Perspectives on Finland’s sustainable consumption and production policy

The Finnish approach that is starting from the basic human needs of food, housing, mobility and related lifestyles enables us to address the social dimension of sustainable development alongside the ecological and economic dimensions. In this context environmental problems cannot be resolved in isolation from people’s everyday lives, as can happen if environmental policies are based purely on emissions.But it is also worth questioning the potential for national SCP programmes in today’s global markets. Over the last ten years, domestic material flows within the Finnish economy have remained fairly constant, with gains in material efficiency cancelled out by increasing levels of material consumption. However, external material flows and the consequent environmental impacts have steadily increased, and the magnitude and environmental impacts of both imports and exports are approximately the same as for domestic flows. This means that the role of external material flows can no longer be ignored in national SCP policies.It is also important to integrate SCP with climate policies. Finland’s national climate and energy strategy is mainly based on the need to reduce CO₂ emissions from energy production and industrial installations, but there is also a need for complementary actions to reduce the carbon footprints caused by private and public consumption.     

Industrial symbiosis and the policy instruments of sustainable consumption and production

Industrial symbioses (ISs) and eco-industrial parks (EIPs) are key concepts of industrial ecology (IE). The aim of ISs and EIPs is to minimise inefficient material and energy use by utilising local by-product and energy flows. Industrial symbioses tend to develop through spontaneous action of economic actors, for gaining of economic benefit, but these systems can be designed and promoted via policy instruments as well. A literature review showed that national programmes for eco-industrial parks can be found in different parts of the world. In the action programmes and other sustainable consumption and production (SCP) policy documents of the EU, on the other hand, industrial symbioses gain less recognition as a path to enhanced sustainable production. In this article, we consider this and also analyse how the evolution and environmental performance of an industrial symbiosis system centred on a Finnish pulp and paper mill have been affected by SCP policy instruments. With regard to the system forming the subject of the case study, and Finnish industrial systems in general, policy instruments have succeeded in reducing emissions but not in systematically encouraging operators toward symbiosis-like activities. All in all, few studies exist on the overall impact of policy instruments promoting design of eco-industrial parks. It is not self-evident that symbiosis-like production systems would be sustainable in every case, as the background assumptions for political promotion of EIPs suggest. We concluded that industrial symbioses should be analysed and developed on a life cycle basis, with documentation of the real environmental benefits due to efficient resource use and decreased emissions in comparison to standalone production. ISs can then bring eco-competitiveness to companies in relation to SCP tools, such as environmental permits, ecolabels, and future product regulation based on the Ecodesign Directive in Europe. Indirect encouragement of symbiosis through land-use regulation and planning, in such a way that material fluxes between companies are possible both in operations and in financial terms, may prove effective. The same holds for waste policies that encourage increased reuse of a company’s waste by other enterprises.     

The relationship between economic and carbon footprint changes in EU: The achievements of the EU sustainable consumption and production policy implementation

The Sustainable Consumption and Production policy is a key objective in the renewed European Union (EU) Sustainable Development Strategy (SDS). EU countries implement the targets of Sustainable Consumption and Production policy at different a level. Nevertheless, SDS targets are concerned more with production than consumption side. In addition, analysis of the carbon footprint data, which was supplied by the Global Footprint Network, showed that in all EU countries consumption-based carbon footprint caught-up and exceeded the level of production-based carbon (except Denmark and Estonia) during 1993–2010 period. The significant absolute decoupling in terms of carbon footprint from production-based perspective was observed in Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Slovakia, Poland, United Kingdom and Germany, meanwhile from consumption-based perspective only in Denmark, Estonia and Germany. Moreover in Spain, Portugal, Italy and Croatia the consumption-based carbon footprint grew faster than economy in general. Results imply that EU should put more focus on consumption side in terms of Sustainable Consumption and Production policy and measures taken. A commitment to reduce the environmental impact from consumption-based perspective should be more addressed covering values and lifestyles.     

Indicators of sustainable production: framework and methodology

This paper presents a new tool for promoting business sustainability — indicators of sustainable production. It first introduces the concept of sustainable production as defined by the Lowell Center for Sustainable Production, University of Massachusetts Lowell. Indicators of sustainable production are discussed next, including their dimensions and desirable qualities. Based on the Lowell Center Indicator Framework, the authors suggest a new methodology of core and supplemental indicators for raising companies' awareness and measuring their progress toward sustainable production systems. Twenty-two core indicators are proposed and a detailed guidance for their application is included. An eight-step model provides a context for indicator implementation. The paper concludes with a summary of the strengths and weaknesses of the methodology as well as recommendations for testing the indicators.     

The concept of sustainable islands: cleaner production, industrial ecology and the network paradigm as preconditions for regional sustainable development

This paper introduces a bottom-up approach towards sustainability which is called the Island approach. The basic assumption of ‘Islands of Sustainability’ is that development towards sustainability can be introduced starting from small sustainable regions. An Island is an area where sustainability is reached locally. Key points to create a sustainable region are communication activities, such as exchange of matter, energy, information, culture, capital and persons within the regional network and with the environment. One of the main theses is that sustainability is linked to the complexity of the regional network. The intensity, the speed and the comprehensive of internal and external interactions, as well as the connectedness of the regional network, have to be changed in order to reach local sustainability.Relations between different approaches such as the Cleaner Production approach, the Industrial Ecology approach and the Island approach are investigated. It is assumed that a combination of these approaches will lead to sustainability, which might not be the case with one approach in isolation. All concepts are based on the new Network Paradigm, which is a reduction of the holistic world view. Cooperation on different hierarchical levels, from the interfirm level up to the interregional level, becomes an important part of behaviour. Networks, such as information networks or matter-flow networks, are introduced and become most important with regard to sustainability.     

