Welcome to the Bulletin Board on "Changing Consumption and Production Patterns"! This page provides selected information on projects, initiatives, suggestions, and ideas for making consumption and production patterns more sustainable.

If you have any information on innovative policy instruments, new publications, meetings, events or websites related to "Changing Consumption and Production Patterns", a relevant business initiative, or any other idea or suggestion, do not hesitate to make it available to us.

If we consider that the information is of general interest, we will post it on this page, or elsewhere on the Consumption and Production website. This Bulletin Board will be updated on a quarterly or bi-monthly basis depending on the availability of resources. You can access back issues of the bulletin at the bottom of this page.

Please send your inputs to Oleg Dzioubinski, Division for Sustainable Development, United Nations, Two UN Plaza, Room DC2-2284, New York, NY 10017, USA, tel.: +1 212 963 1859, fax: +1 212 963 4260, e-mail: dzioubinski@un.org

Contents of the Issue

The "Environmental Purchasing Starter Kit" will help local governments set up a cost-effective environmental purchasing program.

A five-year program will promote the production and consumption of CFC-free and energy efficient refrigerators in China.

The US Postal Service is purchasing 500 electric delivery vehicles from the Ford Motor Company.

A report by the Center for Energy and Climate Solutions indicates that economic growth generated by the Internet is not only creating a business revolution, but can also bring substantial environmental improvements.

The Clean Computer Campaign is aimed at reducing the lifecycle environmental impact of computers and promoting new approaches to the increasing burden of end-of-life electronic product waste.

A new voluntary program for hotels in Costa Rica promotes sustainable tourism.

A new project by Ecooperation helps market Costa Rican sustainable coffee in Western Europe

A new Internet site allows the public to have access to real-time information about the concentration of contaminants in Des Moines’ drinking water.

The Audubon Magazine website helps consumers make informed choices about eating fish and seafood.

The Ukrainian Packaging and Ecological Coalition assists in implementing a scheme of packaging waste management in Ukraine that would minimize the negative impacts of used packaging materials on the environment.

Cargill Dow Polymers plans to open a new facility to manufacture plastics from renewable agricultural crops.

The UN Division for Sustainable Development has issued a paper that examines trends and opportunities in organic agriculture and analyzes policy options relating to organic farming and sustainable agriculture.

Under a grant from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Association of Counties (NACo) has developed the "Environmental Purchasing Starter Kit" to help local governments set up a cost-effective environmental purchasing program. The kit is addressed to purchasing agents, county and city managers, recycling coordinators, local elected officials, product users, and vendors. The comprehensive kit provides a host of tools for beginning and strengthening programs that favor products that are energy-efficient, contain recycled materials, and are less hazardous to the environment and human health. It includes case studies, a model purchasing resolution, a sample press release, and a comprehensive list of resources.

Environmentally preferable purchasing is the procurement of products and services that have a reduced effect on human health and the environment. NACo's Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (EPP) Project assists counties to locate and select products that encourage reduced exposure to hazardous materials, waste reduction, energy efficiency, conservation of resources, and cost effectiveness.

For more information, contact Tony Hayes at The National Association of Counties, 440 First Street, N.W., Suite #800, Washington, D.C. 20001, USA, tel.: +1 202 393 6226, fax: +1 202 393 2630, e-mail: thayes@naco.org.  

Source: Environment News Service (ENS), January 17, 2000, website: http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jan2000/2000L-01-17-09.html

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The US Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) is carrying out a five-year program to promote the production and consumption of CFC-free and energy efficient refrigerators in China. The refrigerator project began in 1989 when the EPA signed an agreement with the government of China to assist in the elimination of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) from refrigerators. In 1999, the Global Environment Facility approved a $40 million project to expand this effort to China’s entire refrigerator sector. Its aim is to reduce CO₂ emissions by 100 million tonnes over the lifetime of refrigerators produced from 2002 to 2012, as well as to reduce CFC emissions.

