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This was one of the conclusions that emerged at the Baltic
Sustainable Consumption and Production sub-regional
multi-stakeholder workshop, held in Vilnius, Lithuania, June 17-18,
2004. An official chair's summary will be published
shortly.
Prof. Romualdas Juknys (Lithuania), who was the
workshop chair and rapporteur, showed that in Lithuania a "double
de-coupling" has been achieved. The same income has been generated
with less inputs. He highlighted however remaining challenges, such
as in improving energy-efficient heating of houses, and municipal
waste management.
Changes in consumption and production
patterns are very similar in the Baltic States, which, according to
Juknys, would call for joint proposed action plans, building on the
common heritage of wasteful patterns of consumption (4-7 times as
resource intensive as in other countries), well-developed energy,
transportation and communication infrastructure, a rather inactive
civil society, low awareness, and a relatively high level of
education.
Subregional networks, awareness raising,
education and environmentally friendly technologies would therefore
be important elements of follow-up work.
Estonia has a good
legal framework for sustainable production, said Andres Kratovits,
Director General of the Ministry of Environment, but the trends on
sustainable consumption are not encouraging. Consumption patterns at
the moment are quite sustainable, however, "we are becoming richer
and richer ...".
Frits Schlingemann, Director of UNEP's
Regional Office for Europe, said that increased consumption might
indeed not necessarily lead to an increase of the quality of life.
Preliminary results of a UNEP research project, presented by UNEP
consultant, Angels Varea, pointed to this direction. "People do not
want to be told to change", she said, "they want to have
choices."
Among the concrete challenges mentioned was waste
management. In particular the share of packaging materials in
domestic waste is increasing. National resource taxes, labelling
(such as in Lativa) were among the instruments mentioned to improve
consumption and production patterns.
The meeting was
organised by UNEP's Regional Office for Europe, the Center for
Environmental Policy, Lithuania, Green Liberty, Latvia, and Green
Movement, Estonia, in collaboration with the Ministries of
Environment of the three states, and the Ministry of Environment of
Finland.
More information with Rie Tsutsumi, at
rie.tsutsumi@unep.ch. Website http://www.unep.ch/roe/ |
New
Issue 
30/6/2004