ACHRS participated as observer in two roundtables during the Regional Forum on Sustainable Development for the UNECE Region
In the context of the Regional Forum on Sustainable Development for the UNECE Region, Danny Casprini, project consultant and coordinator of the International Relations Unit at ACHRS, participated in two roundtable discussions on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12 on responsible consumption and production. The Regional Forum took place in Geneva on the 1st and 2nd of March at the Centre International de Conférences de Genève.
The first roundtable titled “Successful approaches to delivering on Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP) by 2030” provided space for representatives of various countries to present their actions in terms of development of strategies for SCP, green procurement and advancement of green technology. The discussion built on 5 projects that have been selected as successful stories, in particular: The Kazakhstani International Centre for Green technology; the Romanian National SCP Strategies and Plans to mainstream green economy policy; the Swedish inclusion of SCP in the National Policy landscape; the Latvian Green Public Procurement and the Suisse approach to phosphorous recovery and reuse from wastewater and organic fractions.
During this roundtable all the State parties involved, as well as representatives of civil society and the private sector have had a framework to discuss on the necessity to put green economy and SCP at the center of the political dialogue in the agenda 2030 towards achievement of SDGs. All the parties acknowledged the progress done since the adoption of SDGs in 2015 and put their attention on enhancement of green public procurement and green technology as ways to drive innovation towards sustainability, as well as driving market choices towards eco and social friendly products. However, Israel, in particular, pointed out that in terms of access to green technology there is a huge gap between developed and developing countries and that, in order to grant sustainable development all around the world there is a need to share not only good practices, but also to export knowhow from developed to developing countries. This is an important factor to keep in mind when the objective is SCP, because it is true that sharing best practices will create knowledge, but, on the other hand, this is not enabling knowledge and best practices could not be adaptable to all countries. Thus there would be a need to have more dialogue for the future on how to export knowhow in a way of achieving a sustainable technological transformation for everyone.
The other important concept that came out of this first roundtable is the fact that in order to drive changes in SCP there is a need to create more awareness among citizens as regard environmentally and socially sustainable production. As all parties pointed out correctly, consumers’ choices are extremely important to drive transformation in production process and shift from traditional means to green ones. However, this by itself is not enough and there is a need for governments to sustain these positive trends in consumers’ choices. As the delegate from France rightly pointed out public policy should focus more on SCP and should be directed in a way to have legislative reform to enhance green transformation, as consumers’ choices by themselves are not enough for companies to change their behaviors. Without more regulation of the production means and of supply chains all efforts to achieve SCP would be incomplete. We strongly support the undertaking of the French representative and we encourage other countries to take the example from France in terms of regulation of supply chain and production towards achievement of SCP.
The second roundtable was titles “Towards a circular economy: innovation for sustainable value chains” and covered the topic of shifting from a linear to a circular economy as a way to achieve SCP. Also this discussion moved from several case studies from different countries, in particular: the Slovenian National Strategy for the Circular Economy: the Moldovan approaches to Sustainable Production and Consumption in the national landscape; the Italian National Strategy on Circular Economy; the Czech Food Waste Actions and Interventions; the Montenegrin Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development Strategy; the Dutch International Green Deal North Sea Resources; the Nordic Cooperation Project for Green Products promoted by the Nordic Council of Ministers.
Under this second roundtable the discussion covered fundamental themes such as transformation of the agriculture sector to be more sustainable and more oriented to reuse of resources avoiding useless wastes, as well as enhancing research and pushing for transformation in the production by introduction of eco and social labels and attract companies to comply with them. Further discussion addressed the necessity of including all relevant stakeholders in decision-making and in public policy in the framework of SCP. Following the presentation of the case studies some interesting remarks has been put forward by different parties as regard strategies to reduce food waste and to enhance reuse of natural resources. In this particular framework the EU Environmental Bureau, representing the civil society at the roundtable, pointed out the necessity to have more regulation from States and to constitute clear obligations in terms of corporate social responsibility. Only by legal means actions from different states will be more effective in bringing changes towards circular economy.
This second roundtable was very successful in promoting dialogue on SCP with particular reference to environmental and human rights concerns. However, as Charles Arden Clarke, Head of 10YPF Secretariat at UN Environment, pointed out SCP is the area in which trade can play a big role for sustainable development. In particular, he conveyed the idea that trade should try to bridge the gap and to grant more access to technology and knowhow for everyone. The roundtable concluded on the need to create more network among different stakeholders in order to make the states comply with what they undertake under the SDGs framework, in particular in the segment of circular economy. We would like to reinforce this recommendation for network enhancement and cooperation among different stakeholders in achieving SDGs and in providing a support role for states to promote public policy in the framework of SCP.
