Economic growth and increasing population impose long-term risks to the environment and society. Approaches to address the impact of consumption and production on bio-diversity loss, resource availability, climate change, and mounting waste problems on land and in seas have yet not proven to be successful. This calls for innovative approaches to address the complex environmental, social, and economic interrelationships that have to be addressed in transforming to sustainable development. Sustainable Consumption and Production, Volume I: Challenges and Development aims to explore critical global challenges and addresses how consumers, producers, the private sector, international organizations, and governments can play an active role in innovating businesses to support a transitioning towards sustainable consumption and production. The book explores different approaches and innovations to address sustainable consumption and production. It details multiple social and economic contexts to the challenges and developments towards a sustainable consumption and production. The book is of interest to economists, students, businesses, and policymakers. Chapter 14 and chapter 15 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com. Ranjula Bali Swain is Visiting Professor at Mistra Center for Sustainalbe Markets (Misum), Stockholm School of Economics and Professor of Economics at Södertörn University, Stockholm, Sweden. Her research focusses on sustainable development, environmental economics and development economics. Susanne Sweet is an Associate Professor at Stockholm School of Economics. Sweet's research covers a broad range of topics on corporate sustainability and responsibility and she has for the past eight years been the research manager for a large cross disciplinary research program on circular fashion.

This book takes a wide-ranging and non-dogmatic view of SDG12, tackling various approaches as to how production and consumption can provide for human well-being while minimizing destructive effects on the biophysical environment.

The problems related to the process of industrialisation such as biodiversity depletion, climate change and a worsening of health and living conditions, especially but not only in developing countries, intensify. Therefore, there is an increasing need to search for integrated solutions to make development more sustainable. The United Nations has acknowledged the problem and approved the “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”. On 1st January 2016, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the Agenda officially came into force. These goals cover the three dimensions of sustainable development: economic growth, social inclusion and environmental protection. The Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals comprehensively addresses the SDGs in an integrated way. It encompasses 17 volumes, each one devoted to one of the 17 SDGs. This volume addresses SDG 12, namely "Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns" and contains the description of a range of terms, which allows a better understanding and fosters knowledge. Concretely, the defined targets are: Implement the 10-Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns, all countries taking action, with developed countries taking the lead, taking into account the development and capabilities of developing countries Achieve the sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources Halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses Achieve the environmentally sound management of chemicals and all wastes throughout their life cycle, in accordance with agreed international frameworks, and significantly reduce their release to air, water and soil in order to minimize their adverse impacts on human health and the environment Substantially reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse Encourage companies, especially large and transnational companies, to adopt sustainable practices and to integrate sustainability information into their reporting cycle Promote public procurement practices that are sustainable, in accordance with national policies and priorities Ensure that people everywhere have the relevant information and awareness for sustainable development and lifestyles in harmony with nature Support developing countries to strengthen their scientific and technological capacity to move towards more sustainable patterns of consumption and production Develop and implement tools to monitor sustainable development impacts for sustainable tourism that creates jobs and promotes local culture and products Rationalize inefficient fossil-fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption by removing market distortions, in accordance with national circumstances, including by restructuring taxation and phasing out those harmful subsidies, where they exist, to reflect their environmental impacts, taking fully into account the specific needs and conditions of developing countries and minimizing the possible adverse impacts on their development in a manner that protects the poor and the affected communities Editorial Board Medani P. Bhandari, Luciana Londero Brandli, Morgane M. C. Fritz, Ulla A. Saari, Leonardo L. Sta Romana

Circular economy principles are driving to overcome the challenges of today’s linear take-make-dispose production and consumption patterns through keeping the value of products, materials, and resources circulating in the economy as long as possible. Sustainable Consumption and Production, Volume II: Circular Economy and Beyond aims to explore the sustainable consumption and production transition to a circular economy, while addressing critical global challenges by innovating and transforming product and service markets towards sustainable development. This book explores how consumers, private sector, relevant international organizations, and governments can play an active role in innovating businesses to help companies, individuals (consumers and citizens), organizations, and sectors, to remain competitive, while transitioning towards sustainable markets and economies. It is of interest to economists, students, businesses, and policymakers.

Responsible Consumption and Production, the twelfth UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 12), calls for significant change in how we view both production and consumption norms. It is predicted that, at the current rate of population growth and consumption, the natural resources needed to sustain current lifestyles would require the equivalent of almost three planets by 2050. It is clear that change is required, involving action from everyone from the producer to the final consumer. Since sustainable consumption aims for world citizens to ‘do better with less’, all aspects of this change must be carefully considered with regard to critical ecological and social models that transform all production and consumption practices that are recognised as negative. Transitioning to Responsible Consumption and Production focuses on the transition to responsible production and consumption, and models that aid that transition. It offers a multi-disciplinary, multi-stakeholder conversation on this issue, with a focus on the intersection between encouraging and enhancing sustainable production processes, and enacting behaviour change and socially oriented decision-making by consumers. Transitioning to Responsible Consumption and Production is part of MDPI's new Open Access book series Transitioning to Sustainability. With this series, MDPI pursues environmentally and socially relevant research which contributes to efforts toward a sustainable world. Transitioning to Sustainability aims to add to the conversation about regional and global sustainable development according to the 17 SDGs. Set to be published in 2020, the book series is intended to reach beyond disciplinary, even academic boundaries.

