Overview of sustainability initiatives in European food retail sector

This study aims to provide a comprehensive overview of sustainability practices in food retailing sector. Report is structured to reflect on overall sustainability trends among European food retailers, outline drivers and barriers to address sustainability issues in retailer’s supply chain operations and provide classification of sustainability initiatives undertaken by EU retail organizations that could be classified as forerunners in environmental field. Proposed classification embraces wide range of initiatives targeted towards greening particular aspects of business activities in upstream and downstream supply chain, as well as in-shop. Furthermore, analysis of initiatives is undertaken to reflect on how widespread different sustainability activities among retail organizations. Eventually, drawing on examples of ‘best practice’ among European forerunners, recommendations for retailers and policy-makers are provided on how to further sustainability work in food supply chain

From sufficiency to sustainable abundance: disspelling a myth

The Paris Agreement sets the goal of a complete global phase-out of fossil fuel use by the end of the 21st century and an 80-95% reduction of carbon emissions in affluent countries by 2050. Obviously, efficiency gains alone cannot deliver the required reductions (Alfredsson et al. 2018), due to rebound effects (York, Adua, and Clark 2022) and the increasing pace of growth (Hickel 2020). It is suggested that efficiency improvements must be accompanied by demand-side innovations and, more specifically, by sufficiency-oriented efforts, i.e., “doing with less” - reducing the absolute amounts of resources and emissions associated with modern lifestyles (Wiedmann et al. 2020). Sufficiency encourages individuals and societies to make conscious choices about what they consume, focusing on quality rather than quantity and seeking fulfilment and well-being beyond material possessions. However, discourses about limits to consumption are often met with resistance from almost all stakeholders (Gumbert et al. 2022). Individuals associate sufficiency with “living in caves” (Mont et al. 2013). For businesses, sufficiency often challenges the entire business logic of growth and profit maximisation (Bocken and Short 2016). Policymakers are reluctant to engage with sufficiency for fear of losing their electorates, as sufficiency is often viewed as a too radical and contested idea. Thus, a paradox emerges: international agreements have finally agreed upon the need for a radical transformation of our economy, yet necessary measures for enabling radical transformations are seen as too radical. These views and narratives help maintain the growth-dependent economy that no longer fits within planetary boundaries and influence what our societies deem possible and desirable (T. Jackson 2006). The question we explore in this contribution is: How can we dispel these dominant societal narratives that prevent us from considering sufficiency as a salient part of sustainability governance? How have policymakers and businesses operationalised and practised the contested notion of sufficiency

Nudging, a tool for sustainable behaviour?

This study was conducted as part of a government commission which wasgiven to the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (Swedish EPA) in 2014.The Environmental Protection Agency mandated the International Institutefor Industrial Environmental Economics (IIIEE) at Lund University to conducta research study on nudging. The study has served and will serve as a directinput to further strategic work on sustainable consumption policies.The aim of the report is to synthesize existing knowledge about the effectsachievable with nudging on consumption and the environment, in what areasnudging according to research can have the best effect and how nudging shouldbe applied to give the best effect. The study comprised a literature review andinterviews to collect experiences of working with nudging available in somecountries

