The Consumption and Environment of the Future
– project info from the Danish Board of Technology
Politicians should impose green taxes on resources and pollution to ensure that consumer prices reflect real costs, including environmental costs. This was the clear view advanced by a panel of fourteen consumers who had been commissioned by the Board of Technology to assess the means that should be employed to make consumption more sustainable.
The importance of environmental problems for the volume and pattern of future consumption was highest on the agenda when fourteen consumers met with a group of experts at Christiansborg in Copenhagen during a consensus conference on “The Consumption and Environment of the Future”; organised by the Board of Technology in collaboration with the Consumer Council. The consumer panel wanted to know, among other things, how socio-economic growth can be made sustainable and how the individual consumer proceeds from knowledge to action. On the basis of the consumer panel’s questions, an array of experts presented their knowledge during the first two days of the conference. Then the consumer panel submitted a Final Document containing the assessments and recommendations the panel could agree on against the background of the experts’ presentations.
In the Final Document consumers point out that they are not encouraged, either culturally or economically, to buy environmental products and that this is one of the main barriers to sustainable consumption. Organic goods are for instance more expensive and harder to get. The consumer panel therefore recommends that an improved framework for environmentally sound ricing of goods should be provided through taxes and targeted support measures for environmental production. Both producers and consumers should experience being “green” as economically rewarding. And it should be easy regardless of place of residence and lifestyle. Consumers themselves bear some of the responsibility for a change in the pattern of consumption, but the consumer panel emphasises that legislators are highly responsible for securing the framework for sustainable consumption.
Although the people on the consumer panel would like to be environmentally conscious consumers themselves, they found it was difficult for consumers alone to change the nature of overall consumption. Society’s consumption is not only chosen in the shopping trolley, but also when manufacturers design products, when politicians decide on taxes and when environmental information is prepared.
Indeed, the consumer cannot choose products that are not on the shelves or recognise what is environmental-friendly unless reliable environmental information is available. To make consumption sustainable, it is therefore essential both to encourage the consumer economically through true prices and to enable the consumer to identify the products that are environmentally benign.
The consumer panel thus agreed that steps should be taken in Denmark to adopt the Nordic eco-label “The Swan”, which is affixed to the products that harm the environment as little as possible. Such a label approved by the authorities will make it easier for the consumer to be green when shopping. The consumer panel also agreed that – contrary to the long-term process of including all costs in consumer prices – an effective and understandable eco-labelling can be launched right away.
As pointed out in the Final Document, however, the most important factor is the general awareness in society of our inability to step up material growth without accelerating environmental destruction at the same time. Any future growth should instead be directed at welfare issues – for instance growth in health, leisure time, durability and quality. Both the development of new technology and more research in sustainable consumption, however, may help reduce society’s resource consumption and bring about a reduction in the level of pollution. But according to the consumer panel, it is first and foremost important to establish the political, economic, social and cultural framework that enables us to be green in our actions. “We need no more studies of whether to act and how to act. We have sufficient knowledge to act even now!”
By Camilla Hutters, member of project staff, the Danish Board of Technology
Consumer panel
- Alice Grønhøj, 31 years, student of economics and business administration, Skanderborg
- Anne Sophie Nickel, 40 years, teacher, Vester Skerninge
- Birgitte Wacher, 28 years, food and quality technician, Holstebro
- Birthe Buhl, 35 years, teacher at folk high school, Aarhus
- Britt Wendelbo, 25 years, student of political science, Copenhagen
- Bjarne Petersen, 29 years, E.H. student, Sorø
- Ellen Hasselstrøm, 49 years, secretary, Lyngby
- – Frederik Riis-Petersen, 72 years, former attaché, Åbybro
- Gitte Cohn, 33 years, laboratory technician, Svendborg
- Jens Dybkjær Holbech, 34 years, high school teacher, Aarhus
- Jens Nederby, 66 years, farmer, Tarm
- Jørgen Rasmussen, 55 years, former building engineer, Kruså
- Jesper Boisen, 59 years, major, Hjallerup
- Leif Sand, 44 years, project manager, Gentofte
Expert panel
- Henrik Kjærgaard, M.Sc. (Eng.), COWI A/S
- Kim Ejlertsen, environmental biologist, NOAH/Friends of the Earth
- Bo Weidema, project manager, Institute for Product Development, DTU
- Anne-Marie Mose, quality assurance manager, Gram A/S
- Anders Borgen, agronomist, Institute for Agricultural Science, KVL
- Mette Jensen, M.A. (Sociology)., Policy Analysis Department, National Environmental Research Institute
- Jørgen Birk Mortensen, associate professor in environmental economics, Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen
- Jesper Jespersen, professor in economics, Department of Social Science and Business Economics, Roskilde University
- Margrethe Lyngs Mortensen, chief information officer, National Consumer Agency of Denmark
- Jeppe Læssøe, M.A. (Psych.), Institute of Technology and Social Science, Technical University of Denmark
- Torben Laursen, vice president, FDB
- Jørn Duus Hansen, creative manager, Bates Copenhagen
The project planning group was made up of:
- Jørgen Højmark Jensen, Food Control Agency of Copenhagen
- Kirsten Halsnæs, Risø National Laboratory
- Peter Nedergård, Danish Consumer Council
- Jan Ejlsted, The Danish Board of Technology
- Thomas Breck, Danish Consumer Council
- Ida Andersen, The Danish Board of Technology