Sustainable consumption: Helping consumers make eco-friendly choices [Policy Podcast]

Written by Nikolina Šajn,

Household consumption in the EU has major environmental impacts, which in a number of cases exceed planetary boundaries. Two thirds of consumers in the EU realise that their consumption habits have negative effects on the environment, and the solution that they mention most often is to change consumption habits and production patterns.

However, a number of studies have shown a gap between consumers’ good intentions and their actual behaviour. This happens because sustainability is not the only thing consumers consider when choosing what to buy; they are also influenced by price, availability and convenience, habits, values, social norms and peer pressure, emotional appeal, and the feeling of making a difference. Consumers also use their consumption patterns to communicate who they are to themselves and to others. Studies on the impacts of consumption show that these are influenced mainly by people’s income.

The European Union has a number of policies that are relevant for consumers’ sustainable choices. These include environmental product requirements, information and labelling requirements, rules on product guarantees, climate legislation that attempts to build the price of CO₂ emissions into production expenses, and waste legislation that makes it easier to recycle. The European Commission now plans to add a legislative initiative to empower consumers for the green transition.

The European Parliament has long been a supporter of making consumption in the EU more sustainable, and has recently called for measures to ensure that consumers are provided with transparent, comparable and harmonised product information, especially when it comes to the durability and reparability of products and their environmental footprint.

Read the complete briefing on ‘Sustainable consumption: Helping consumers make eco-friendly choices‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

Listen to policy podcast ‘Sustainable consumption: Helping consumers make eco-friendly choices’ on YouTube.

https://youtu.be/xOT6q4vk3FE