China’s refrigerator industry is the largest in the world now that three out of every four urban households in the country have refrigerators. Refrigerator production in China increased from 1.4 millions units in 1985 to 10.6 million in 1998, a 21 per cent annual growth rate. As a result, China emits a significant and growing share of ozone depleting CFCs into the environment. With 80 percent of China's electricity generated by coal burning power plants, the more energy efficient refrigerators will significantly reduce emissions of other air pollutants as well.

The project consists of a series of market oriented measures for manufacturers and consumers. It is expected to shift consumer demand to more energy efficient, environmentally benign products through voluntary, market-based means such as technical assistance and training for manufacturers, consumer education, and financial incentives to manufacture and sell more efficient products. In order to achieve this objective the project uses several policy instruments, namely: a technical program for Chinese refrigerator manufacturers interested in developing CFC free, efficient refrigerators; a financial incentive program to motivate manufacturers to build the most efficient refrigerator possible; a dealer incentive program to convince dealers to stock the new refrigerators; and a mass purchasing program for Chinese government agencies that acquire refrigerators in bulk. Other new project activities will include a recycling buy-back pilot program, revision of existing refrigerator efficiency standards, an energy-efficiency labeling system, and an extensive nationwide consumer education campaign.

For more information, contact Mr. David Fridley, Staff Scientist, Energy Analysis Department, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, tel.: +1 510 486 7318, e-mail: DGFridley@lbl.gov or visit the website http://eetd.lbl.gov/EA/partnership/China/index.html

Source: Environment News Service (ENS), December 8, 1999, http://ens.lycos.com/ens/dec99/1999L-12-08-01.html

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The US Postal Service (USPS) announced the single largest purchase of electric vehicles in US history. The Postal Service awarded a competitively bid contract to the Ford Motor Company for the purchase of 500 electric delivery vehicles, with the option of ordering up to 6,000 vehicles.

Production of the 500 electric delivery vehicles will begin in the fall of 2000. California will receive 480 of the vehicles with the rest going to the Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. The battery-powered postal electric vehicles can be driven between 50 and 80 pollution-free miles before recharging and accelerate from 0 to 50 mph in 12.5 seconds, similar to their gasoline-powered counterparts. The use of the first 500 vehicles is projected to result in an annual reduction in tailpipe emissions of nearly 143,000 pounds of carbon monoxide, 11,000 pounds of hydrocarbons, and 16,000 pounds of nitrogen oxides.

This project is a result of partnership between the USPS, the States of California and New York, the California Energy Commission, the Department of Energy, and several other environmentally concerned organizations. The USPS currently has more than 7,500 delivery vehicles that run on compressed natural gas. By 2002 the Postal Service's fleet of alternate fuel vehicles is expected to exceed 30,000.

For more information, contact Paul Freifeld, tel.: +1 312 951 5894 or visit the website http://www.usps.gov/news/press/99/99102new.htm

For more information about the characteristics of the Ford’s Electric Vehicles, visit website http://www.ford.com/electricvehicle/

Source: USPS Postal News, December 22, 1999, Release No. 102

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The Center for Energy and Climate Solutions (CECS) has issued a report entitled "The Internet Economy and Global Warming: A Scenario of the Impact of E-Commerce on Energy and the Environment".
According to it, the economic growth generated by the Internet is not only creating a revolution in the way business is done, but can also bring substantial environmental improvements. The authors of the report emphasize that their analysis is a scenario, not a prediction, but they consider it very plausible.

The report points out that in 1997 and 1998 in the United States, in spite of economic growth of about 4 percent per year, energy demand did not increase, even though energy prices stayed very low. During this period, energy intensity fell by more than 3 percent per year, the biggest gain in half a century. By contrast, the average yearly improvement from 1987 to 1996 was less than one percent. The report indicates that exploding growth of e-commerce and the Internet economy is playing major role in this. If this trend continues, by 2007 the Internet could reduce the need for commercial building space by 5%. The resulting energy savings from operations and maintenance alone would total 53 billion kilowatt-hours per year, preventing the release of 35 million metric tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The report also suggests that projected carbon dioxide emissions for the next decade under a business-as-usual scenario may be seriously overestimated.

