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28th January 2021
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Leader 28th October continued
Continued from Front Page
While he acknowledged that the rebound effect was not fully documented by academic research, he did stress the need to look for new sources of value, such as appreciating the quality of goods purchased rather than buying cheap.
Asked about potential solutions to the rebound effect problem, Steven Stone from the UNEP Economics & Trade branch insisted on the importance of pricing. "Prices are not reflecting the resources used," he said, suggesting that the price of unsustainable products was not high enough.
Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy, a Dutch liberal MEP who is drafting the European Parliament's position on the Commission's resource-efficiency roadmap, suggested that there could be a way of not necessarily consuming less if we consumed "more smartly". He said that using materials such as glass, which is infinitely recyclable, is ok "if we recycle it all the time 100%".
He also suggested taking a closer look at the concept of the "leasing society", in which consumers would not necessarily always buy things but instead pay for using them. After use, consumers would then return the goods, which would be either put to reuse or recovered through recycling.
Unilever's Thomas Lingard, said that big multinationals have the experience to communicate messages and could therefore help promote good environmental behaviour.
Indeed, big consumer brands spend a lot of time and money understanding their client's behaviour to influence them. And some suggest that multinationals' global outreach could be used to drive more sustainable consumer behaviour.
Euractiv.com believes it is not only about steering consumer behaviour or a few environmentally-conscious buyers to opt for goods that are "better for the environment", saying that the production side is just as important, if not more, since consumers need to be given the choice of opting for greener purchases.
I'd love to have your take on all of this...
28th October 2011