Partnerships With Business And Industry
UNEP works closely with partners from business and industry to advance our mission and activities in the field of technology, industry and economics. Our
initiatives and activities in this field include stakeholder dialogue, sharing emerging best practices, developing and promoting materials to build the capacities of managers and employees, inspiring partnership innovation and improving understanding of key corporate responsibility issues on the global sustainable development agenda.
In UNEP’s work in the terrain of corporate social responsibility (CSR) or corporate environmental and social responsibility (CESR), we underline the environmental pillar in the triple bottom line approach and use environment as an entry point when addressing broader sustainability issues. We view corporate citizenship or CSR as a values-based way of conducting business in a manner that advances sustainable development. It seeks positive impact between business operations and society, conscious of their close connection. It also shows an awareness that companies, like citizens, have basic rights and duties wherever they operate. The challenge today is to display its practical application in a local and sector specific context, moving from strategy to implementation.
UNEP's Cleaner Production Activities began in response to UNEP's Governing Council Decision in 1989. From the beginning, UNEP has been providing leadership and encouraging partnerships to promote the concept of Cleaner Production on a worldwide scale. One of the key programmes under cleaner production was the International Programme on National Cleaner Production Centers (NCPCs) which was jointly launched by UNEP and UNIDO in 1994 with the purpose of building the capacities of developing countries and transition economies. This has led to the establishment of an international network of NCPCS that are operational in 42 countries in four regions. In 2007/08, UNEP and UNIDO conducted an extensive evaluation of the International Programme on NCPCs with a purpose of improving the effectiveness of the support provided in the area of promoting cleaner production.
The scope of the Programme is extended to Resource Efficient and Cleaner Production (RECP) to link CP more profoundly with today’s most pressing environmental concerns at local, regional and global scales, and to emphasize the triple bottom line relevance as a result of the contribution of RECP to production efficiency, environmental management and human development. The Programme objective is to improve resource productivity and environmental performance of businesses and other organisations and thereby contribute to sustainable industrial development and sustainable consumption and production in the participating developing and transitional economies.
Life Cycle Thinking is essential to sustainable consumption and production. It is about going beyond the traditional focus on production sites and manufacturing processes so that the environmental, social, and economic impact of a product over its entire life cycle, including the consumption and end of use phase, is taken into account. UNEP's work to promote life cycle thinking is spearheaded by the UNEP/ SETAC Life Cycle Initiative.
UNEP works on eco-labelling focuses on capacity building and technical assistance for industries and governments in developing countries.
A four-year project started in 2007 which promotes eco-labelling in Brazil, China, India, Kenya and the South East African Region, Mexico and South Africa. The project is funded by the European Commission and the German government. UNEP works with the German capacity building organization InWent, as well as other partners.
The Eco-labelling project aims to:
- increase the number of eco-labelled products.The project helps industry and government stakeholders in the various countries to have their key export products awarded with the EU Eco-label. This is primarily done through capacity building and technical assistance.
- develop a roadmap towards mutual recognition. The project helps to increase knowledge and mutual understanding between the various European and developing countries' eco-labelling bodies. It facilitates better cooperation and transparency between the schemes to help simplify the 'eco-labelling universe'.
- create information regarding the assessment of the opportunities and barriers of mutual recognition, which will include a list of practical recommendations to increase cooperation. This 'roadmap towards mutual recognition' will build upon the activities already carried out by the Global Ecolabelling Network (GEN) to develop and promote a GEN International Coordinated Eco-labelling System (GENICES).
The growing attention to issues of design represents the next step in a progressive widening of the horizons of pollution prevention - a widening which has gone from a focus on production processes (cleaner production), to products (ecodesign), then to product-systems (incorporating transport logistics, end-of life collection and component reuse or materials recycling) and to sustainable innovation (design for sustainability).
UNEP promotes design for sustainability and other product related interventions such as product service systems to implement more sustainable consumption and production patterns.
Safer Production comprises the tools, guidelines, and management principles implemented at site and local level to ensure both the safety and health of workers in facilities that manufacture, store, handle or use hazardous substances, as well as the prevention of releases of these substances into the environment
At the strategic level, Safer Production approaches are part of an industrial safety culture such as the one promoted by the European Seveso II regulation and other legal instruments such as the more recent REACH Regulation. Standing for “Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals” this regulation mandates the registration of chemicals manufactured in or imported into the European Union, bringing with it an added emphasis on chemicals risk assessment.
Safer Production in industrial sectors and processes involving the manufacture and use of chemicals is also directly aligned with the aims of UNEP’s Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM), on the sound management of chemicals.