universities and researchers in all regions, is aimed at exploring how sustainable lifestyles are perceived, envisioned and shaped by young adults from different cultures and backgrounds around the world. Its objective is to contribute to the elaboration of sustainable lifestyles policies and communication strategies through the publication of cross-cultural report in 2010. The GSSL can be accessed at  (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Vietnamese and Japanese).

As a side project to the GSSL, UNEP has launched Sustainable Everyday Explorations (SEE), a building scenarios exercise coordinated among design students worldwide aimed at collecting their ideas for developing sustainable lifestyles in the near future, taking into account the richness of their cultural identity and values.

 

Sustainable procurement is the process in which organisations buy supplies or services by taking into account: the best value for money, environmental aspects over the entire life cycle of products, and social aspects such as poverty eradication, labour conditions and human rights.

UNEP is actively promoting sustainable public procurement by:

- Facilitating global consensus on the integration of sustainable development considerations in procurement at all levels.

- Fostering information exchange to increase the organisations benefiting from the experience of the forerunners;

- Providing practical tools for capacity building to translate sustainable procurement policies into a reality.

 

The French postal service "La Poste" and UNEP have partnered to publish a booklet of 10 letter stamps (Carnet de dix) inspired by the project UNEP/UNESCO youthXchange . Each of these stamps carries an image and a message inciting us to look at our lifestyles with a different angle: “what if the bicycles were the transport of the future?” and “the sun was a radiator?” Each of these stamps will soon become youthXchange e-cards to send to your friends! More...