Expansion of Policy Domain of Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP): Challenges and Opportunities for Policy Design
1
Sustainable Consumption and Production Area, Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, Kamiyamaguchi 2108-11, Hayama 240-0115, Kanagawa, Japan
2
Material Cycles Division, National Institute of Environmental Studies, Japan, 16-2, Onogawa, Tsukuba 305-8506, Ibaraki, Japan
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editor: Paulo Peças
Sustainability 2021, 13(12), 6763; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13126763
Received: 15 April 2021
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Revised: 19 May 2021
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Accepted: 11 June 2021
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Published: 15 June 2021
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns: Policy Design and Evaluation)
Since 2015, the international policy community has started to agree on international agreements with ambitious middle-term and long-term goals, highly relevant to sustainable consumption and production (SCP) such as those seen in the Paris Agreement, SDGs, and the plastic-related agreements at the G7 and G20 processes. Along with this trend, there has been growing attention given to socio-technical system change or “transition”. Policy debate is putting more focus on the need to change consumption and production patterns and deal with various ecological consequences within planetary boundaries such as decarbonization, absolute reduction in material throughput, or creation of a plastic-free society. This paper examines the expansion of the policy domain of SCP in three phases; SCP focusing on pollution control and cleaner production (SCP 1.0), SCP from the perspective of product lifecycle (SCP 2.0), and SCP focusing on systematic changes in socio-technical systems driving consumption and production (SCP 3.0). The potential impact of a wider SCP policy domain can be comparable to the historical shift in discourse related to ecological modernization theory from pollution prevention to efficiency. This emerging trend corresponds to the need for a fresh approach to policy design which can facilitate transition to sustainability.
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Keywords:
sustainable consumption and production; sufficiency; efficiency; transition; discourse analysis; policy design
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MDPI and ACS Style
Hotta, Y.; Tasaki, T.; Koide, R. Expansion of Policy Domain of Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP): Challenges and Opportunities for Policy Design. Sustainability 2021, 13, 6763. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13126763
AMA Style
Hotta Y, Tasaki T, Koide R. Expansion of Policy Domain of Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP): Challenges and Opportunities for Policy Design. Sustainability. 2021; 13(12):6763. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13126763
Chicago/Turabian StyleHotta, Yasuhiko, Tomohiro Tasaki, and Ryu Koide. 2021. "Expansion of Policy Domain of Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP): Challenges and Opportunities for Policy Design" Sustainability 13, no. 12: 6763. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13126763
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