Partnering to Enhance Civil Society Organisations’ Contribution to Research in Sustainable Consumption & Production

Objective

Some relative decoupling of economic growth from materials and energy consumption has been achieved in many EU countries during the past decade. However, this did not lead to an absolute decrease in environmental pressures, because absolute resource use has been generally remained steady over the past two decades. Moreover, due to the ‘rebound effect’, it is unlikely that resource use can be reduced by technological improvements alone. This leads us to the conclusion that sustainability of current lifestyles and consumption patterns may have to be critically reviewed. In order to reach the goal of shifting towards less environmentally damaging consumption patterns without reductions in the “quality of life”, contributions from and agreement among a variety of economic and societal actors are required. Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) have the unique position to bring a variety of actors together and convince them to take action for more transformational type of change beyond resource productivity measures. They can encourage concrete set of goals to drive away from currently unsustainable patterns of consumption. This project looks into how CSOs can provide new insights for research in sustainable consumption and production with the goal of reaching absolute decoupling of economic growth from resource use. Incorporating all major priorities of the call, specific objectives of the project are as follows: - Identify gaps (1) in the knowledge of CSO’s how to shape consumption and production patterns in a sustainable way, and (2) in the research agenda for sustainable consumption and production policy strategies, assessment tools and indicators; - Providing new insights for increasing efficiency of policy strategies, assessment tools and indicators for sustainable consumption and production through small-scale exploratory actions; - Create partnerships between CSOs and research organisations to increase involvement of CSOs in research.

Fields of science

• social scienceseconomics and businesseconomicsproduction economicsproductivity
• social sciencespolitical sciencespolitical policiescivil society

Keywords

• Civil Society Organizations
• assessment tools
• exploratory actions
• indicators
• partnerships
• policy strategies
• research organizations
• sustainable consumption and production

Programme(s)

• FP7-ENVIRONMENT - Specific Programme "Cooperation": Environment (including Climate Change)

Topic(s)

• ENV.2007.4.2.3.2. - Engaging civil society in research on sustainable development

Call for proposal

FP7-ENV-2007-1
See other projects for this call

Funding Scheme

Coordinator

Participants (8)