The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has launched a new initiative dubbed the “Life-Cycle Initiative”, to help combat environmental impact arising from consumption patterns.
The initiative is aimed at making production processes and products cleaner.
This is in response to the growing environmental risk created by rapidly rising consumption patterns around the world.
The “Life-Cycle Initiative” is a collaboration between UNEP and the Society of Environmental, Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) that is aimed at helping governments, businesses and consumers to adopt more environment friendly policies, practices and life-styles.
According to Dr Klaus Toepfer, UNEP Executive Director, the initiative will develop and disseminate practical tools for evaluating the opportunities, risks and trade-offs associated with products and services.
“As the world population grows, and it is poised to expand by 50 percent by 2050, it will be accompanied by an extraordinary growth in consumption,” said Toepfer.
In a news release, Dr Toepfer said that meeting the growing consumption demands of all people and preserving the earth’s natural resources requires new ways of thinking and innovation of new business models.
He said the “Life-Cycle Initiative” would help find alternative solutions to hazardous substances in products like lead, as well as better systems of eco-labelling and product design.
Toepfer was optimistic that with its focus on sharing of information and closing the knowledge gap between developed and developing countries, the initiative would help translate the life-cycle into practice.
Although there exists some examples of how life-cycle thinking has already been applied, Toepfer adds that some experiences need to be more widely known about and practised in more countries.
In Canada, for example, Alcan Aluminium Ltd, after doing life-cycle assessment, reduced the diameter of the cardboard tube used in rolls of its aluminum” Kitchen” foil. The benefits were assessed and quantified relative to the old design.
The new package was then marketed as having reduced waste and impact on the environment; the positive results from consumers helped set government targets for packaging reduction.
Some facts and figures from Tomorrows Markets-Global Trends and Their Implications for Business, a joint publication from UNEP, the World Resources Institute and the Worlds Business Council for Sustainable Development released recently demonstrate the scale of the consumption problem.
According to the publication, the money spent on household consumption worldwide increased by 68 per cent between 1980 and 1998.The bulk of this was in” high-income” countries. Purchases by consumers in low- income countries represented less than 4 per cent of all private consumption.
However, purchases in low-income countries are rising and the impacts could be dramatic. For example, television ownership increased five-fold in the East Asia and Pacific region from 1985-1997. And 200 million vehicles would be added to the global fleet if car ownership in China, India and Indonesia were the same as the current world average of 90 cars per 1,000 population.
It is widely claimed that the high, unsustainable consumption of the world’s affluent consumers could have a negative impact on the environment that is disproportionate to their numbers.
This is because in many ways, the consumption patterns of the rich are being exported to the developing countries.
According to Dr Toepfer, the challenge is to change consumption practices in richer countries while at the same time bringing new tools to the table, like the “Life-Cycle Initiative”, that will ultimately help tackle poverty and ensure a safe and secure environment for long-term sustainable development.
The :Life-Cycle Initiative” was launched in Prague on April 29, at the start of UNEP’s 7th International High-Level Seminar on Cleaner Production (CP-7), the biennial global forum that looks at progress made in promoting sustainable production and consumption.
The seminar brought together senior-level decision-makers from around the world to address the challenges facing sustainable production and consumption. Over 300 participants from 85 countries attended the meeting, hosted by the Ministry of the Environment of the Czech Republic.

“With an active cleaner production programme, we have been able to successfully assist other countries like Croatia, Macedonia, Uzbekistan, India and Moldavia to introduce and further implement the principle,” said Toepfer.

The cleaner production concept took root at the Rio Earth summit in 1992 as a means to reconcile economic growth and environmental protection. Since then, the
idea has been promoted around the world.

There are many examples of what has been achieved through the cleaner production approach .In Denmark, for example, five plants on an industrial estate have cooperated with one another, with local authorities and with local farmers to utilise each other is wastes, making savings in energy and water worth US$12-15 million a year.

In Brazil, liquid effluent per tonne of production from one particular factory is now less than five per cent of what it was in 1990 a 20-fold improvement.

Experts acknowledge that much more needs to be done and to this end, the UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative is expected to take the cleaner production concept to a new level by looking at the whole product life cycle, both in a strategic as well as from a practical point of view.

Changing consumption and production patterns will be high on the agenda of this year’s World Summit on Sustainable Development to be held in South Africa. Life cycle thinking, including assessments, eco-design and eco-labelling is increasingly seen as one way to help tackle the problem of unsustainable consumption.

CP-7 will provide a key input to the World Summit and the new Life-Cycle Initiative is on the table as a practical, proactive partnership between UNEP, the scientific community and business.

The “Life Cycle Initiative” has been established with an international life cycle panel as the core advisory body. A secretariat and a scientific executive committee are being prepared, along with working groups, for each of the sub-programmes.

SETAC is an independent, non-profit professional society that provides a forum for individuals and institutions engaged in research and education on environmental issues.