Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD)

The notions of sustainable production and consumption patterns can easily be traced within international policy texts back to the Earth Summit (United Nations Conference on [Page 322]Environment and Development, Rio 1992), where Principle 8 of the Declaration states that “To achieve sustainable development and a higher quality of life for all people, States should reduce and eliminate unsustainable patterns of production and consumption and promote appropriate demographic policies,” Also at the Rio Conference, Agenda 21 titled its chapter 4 “Changing Consumption Patterns.” The concept remained current at the influential United Nations' level 10 years later at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (Johannesburg 2002), where “Changing Unsustainable Patterns of Consumption and Production” became the title of chapter 3 in the Plan of Implementation. The same document outlines the launch of a “10-Year Framework of Programmes” (§14), known as the Marrakech process, which is still ongoing. This article considers the main features by which these initiatives are interpreted and promoted by the OECD.

The OECD is a forum in which the governments of 30 highly industrialized countries work together to address the economic, social, and environmental challenges of globalization. This organization has been working actively on sustainable consumption issues since 1994 as part of its sustainable development efforts, emphasizing the achievement of long-term economic growth that is consistent with environmental and social needs. Sustainable consumption policies take into account the ecological impacts of the products through a holistic view of their life cycle (from cradle to grave). They also consider, to a lesser extent, certain social and ethical dimensions of product production and use.

The OECD member countries are Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The Commission of the European Communities takes part in the work of the OECD.

The OECD facilitates comparisons between the policies and practices of its members and promotes guidelines that address country-specific challenges. The organization categorizes its sustainable consumption policy instruments as follows:

• Standards and Mandatory Labels: These tools are the most direct policy instruments for eliminating unsustainable products from the market. The most common sustainability-related performance standards are those aimed at reducing energy use; for example, promoting energy efficiency in household appliances, effectiveness of home insulation, and fuel economy in motor vehicles. These standards have become stricter and more widespread as climate change concerns intensify.
• Taxes and Charges: By raising prices on less sustainable products, taxes and charges can be effective in shifting consumer behavior toward sustainability. These tools help internalize negative externalities, which in theory helps the market play the critical role of changing purchasing patterns. Taxes on motor fuels are applied in all OECD countries and often form the bulk of environmental tax revenues. In Europe, taxes on motor fuels are 40–60 percent of the sales price compared with 20–25 percent in the United States. The European car fleet is more energy efficient, with up to two to three times lower unit emissions of carbon dioxide from transport than the United States, suggesting that energy taxes have incentivized more efficient vehicle use. However, according to the OECD, too often taxes and charges designed to promote sustainable consumption are not set at a sufficiently high level, and they may be more effective as part of a wider tax reform strategy. For example, countries such as Austria, Finland, Germany, and Sweden have tax-shifting programs to introduce more environmental taxes in place of those on capital and labor—a policy also known as “double dividend” (reducing both pollution and labor costs).
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• Subsidies and Incentives: These include monetary grants or fiscal incentives in the form of tax reductions for purchasing less-polluting products (house insulation, energy-efficient cars, etc.). However, altogether the amount of these sustainable consumption incentives is small when compared with environmental or social subsidies directed to production sectors.
• Communications Campaigns: In this domain, public authorities face tough competition with the private sector for consumer attention. More recent communications campaigns are sophisticated in their focus on single issues, advice on practical actions, and use of multimedia.
• Education: UNESCO has designated 2005–14 as the “Decade of Education for Sustainable Development,” and many OECD countries are now teaching or developing curricula on sustainable development, which generally include material on promoting sustainable consumption.
• Voluntary Labeling: The most viable labels are those for which environmental or social claims are verified by a third party, including governments and nongovernmental organizations. However, the weaknesses of labels include low levels of consumer awareness, criteria differences across products, or a confusing competition between various labeling schemes.
• Corporate Reporting: In most OECD countries, sustainability reporting is voluntary, and approaches vary by country, sector, and company. In general, these reports emphasize direct production impacts, and not many examine how the company's product range supports sustainable consumption in terms of life cycle and social impacts.
• Advertising: Whereas at one time the sole function of advertising was to make people buy more, advertising is now responding to new demands from consumers looking for greater significance, transparency, and ethics. With encouragement from governments, the advertising industry is starting to self-regulate in various countries with regard to sustainability claims.
• Public Procurement: The average share of public procurement in gross domestic product in OECD countries is about 11 percent, reaching 16 percent in the countries of the European Union. Although most OECD countries have adopted green procurement practices that emphasize the environmental characteristics of products and services, these vary in extent and coverage.

Within these categories, there is considerable variation and application in different countries and contexts. However, one can indeed find common initiatives orientation within OECD countries. For example, the European Union's “Renewed Strategy for Sustainable Development” (2006) identifies its key challenge number 3: “Sustainable consumption and production.” This includes decoupling economic growth from environmental degradation, improving the environmental and social performance for products and processes, aiming to achieve by 2010 a European Union average level of green public procurement equal to that currently achieved by the best-performing member states, and increasing the European global market share in the field of environmental technologies and eco-innovations.

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