CECS, a division of the non-profit Global Environment & Technology Foundation (website http://www.getf.org), helps organizations reduce greenhouse gas emissions with practical advice, tools and technologies and use resources more efficiently in a way that benefits both financial and environmental performance. Its partners and clients include Fortune 100 corporations, foundations, environmental organizations, and federal agencies.

For more information, contact Dr. Joseph Romm, Executive Director, 7010 Little River Turnpike, Annandale, Virginia, 22003, tel.: +1 703 750 6401, e-mail: jromm@getf.org or cecs@getf.org or visit the website http://www.cool-companies.org/

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The Clean Computer Campaign is a new joint project of the International Campaign for Responsible Technology and Clean Production Action. It is aimed at cleaning up the computer lifecycle by raising consumer, community and worker awareness of hazards involved in manufacturing, use and disposal of "obsolete" computers and by promoting new approaches to the increasing amount of end-of-life electronic product waste. The Campaign’s focus is on the producer's responsibility for clean product design and for the take-back of computers at the end of their life in order to promote the internalization of costs that are currently externalized to society.

The Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC), which is implementing the Project, conducted a survey of 21 major computer producers operating in the USA and Canada. The survey examines how responsible these corporations are regarding three issues: the use of hazardous material use in computers; the ability to upgrade them; and the take-back policy on old computers for safe reuse and recycling. The results of the survey are posted in the form of the 1999 End of the Year Report Card on the SVTC website http://www.svtc.org/cleancc/99reportcard.htm. All companies surveyed have been assigned a score from 0 to 5 points with 5 corresponding to most environmentally responsible. Only Apple and IBM reached 4 points, and more than one third of the corporations considered scored 1 or 0 points.

For more information on the Clean Computer Campaign or to see the complete Record Card, visit the SVTC website http://www.svtc.org/cleancc/cccpage.htm or contact SVTC at e-mail: svtc@igc.org

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The Costa Rican Tourism Institute (ICT) has launched a new voluntary program for hotels that want to be evaluated through its Sustainable Tourism Certification program. The philosophy behind the program is to give the sustainable tourism sector a financial advantage, while at the same time benefiting local communities and reducing the impact on natural resources.

The response from the hotel industry was unexpectedly enthusiastic. Forty-eight hotels have been evaluated and some 150 others are on the waiting list. Hotels are interested because they know certification is a good business policy in light of the image of Costa Rica as a nature-based destination. A number of tourism business people were involved from the beginning in designing the standards, which is another reason why most in the travel industry support the ICT scheme.

The evaluation process is free to hotels but relatively time consuming. ICT technicians assess each hotel based on 153 questions in four categories. Each yes-or-no question is designed to compare the hotel’s compliance with sustainability standards and is weighed on a scale of one to three. For example, the category "Physical and Biological Environment" contains questions like:

• Does the hotel operate a wastewater treatment plant to avoid discharging it directly into the environment?
• Does the hotel participate in or support the maintenance or management of a natural protected area, private or public?

The total points are summed up and hotels are placed on one of five levels, with five being the highest level of sustainability. None of the 48 hotels evaluated so far reached level five. Only three reached level four: the Arenal Volcano Observatory, the Hotel Herradura and the Rosa Blanca Country Inn.

Staff at the Latin American Center for Competitiveness and Sustainable Development, which is working with ICT to develop and promote the certification project, hopes that other Central American countries will adopt their own versions of the ICT program. They believe the future of Central America’s tourism lies in natural and sustainable tourism.

Source: Environment News Service (ENS), December 14, 1999, website: http://ens.lycos.com/ens/dec99/1999L-12-14-01.html

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Ecooperation, an independent Dutch organization, recently approved a new project proposal within the framework of the Sustainable Development Agreements: the commercialization of Costa Rican sustainable coffee in Western Europe. Sustainable Development Agreements are bilateral agreements concluded by the Netherlands with Costa Rica, Benin and Bhutan in 1994 that are based on reciprocity, equality and participation.

