Influencing Consumer Choices
Education & Capacity Building
UNEP's initiatives in the area of Education for Sustainable Consumption and Production (ESCP) respond to the need for new cultural and educational models which foster a new generation of citizens who integrate sustainability in their personal and professional decisions. The shared goal of these various initiatives is to provide innovative tools to communicate and learn about ESCP.
The target audience in the field of ESCP is national and local authorities, business organisations, teachers, vocational schools and trainers who need to communicate about various aspects of ESCP and want to engage in innovative learning methodologies to better respond to the challenges of sustainable development.
Here and Now! Education for Sustainable Consumption is a set ofrecommendations and guidelinesjointly developed by the United Nations Environment Programme and the Marrakech Task Force on ESC led by Italy in collaboration with the Hedmark University College (Norway).
Here and Now! Is a tool aimed at assisting policymakers, teachers and parents in achieving the implementation of Education for Sustainable Consumption in formal education frameworks:
YouthXchange Training on Responsible Consumption : is designed to assist youth groups, NGOs, teachers and trainers in raising and acquiring awareness of the opportunities offered by the adoption of more sustainable consumer choices in a youth friendly format. It is an interdisciplinary, multi-methodological and holistic approach to sustainable consumption and can be used in formal as well as non formal education settings. It involves a participatory process based on interaction and cooperation between teachers and youth, on discussion, and learning from experience.
UNEP's Sustainable Consumption programme was initiated in 1998 to supplement UNEP's production process oriented activities with activities on the demand side. Production and consumption policies were considered to be two faces of sustainability which needed to be addressed in an integrated manner. The programme has led to the establishment of the UNEP Sustainable Consumption and Production Branch with its integrated life-cycle approach towards achieving more sustainable consumption and production patterns.
The project "Tracking Progress" raised awareness of governments about the need to develop policies on Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP) which led to the Marrakech Process and the project on national action plans.
The Sustainable Consumption (SC) programme has resulted in better understanding about the forces that drive consumption patterns around the world and how to translate those findings into tangible activities for business and other stakeholders. Consumption patterns are the result of choices and activities of a wide variety of actors including business, government and individual households. Influencing these choices means stimulating new economic opportunities, allowing the potential for better products and services, and altering the current infrastructure and regulatory framework that lock consum