This incisive book integrates the academic fields of sustainable consumption and production (SCP) and sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) as a framework for challenging the current economic paradigm and addressing the significant ecological and environmental problems faced by the contemporary business world.

"This Handbook is an output of UNEP's work towards the implementation of the 10-Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP). This global edition is based on a pilot edition for Asia and the Pacific region that was developed under the EU funded and UNEP managed Regional Policy Support Component of the SWITCH-Asia programme. It is designed to assist policymakers in developing, implementing, monitoring and evaluating policies that support the transition towards SCP. It includes numerous case studies highlighting SCP opportunities and existing successful initiatives from across the world."--Publisher's description.

The Nordic countries rank high in international reports of nations' progress towards the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Along with other industrialised countries, however, the Nordic countries have been ranked poorly in their progress towards SDG 12, which concerns Sustainable Consumption and Production. This report looks closer at the Nordic countries' main challenges in achieving SDG12 and sets out recommendations for Nordic collaboration to tackle these.

Sustainable Consumption: Key Issues provides a concise introduction to the field of sustainable consumption, outlining the contribution of the key disciplines in this multi-disciplinary area, and detailing the way in which both the problem and the potential for solutions are understood. Divided into three parts, the book begins by introducing the concept of sustainable consumption, outlining the environmental impacts of current consumption trends, and placing these impacts in social context. The central section looks at six contrasting explanations of sustainable consumption in the public domain, detailing the stories that are told about why people act in the way they do. This section also explores the theory and evidence around each of these stories, linking them to a range of disciplines and approaches in the social sciences. The final section takes a broader look at the solutions proposed by sustainable consumption scholars and practitioners, outlining the visions of the future that are put forward to counteract damage to environment and society. Each chapter highlights key authors and real-world examples to encourage students to broaden their understanding of the topic and to think critically about how their daily lives intersect with environmental and ethical issues. Exploring the ways in which critical thinking and an understanding of sustainable consumption can be used in daily life as well as in professional practice, this book is essential reading for students, academics, professionals and policy-makers with an interest in this growing field.

Sustainable consumption and production (SCP) was adopted as a priority area during the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002 and has since become one of the main vehicles for targeting international sustainability policy. Sustainable consumption focuses on formulating equitable strategies that foster the highest quality of life, the efficient use of natural resources, and the effective satisfaction of human needs while simultaneously promoting equitable social development, economic competitiveness, and technological innovation. But this is a complex topic and, as the challenges of sustainability grow larger, there is a need to re-imagine how SCP policies can be formulated, governed and implemented. The EU-funded project "Sustainable Consumption Research Exchanges" (SCORE!) consists of around 200 experts in the field of sustainable innovation and sustainable consumption. The SCORE! philosophy is that innovation in SCP policy can be achieved only if experts that understand business development, (sustainable) solution design, consumer behaviour and system innovation policy work together in shaping it. Sustainable technology design can be effective only if business can profitably make the products and consumers are attracted to them. To understand how this might effectively happen, the expertise of systems thinkers must be added to the mix. System Innovation for Sustainability 1 is the first result of a unique positive confrontation between experts from all four communities. It examines what SCP is and what it could be, provides a state-of-the-art review on the governance of change in SCP policy and looks at the strengths and weaknesses of current approaches. The SCORE! experts are working with actors in industry, consumer groups and eco-labelling organisations in the key consumption areas of mobility, food and agriculture, and energy use and housing – responsible for 70% of the life-cycle environmental impacts of Western societies – with the aim of stimulating, fostering or forcing change to SCP theory in practice. The System Innovation for Sustainability series will continue with three further volumes of comprehensive case studies in each of these three critical consumption areas. Each chapter of this book examines problems and suggests solutions from a business, design, consumer and system innovation perspective. It primarily examines the differing solutions necessary in the consumer economies of the West, but also comments on the differing needs in rapidly emerging economies such as China, as well as base-of-the-pyramid economies. The System Innovation for Sustainability series is the fruit of the only major international research network on SCP and will set the standard in this field for some years to come. It will be required reading for all involved in the policy debate on sustainable production and consumption from government, business, academia and NGOs for designers, scientists, businesses and system innovators.