Sustainable coffee is processed, from soil to cup, using socially, economically and environmentally sound techniques. In the next few months, seven cooperatives involving 9000 coffee farmers that collaborate in the Suscof Project will be able to start the environmental care system according to ISO 14001. Part of the project is market research aimed at potential customers in Western Europe and more specifically in the Netherlands. Suscof is an international pilot: other countries have been approached to study the possibilities of similar projects. To make such projects more viable, the Institute for Sustainable Commodities (ISCOM) was founded. In addition to coffee, the institute will work with other products such as fruit, vegetables and wheat.

For more information on Suscof Project, contact Mr. T. Wolters, ISCOM, Oranjestraat 8, 2514 JB, The Hague, The Netherlands, tel.: +31 70 370 91 40 or Ecooperation, tel.: +31 20 422 11 40, fax: +31 20 422 11 41, e-mail: info@ecooperation.org or barbara@ecooperation.antenna.nl or visit the Ecooperation website: http://www.ecooperation.org/

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A new Internet site http://www.dmww.com/empact/ piloted by Des Moines Water Works (DMWW) in Iowa and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) allows the public to have access to real-time information about the concentration of contaminants in Des Moines’ drinking water. The DMWW website is part of the $3.5 million national Environmental Monitoring for Public Access to Community Tracking (EMPACT) program. Its main purpose is to present to the public easily understandable environmental information. Phase I of DMWW’s EMPACT project features interactive real time information, based on the daily collection, analysis, posting, and updating of all drinking water quality data. The format of the data presentation can be chosen by selecting a "tables" or "graphs" option. DMWW also provides an explanation of the effects of each contaminant, its potential public health impact and EPA standards.

For more information, contact Des Moines Water Works at empact@dmww.com or visit the DMWW website at http://www.dmww.com/empact/

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In the previous issue of News and Trends we posted an article about online information on sustainable eating of fish and seafood provided by Monterey Bay Aquarium. Another guide to help fish lovers make informed choices about their meals is available at the Audubon Magazine website http://magazine.audubon.org/seafood/guide/. There are many species that are in risk of extinction because of overfishing and poor management. The guide provides information on alternatives to depleted species such as swordfish. It points out that some fish, such as striped bass, are on their way to recovery and indicates that certain farm-raised fish would be an even better consumer choice. The guide was compiled by Carl Safina, Director of the National Audubon Society’s Living Oceans Program. He drew on research from a variety of sources: from governmental agencies to environmental groups, as well as years of personal experience on the front lines of fisheries management.

The guide is structured along a color spectrum, which reflects the state of each fish from red (standing for "most problematic conditions") to green ("least problematic"). If the species is facing two or three problems, like overfishing and poor management, it is put into the red category. Significant concern about a single factor puts it in the yellow category. Abundant and relatively well-managed species are in the green category. In addition, for each species the guide provides background information (general characteristics of the species), its status (state of the population), quality of fisheries management, and the bycatch and habitat concerns (other marine animals unintentionally killed in catching this fish, as well as other negative effects of the fishery).

For more information, visit the website http://magazine.audubon.org/seafood/guide/

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The Ukrainian Packaging and Ecological Coalition (UkrPEC) has been founded recently by several multinational companies operating in Ukraine that manufacture and distribute large quantities of packaged goods and packaging materials. The companies include Mars, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Elopak, Nestle, Unilever, TetraPak, McDonald's and BKC. The goal of the Coalition is to assist in implementing a scheme of packaging waste management in Ukraine that would minimize the negative impact of used packaging materials on the environment. UkrPEC is charged with developing recommendations on the most environmentally sound packaging technologies and treatment of packaging waste.

While the members of the Coalition recognize the responsibility to bear the packaging industry’s share of expenses to manage packaging waste, they look for a balance of ecological and economic interests. They believe that under the current difficult economic conditions in Ukraine, food-manufacturing businesses may suffer to the detriment of a society as a whole if too high a financial burden is imposed on them.

