ENVIRONMENT: World Campaign to Promote Sustainable Consumption

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Mar 14 1997 (IPS) - International Consumers (IC), an umbrella organisation of more than 200 groups from some 90 countries, will launch a world campaign for sustainable consumption, as a new aspect of the environmental movement.

The mass media bombards people with publicity stimulating consumption, which is identified with happiness, IC President Erna Witoelar, participating in the “Rio plus Five” forum that opened here Wednesday to assess progress on commitments made at the 1992 Earth Summit.

The promotion of more reasonable and sustainable consumption patterns has to move beyond the alternative media in order to be successful, she added.

The IC campaign will be launched on Saturday, International Consumers Day, in every country in which it has member groups, said Witoelar. For example, official Chinese TV stations will focus on consumer rights issues.

UN Social Economic Council guidelines for sustainable consumption include consuming products that generate less garbage and permit recycling, and goods that are produced with renewable resources, she pointed out.

But consumption must also be reduced, because it exceeds, by 30 percent, nature’s ability to regenerate, said Mathis Wackernagel, with the Centre for Studies on Sustainability, at the Anahuac University in Xalapa, Mexico.

At the forum, Wackernagel presented a study that measures the relationship between consumption in the world’s 50 largest countries and their respective environmental capacity.

The world has 1.7 biologically productive hectares per person, including usable sea space, states the report “Our Common Future”, which underlines that 12 percent of that total must be reserved for the conservation of biodiversity.

In the report’s ranking, Iceland has the greatest “ecological deficit,” with seven hectares less than what would be necessary to balance consumption and regeneration, followed by the European countries, Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong and the United States.

The area in constant production, divided by the national population, gives the number of hectares used. The deficit indicates by how much national use exceeds the available average of 1.7 hectares per person.