SCP?
Some days ago, a good friend introduced me to the idea of SCP, short for “Sustainable Consumption and Production”, which, after taking some time getting used to it, seems to be rather interesting and worth supporting to me. After all, the idea seems not that difficult: Talking about sustainable development of “underdeveloped” / “poor” countries, effort should be taken to help growing local economies that fit into the local culture and environment. Plus, looking at recent issues like global warming, we also should try achieving production and consumption of goods in an environmentally sound way. Current SCP projects sort of drive forth this idea by encouraging public institutions, governments, … to make buying and consumption decisions not just based on price but also on “sustainability” factors of products. This way, with public organizations spending quite an amount of money on buying goods for “everyday use” (printing paper, pens, light bulbs, …), there could be positive effects both on environment and on local economy, not talking about these examples encouraging others to do the same. Surely there will be some discussion about a government spending more money than absolutely necessary, but in the end, as a country or even a society as a whole, we should think about whether there are other important issues to take care of – and SCP supported by a government indeed would be a good expression of a country caring about these things.
I’m still at the very beginning reading through the material available online, but it seems an interesting issue to deal with. Check out for more:
http://www.iisd.ca/consume/
http://www.iisd.org/susprod/
http://www.unep.fr/pc/sustain/10year/Cooperation%20Dialogue.htm