Towards sustainable production and use of charcoal in Kenya: exploring the potential in life cycle management approach

The study seeks to demonstrate the potential role that industrial ecology could play towards energy poverty reduction and environmental conservation in Kenya through sustainable charcoal production and consumption. This is achieved through an exploration of the application of the life cycle management (LCM) concept that identifies various opportunities for technological intervention for energy and environmental conservation and reduction of material and energy losses. It also identifies opportunities for income generation at various stages of the product’s life cycle; an aspect critical in poverty reduction in developing countries. The study finds that applying LCM in the charcoal trade in Kenya can deliver social, economic and environmental benefits to developing country communities and should, therefore, be promoted. However, appropriate legal, policy and institutional frameworks must exist in these countries for this to occur.     

Improving the environmental performance of machine-tools: influence of technology and throughput on the electrical energy consumption of a press-brake

Machine-tools have been identified as one of the main energy-using products to be analyzed in an Ecodesign perspective, targeting the reduction of their environmental impact. Following this, machine-tool manufacturers are committed to anticipate eminent regulations and are looking for guidelines to improve their products on an effective and low-cost manner. This paper describes part of the energy consumption study followed in the frame of the Ecodesign of a commercial press-brake. All-hydraulic and all-electric commercially available systems, of different capacities and working in real production scenarios, have been included. From this study, a preliminary version of an LCI dataset for the bending process is proposed, structured in technology, machine capacity and usage mode categories, and using the bending cycle as the reference unit. The energy consumption per category was estimated based on a specific process energy model built as a function of the referred parameters. The contribution of the respective machine-tool structure to the environmental impact of the machining process is to be included, targeting the completion of such machining unit process dataset. The full LCA of an all-hydraulic system revealed the significant contribution of the machine-tool structure to the global life-cycle environmental impact of the machine (about 40%), while electricity during use phase contributes with about 46% to the total impact. This contradicts the general results published for other metal and non-metal forming processes, and is understood to be related with the discrete loading character of such forming processes here discussed.     

Knowledge production and the science–policy relation in Dutch soil policy: results from a survey on perceived roles of organisations

In this paper, we present results from a survey on the perceived roles of organisations on the production and transfer of knowledge in Dutch soil policy. The results are interpreted by applying three theoretical perspectives to this relation: technical communities, epistemic communities and Mode 2 knowledge production. The main research results show that, since the perceived roles of organisations in some cases do not match the intended roles, or are inconsistent, communication of roles by organisations in the policy field is not effective. A second conclusion is that the respondents advocated an increase in interaction among policy levels and between knowledge production and policymaking. From the results, it seems that the Dutch soil policy field is on its way to a mode of socially robust knowledge production, where knowledge production, knowledge transfer and policymaking are integrated. In order to further this development, the paper provides recommendations on the further integration of science and policy concerning soil policy in the Netherlands.With respect to the methodology of survey research on the interaction between science and policy, the paper illustrates the importance of the professional identities of the respondents. The professional identities of the respondents are an important explanatory variable for the perceived roles of organisations.     

Implementing stricter environmental regulation to enhance eco-efficiency and sustainability: a case study of Shandong Province’s pulp and paper industry, China

There has been much debate on the topic of whether stricter environmental regulations can promote environmental performance and economic performance at the same time. Different researchers have used different indicators to measure environmental performance and economic performance in their empirical studies. However, it is a surprise that few studies have checked the relationship between environmental regulation and eco-efficiency, as the latter is widely regarded as a quite powerful tool of considering ecology and economy together.In this study the background is the implementation in 2003 of the Stricter Discharge Standard (SDS) in Shandong Province’s Pulp and Paper Industry (SPPI), compared to the national standards of China. The stricter regulations were intended to promote corporate change from passive management to active control and from end-of-pipe treatment to cleaner production. This study investigated the eco-efficiency trends of SPPI from 2001 to 2008 in three fields: water efficiency, energy efficiency and environment efficiency. A “de-linking” and “re-linking” tool was used to attain a further evaluation. The study showed that with the implementation of stricter regulation most of the efficiency indicators (except CO₂ emission and energy consumption) had achieved significant improvements, and the overall environmental performance trends of SPPI showed it to be more sustainable. However, the study also found that it was not enough to address a single indicator in the environmental regulation of the pulp and paper industry. More holistic eco-efficiency indicators need to be further considered and introduced to the industry as the next step to create true sustainable development.     

The potential of remote sensing data for decision makers at the state, local and tribal level: experiences from NASA’s Synergy program

NASA’s Earth Observation System (EOS) satellite data are contributing to the development of policy relevant, remote sensing applications. To promote the use of EOS data for application development, NASA funded the Synergy program in 2000 in partnership with academia, end users, and industry. Three examples of remote sensing applications from the Synergy program are presented here and include agriculture, range management, and water resource management. These examples show that remote sensing products have the potential to be useful to a variety of decision makers and policy makers because of the opportunity to reduce chemicals in the environment, improve crop yields and better manage range lands and water resources. Transitioning from research and development to successful applications must overcome challenges such as the lack of awareness by end users of these technologies, inadequate feedback mechanism between application developers and end users, and unproven cost benefits of remote sensing data. Experience from the Synergy program indicates that these issues could be mitigated by educating and training end users, demonstrating the utility of remote sensing data in improving decision making, and establishing and maintaining a continuous dialogue between developers and end users. Sustainability of remote sensing applications ultimately depends on users continuing reliance on products and benefits from remote sensing data. The Synergy program also demonstrates that remote sensing data sets that are collected primarily for global change research contribute to the development of applications in a variety of disciplines at the regional and local level.