Two points

1
Two points

• From local to global consumer the challenge of
  rising and unsustainable consumption
• What can we do to reach sustainable consumption
  and production in Europe?
• Policies tools

2

• From local to global consumer the challenge of
  rising and unsustainable consumption

3
Unsustainable consumption and production

• Many environmental pressures are growing GHG
  emissions, water and air pollution, land use,
  resource use, waste amounts etc.
• Impacts are growing in Europe - and in other
  regions of the world
• Impacts from all phases of the production
  consumption chain

4
World trade is a driving force of resource and
energy consumption
Source WTO, 2003 Growth of world trade. World
merchandise exports (volume index value
deflated by unit value).
5
EU-25 use of world biocapacity compared to
population share
Source EEA/GFN, 2005 Global ecological
overshoot
6
Decoupling resource use from economic growth?
Relative - not absolute
Decoupling resource use from GDP in EU15
GDP
Energy cons.
DMC
GHG
EMC

• Material consumption in EU25 amounts to 16.5 t
  per person per year on average in EU25 (all
  fossil fuels, minerals and biomass)

7
Europes footprint and biocapacity (per capita)
Source EEA/GFN, 2005 Europes ecological
footprint and biocapacity
8
Footprint by component (EU-25)

• The biocapacity necessary for coping with CO2
  emissions from fossil fuel and generation of
  energy makes up more than 50 of the total
  footprint

9
European consumption patterns are changing

• Household expenditure projected to double by 2030

10
Energy consumption by sector (EU-25)
Services, agric. etc
Households
Industry
Transport
11
What can we do to reach sustainable consumption
and production in Europe? Policies tools
12
Act integrated

• Global responsibility not to destroy other
  regions of the world (Rio, Johannesburg and
  Marrakech)
• Re-inforce public and private sector expenditure
  on research and development in the environment
  domain to help Europe compete globally
• More environmental integration needed in sectors
• Technological improvements are necessary - but
  not sufficient. The benefits include Europes
  economy becoming more resource efficient EU-10
  already has the scope to improve efficiency by a
  factor of 4 to EU-15 levels

13
Act integrated (cont.)

• Design long-term, coherent policies that shift
  market signals towards sustainable production and
  consumption
• Environmental tax reform From taxing the goods
  (employment) to taxing the bads (resource use
  and environmental damage)
• Improve institutional set-ups to design and
  implement integrated approaches. Such set-ups can
  be as important as policies themselves (ex.
  effectiveness of UWWTD in selected countries in
  Europe).

14
Example Improving energy and resource
productivity

• Labour costs constitute about 20 of total costs
  in manufacturing in EU-25. Material and energy
  costs can be up to 50

Labour productivity
Materials productivity
Energy productivity
15
ExampleEnvironmental tax reform in the EU 1995 -
2003
Energy taxes
Labour taxes
Energy consumption/GDP
Source Eurostat
16
Example Tax bases in EEA-17 (2004)
17
Example Progress with urban waste water
treatment
18
We need tools to diagnose societys health

• Better and complementary methods for measuring
  the extent and impacts of our societys use of
  nature
• The EEA and its Scientific Committee want to help
  further develop the Ecological Footprint (EF),
  Human Appropriation of Net Primary Production
  (HANPP), and relevant elements of the System of
  Environmental and Economic Accounts (SEEA).
• We consider it as a package, carefully managed
  and communicated, that such methods and
  indicators can best serve to improve our
  understanding of how human population use nature
  and the impacts that result

19
To conclude

• Consumption growth outweighs efficiency gains
  Key environmental impacts grow
• We have shifted our ecological demand to other
  countries while safeguarding more of our own
  ecological resources in Europe
• Market-based instruments and environmental tax
  reform needed to achieve sustainable consumption
  and production are necessary but not sufficient.
• We need better tools to diagnose the health of
  society.

Further information http//www.eea.europa.eu Gorm
. Dige_at_eea.eu.int
20
The European Environment Agency (EEA)

• EU institution in Copenhagen since 1994
• Provide decision-makers with information needed
  for sound and effective policies to protect the
  environment and support sustainable development
• 32 member countries EU-25, Bulgaria, Romania,
  Turkey, Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein
  Switzerland

21
The European Environment State and outlook
2005 report on the web

• Full report one pdf file per chapter
• Executive summary in 25 languages
• Press release in 25 languages
• Speeches
• Press conference (video)
• Flash animation
• Powerpoint presentationwww.eea.eu.int