About the guidance manual: “Advancing Sustainable Consumption in Asia – A Guidance Manual”, (hereinafter referred as “the Manual”, or “the guidance manual”), is the key output of the project Capacity Building for Implementation of UN Guidelines for Consumer Protection (Sustainable Consumption) in Asia.

The other components of the project include: regional reviews of the status of sustainable consumption in Asia and Europe, a “Regional Cross-Learning Seminar on Sustainable Consumption” carried out in Manila, the Philippines, in March 2005, and exercises on developing national action plans for promoting sustainable consumption in Asia.

The guidance manual builds on all the project components and aims at providing Asian governments with a practical tool for developing national initiatives in the area of sustainable consumption. The SC.Asia project, including this manual, contributes to the 10-year framework of programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production in Asia and the Pacific.

Users: The intended users of the manual are governments in Asian countries who could use it as a guidance document to build capacities and implement programmes and activities on sustainable consumption. For this reason, the manual has taken into account the specific socio-political and environmental conditions in the 12 Asian countries that participated in the project.

A second target group for this manual include research institutes, experts, and trainers, who play an important role in assisting the government in policy making and building the knowledge base on sustainable consumption.

Finally, governments in other countries, and other stakeholders concerned with sustainable consumption may also use the manual as a reference document on sustainable consumption.

Focus: The UN Guidelines for Consumer Protection, Section G on Sustainable Consumption provides the focus for the manual. Specifically, the manual covers nine areas highlighted in the UN Guidelines as being particularly relevant to sustainable consumption (refer to annex 1 for the text of Section G of the UN Guidelines).

The manual addresses a wide array of sustainable consumption issues. These range from under-consumption and resource use efficiency to responsible consumption, product and service change, and to purchasing choices. However, it is not the intention of this manual to provide a comprehensive guidance on all these issues. Readers will find that the manual is very specific in its elaboration of operational steps. For this reason, discussions on related issues such as poverty reduction, life styles, or cleaner production, are of a general nature and mainly serve the purpose of providing background information.

Knowledge base: The manual focuses on four clusters of practical tools: product information; waste prevention and minimization; sustainable government practices; awareness, education and marketing. Although many more tools are available and useful, these tools are selected based on the findings of two regional reviews on sustainable consumption practices in Asia and Europe, carried out by SC.Asia. This selection is also supported by the recommendations from the Regional Cross-Learning Seminar on Sustainable Consumption, where experts found these four clusters of tools as being particularly relevant and practical in Asia. Every tool presented, and most of the suggestions made, in the manual are either derived from case studies developed during the two regional reviews or provided by participating experts.

While some of the case studies may have limitations for replication, the manual tries to offer a wide-range of examples wherever possible. For reasons of space, only a limited selection of the case studies developed in SC.Asia are presented in this manual. For accessing the full selection of case studies, please refer to <http://www.unep.fr/pc/sustain/policies/scasia.htm>

Since the manual is based largely on existing practices, it should not be considered as a static guide. Sustainable consumption as a policy area is very new to most governments, and as a result is an evolving field within the region. As the practices advance, this manual itself should be reviewed and updated.

Structure: The manual consists of three chapters and two annexes:

Chapter One provides answers to basic questions about sustainable consumption and the UN guidelines for Consumer Protection. The contents will let the reader familiarize himself/herself with the sustainable consumption concept and provides answers to many of the more common questions about sustainable consumption. The questions and answers can also be used to develop public awareness materials when adapted to a specific target group in a specific country. The full text of the UN Guidelines for Consumer Protection, Section G on sustainable consumption is included in Annex1.

Chapter Two provides information about four clusters of tools for promoting sustainable consumption. The emphasis of this chapter is on introducing the tools and on describing how they may be used. Case studies are provided to indicate how governments can work together with stakeholders to take actions towards changing consumption patterns. Each tool may be used to address specific problems, or several tools may be used together to effectively resolve certain problems associated with unsustainable consumption. However, not all the tools will be suited to all situations. More in-depth knowledge on specific tools may be needed to support governments that wish to take action, or for trainers who wish to provide training. Annex 2 includes information on sources of knowledge and information that may be used to gain such deepened knowledge.

Chapter Three presents a step-by-step process to guide the development of national action plans on sustainable consumption. This seven-step process can be used in developing any government initiative on sustainable consumption. Two examples of sustainable consumption focus areas - energy use and waste generation - are used to illustrate how the seven-step process may be used to develop a national initiative on sustainable consumption. This stepby-step process was presented at the Regional Cross-Learning Seminar on Sustainable Consumption and was improved based on the feedback from participants. This chapter can form the basis for national initiative planning, as well as a training exercise on sustainable consumption.

Download Advancing Sustainable Consumption in Asia: A Guidance Manual

PDF format, 9.75MB, 73Pages.

United Nations Environment Programme
Division of Technology, Industry and Economics

What is Sustainable Consumption?

Sustainable consumption gives consumers the opportunity to consume products and services that meet their needs in an efficient and effective way, while minimizing the negative environmental, social and economic impact. The ultimate goal of sustainable consumption is to improve quality of life for all consumers in our and future generations, while minimizing associated environmental impacts.

Sustainable consumption builds on the concept of sustainable development, which was defined by the Brundtland Commission in 1987 as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.

Consequently, the core idea of sustainable consumption is to meet our own consumption needs in such a way that we do not deprive future generations’ ability to meet their consumption needs.

It is important to understand that “sustainable consumption” does not automatically translate into “less consumption” but rather to more efficient, better informed and less resource intensive consumption.

This is especially true for people living in poverty, often having a real need to increase their consumption of products and services.

Sustainable consumption is directly linked with many other development priorities, such as poverty alleviation, economic growth, health and education, and environmental protection, all of them contributing to an improved quality of life. These links are explained in more detail below.

Sustainable consumption is therefore often not a prescription for how to consume less, but for how to meet the consumers’ needs in a smart way.

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