According to UkrPEC, packaging waste in Ukraine constitutes 1-3 percent of total volume of waste. The UkrPEC is working on developing a pilot project in a Ukrainian city to find out the financial means needed to deal with it and suggest practical solutions to this problem.

For more information, contact Oleg Brandukov, Ukrainian Packaging and Ecological Coalition, tel.: +380 44 490 5533, tel./fax: +380 44 294 6 4853, e-mail: oleg.brandukov@eu.effem.com

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Cargill Dow Polymers (CDP), a joint venture between Cargill Incorporated and the Dow Chemical Company, has announced plans to manufacture plastic products from corn in a new facility in Blair, Nebraska. Cargill Dow Polymers is one of the several American companies that have been experimenting for years to obtain plastic from plants in place of the traditional petroleum based plastics, whose production results in toxic byproducts and non-biodegradable wastes. But unlike many other companies, CDP has been able to offer a wide range of durable plastics derived from agricultural crops, which can compete with hydrocarbon based plastics in both cost and performance.

The new technology developed by CDP uses natural plant sugars from corn to make polylactide polymers (PLA) for utensils, plastic packaging, fibers for cloth, and other products. With this technology, the carbon that plants absorb from the air through chlorophyll photosynthesis and convert into starch can be broken down into natural plant sugars. The carbon and other elements in these natural sugars are then used to make PLA polymers.

The new CDP plant will be situated at the site of Cargill’s corn milling plant at Blair. It is expected to start production in 2002 with an annual estimated capacity of 140,000 metric tons of PLA polymers. At the moment CDP has the capacity to manufacture more than 4,000 tons of PLA per year in a factory near Minneapolis and plans to double the figure this year to satisfy the demand for development projects and test markets. Other projects include building a new large-scale European site.

For more information, contact: in the U.S. or Canada, Cargill Dow Polymers, tel.: +1 877 423 7659; in Europe, Dow Information Center in the Netherlands, tel.: +31 20 691 6268; in Japan, Cargill Japan Ltd., tel.: +81 33 285 0824 or visit websites http://www.cdpoly.com and http://www.dow.com/plastics/news/pn_cargill.html

Source: Environment News Service (ENS), January 11, 2000, website: http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jan2000/2000L-01-11-01.html

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The UN Division for Sustainable Development prepared a background paper entitled "Changing Consumption and Production Patterns: Organic Agriculture" to support the work of the eighth session of the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD-8). It is also part of the Commission’s work programme on changing consumption and production patterns, an overriding issue for the period 1998-2002.

Organically produced food represents a small but rapidly growing share of the market. Though organic farming is not likely to become a dominant agricultural production method in the near future, it is a valuable approach to sustainable agriculture and may offer lessons for more conventional approaches. The publication focuses on three issues:

• The rapid growth of consumer demand for organic products in developed countries in the 1990s;
• The implications of organic farming for sustainable development, in particular, the environmental benefits and health issues relating to organic farming;
• Export opportunities for developing countries arising from the growing demand for organic food in developed countries, and how developing countries can benefit from those opportunities.

The study presents some policy options relating to organic farming and sustainable agriculture.

The 1997 publication "Changing Consumption and Production Patterns: Unlocking Trade Opportunities covered a wide range of opportunities for developing countries arising from changing consumption patterns in developed countries, including manufactured products, tourism, fair trade programmes, organic agriculture, and forest products. The new background paper complements the earlier publication by examining in more details the trends and opportunities in organic agriculture.

Full text of the publication is available on the website http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/csd8/ecn172000-bp4.pdf

For more information, contact Ms. Chikako Takase, Division for Sustainable Development, tel.: +1 212 963 8774, fax: +1 212 963 4260, e-mail:

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Previous issues of "News and Trends"

News and Trends October - November   1999

News and Trends July - September 1999

News and Trends April - June 1999

News and Trends February-March 1999

News and Trends December 1998-January 1999 

News and Trends October-November 1998 

News and Trends August-September 1998 

News and Trends June-July 1998 

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