Mainstreaming best practices in energy demand

It is becoming increasingly clear that we need an integrated approach to understanding and encouraging transitions towards a sustainable energy system. Current overall unsustainable ‘practices’ are locked into cultural, material, institutional and infrastructural settings. This limits the scope for individual choice and action. Even when actions are taken on individual or project level, they often remain stand-alone niche experiments and little further diffusion takes place. This paper addresses this problem by investigating how new more sustainable practices in the field of energy demand at the micro level can become mainstream and how energy demand side management projects can encourage this. We first discuss how a multilevel systems approach and practice theory may be fruitfully combined to address the problem of mainstreaming. Second, we analyse four empirical cases of energy demand side management. We explore efforts at diffusing these sustainable energy practices, the encountered challenges, employed solutions and achieved outcomes with the goal of learning about opportunities to mainstream best practices in the field of energy demand. The analysis reveals that the case that involved the most radical innovation faced the highest resistance to mainstreaming from the incumbent system. The more incremental initiatives were more successful at diffusing, but had rather modest outcomes in terms of environmental and efficiency gains. An important finding is that in order to shift everyday practices to a more sustainable direction, an understanding of possibilities to trigger changes in social norms is needed. When these changes are quite invasive, more time for negotiation and discussion might be needed before they become regarded as legitimate. Furthermore, connecting supply and demand (instead of merely addressing the demand side) can be crucial in mainstreaming sustainable energy practices. Although lessons learned from the cases do not offer clear-cut ‘do’s and don’ts’ for future efforts, they do highlight important issues for mainstreaming sustainable practices. These issues can sometimes be addressed within the scope of a single energy demand side project, but often policy has an important facilitating role to play in making sustainable energy practices legitimate and mainstream

Potential Rebound Effects of 1.5° Lifestyles

Understanding how lifestyles should and could change to meet the terms of the Paris Agreement is the aim of the project ‘EU 1.5° Lifestyles’. It focuses on lifestyle options compatible with a 1.5°C target and explores the structural barriers and enablers to implementing these. Many of these lifestyle options relate to circular strategies such as sharing, reusing and repairing products.However, even if lifestyle changes are achieved, there is a risk of rebound and negative side effects that can undermine the intended outcomes. While rebound effects have been studied, particularly regarding energy and economic mechanisms, less attention was paid to other environmental effects and social mechanisms. A systematic literature review was conducted for rebound effects of sustainable lifestyles more generally and more specifically in the consumption domains: nutrition,housing, mobility, and leisure. This contribution maps the potential rebound effects of lifestyle changes and the different mechanisms by which these effects occur. It gives an overview of the literature on rebound effects related to sustainable lifestyle strategies for households. The results indicate some domain areas are more studied than others, but also a gap in understanding rebound effects empirically and holistically

Producto, Producción Y Consumo. Los Frentes De Sostenibilidad

This article analyses the ideas and potential contribution of dematerialisation and eco-efficiency, and an innovation framework to promote Sustainability and increasing business competitiveness. From a strategic point of view and productivity approach, initiatives to reducing the resource intensity in producing products and providing services include: dematerialisation of the economy, extending product life, increasing eco-efficiency and, design principles as, recycling and remanufacturing, product substitution and increasing efficiency of the product usage phase. These initiatives are implemented in order to construct a sustainable system in the future, based on principles of economic and technological feasibility, environmental friendliness and social equity. Only practical implementation of these and other initiatives will provide us with answers about balancing those four dimensions of sustainability

Product ban versus risk management by setting emission and technology requirements: The effect of different regulatory schemes taking the use of trichloroethylene in Sweden and Germany as an example

This report highlights the opportunities inherent in smart regulatory measures to effectively reduce risks related to hazardous substance emissions and exposure, and underscores the danger of simplistic and ineffective policy. The example of different regulatory approaches used in Germany and Sweden to regulate the use of trichloroethylene was taken as the basis for the study. During the 1990s, due to environmental, health and safety considerations, the use of trichloroethylene in Europe was a subject of broad concern. As a consequence, the use of trichloroethylene became regulated through multiple approaches, such as labelling, handling regulations and performance standards. Since that time the absolute emissions of trichloroethylene in Europe have been decreasing consistently in all member states. These results were achieved by various regulatory measures governing the use of trichloroethylene in industrial applications that have been introduced by individual Member States. However, given the implementation responsibility at Member State level not all member States have implemented the same set of regulatory measures. In Germany, for example, the use of trichloroethylene is regulated through strict technical standards for equipment and emissions that has required companies to replace existing old machines with the state-of-the-art equipment. In Sweden a general ban on trichloroethylene use was introduced in 1996, which however eventually evolved into an exemption permit system for companies that found no alternative to degreasing with trichloroethylene. --