Transforming systems of consumption and production for achieving the sustainable development goals: moving beyond efficiency

The United Nations formulated the sustainable development goals (SDGs) in 2015 as a comprehensive global policy framework for addressing the most pressing social and environmental challenges currently facing humanity. In this paper, we analyse SDG 12, which aims to “ensure sustainable consumption an...

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Veröffentlicht in:Sustainability science Jg. 13; H. 6; S. 1533 - 1547
Hauptverfasser: Bengtsson, Magnus, Alfredsson, Eva, Cohen, Maurie, Lorek, Sylvia, Schroeder, Patrick
Format: Journal Article
Sprache:Englisch
Veröffentlicht: Tokyo Springer Japan 01.11.2018
Springer Nature B.V
Schlagworte:
Climate Change Management and Policy
consumer preferences
Consumption
Earth and Environmental Science
Efficiency
Environment
Environmental Economics
Environmental impact
Environmental Management
issues and policy
Landscape Ecology
Pattern recognition
politics
Production methods
Public Health
Public policy
SDG implementation
Social sustainability
Special Feature: Integrated Knowledge Generation for Transformations towards Sustainability from Local to Global Scales
Special Feature: Original Article
sustainability science and engineering
Sustainability transitions
Sustainable consumption
Sustainable consumption and production
Sustainable Development
Sustainable use
Systemic approaches
United Nations
Systemic approaches
Public policy
Sustainable consumption and production
SDG implementation
ISSN:1862-4065, 1862-4057, 1862-4057
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Zusammenfassung:The United Nations formulated the sustainable development goals (SDGs) in 2015 as a comprehensive global policy framework for addressing the most pressing social and environmental challenges currently facing humanity. In this paper, we analyse SDG 12, which aims to “ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.” Despite long-standing political recognition of this objective, and ample scientific evidence both on its importance and on the efficacy of various ways of promoting it, the SDGs do not provide clear goals or effective guidance on how to accomplish this urgently needed transformation. Drawing from the growing body of research on sustainable consumption and production (SCP), the paper identifies two dominant vantage points—one focused on promoting more efficient production methods and products (mainly through technological improvement and informed consumer choice) and the other stressing the need to consider also overall volumes of consumption, distributional issues, and related social and institutional changes. We label these two approaches efficiency and systemic. Research shows that while the efficiency approach contains essential elements of a transition to sustainability, it is by itself highly unlikely to bring about sustainable outcomes. Concomitantly, research also finds that volumes of consumption and production are closely associated with environmental impacts, indicating a need to curtail these volumes in ways that safeguard social sustainability, which is unlikely to be possible without a restructuring of existing socioeconomic arrangements. Analysing how these two perspectives are reflected in the SDGs framework, we find that in its current conception, it mainly relies on the efficiency approach. On the basis of this assessment, we conclude that the SDGs represent a partial and inadequate conceptualisation of SCP which will hamper implementation. Based on this determination, this paper provides some suggestions on how governments and other actors involved in SDGs operationalisation could more effectively pursue SCP from a systemic standpoint and use the transformation of systems of consumption and production as a lever for achieving multiple sustainability objectives.
Bibliographie:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
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ISSN:1862-4065
1862-4057
1862-4057
DOI:10.1007/s11625-018-0582-1