Sustainable Consumption
Sustainable Consumption
By
Dr Arvind Kumar
According
to the World Wide life Fund’s report on ‘Living Planet’: “The earth is
running out of natural resources like land, water and minerals so quickly that
if nothing is done, some predictions say that by 2030 humankind will need the
equivalent of two planets to sustain our current lifestyle.” It seems that
over the past four this warning has remained unheeded. At this juncture it is
worth noting as to what exactly can be done to reduce environmental impact –
which has got further worsened – and how shoud we go about doing about it?
Preventing environmental damage in the first place is seen as a preferable
strategy to asking people to mitigate it after the fact. However, according to
Dutch MEP Bas Eickhout (Greens), addressing sustainable consumption was “as
crucial as the production side. They need to go hand-in-hand but it’s far more
difficult. How do you tell people what to consume? You cannot really forbid
things.”
There is
a need for better environmental information to be made available to the public,
to encourage a change away from unsustainable consumption patterns such as
meat-eating. For Franz Fiala, a spokesman for the European consumer rights
group ANEC, the fundamental problem was the lack of a “roadmap” or “master
plan” for addressing the issue. He further adds: “We have pieces
of that but no overall strategy, any overall strategy would have to accomplish
fundamental changes to the way we live, how we produce, how we consume. It’s
quite clear that we have to consume less.” But reducing consumption had to
be done according to principles of global social equity – and quickly.
Sustainable consumption should go hand in hand with sustainable development to
maintain ecological equilibrium.
#SustainableConsumption #Ecological #Change #Environment #EuropeanConsumer #GlobalSocialEquity #Fundamental
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