MULTINATIONAL COMPANIES PROMOTING SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION

Supporting sustainable consumption is becoming an ever more important issue for business. New consumer movements, such as the LOHAS (Lifestyles of health and sustainability) are emerging. To reach these influential market leaders it is necessary to meet their product and service related environmental and ethical expectations. By meeting these expectations leading firms can both promote sustainable lifestyles and open up new market opportunities.

 

Addressing Sustainable Consumption from Different Angles

The German Society for Technical Cooperation (Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit - GTZ) asked the CSCP to host a workshop series on sustainable consumption and business for the German UN Global Compact Network. Four workshops were held to consider sustainable consumption opportunities from a diversity of creative perspectives. 

 

Hotspots in Sustainable Consumption

Understanding sustainable consumption from a business and customer oriented perspective was the first priority. To meet this objective a scoping workshop was held in October of 2007 as a first step where participants identified sustainability ‘hot spots’ within the various participating businesses. A second workshop was held in February of 2008 to build an awareness of “in house” sustainable consumption opportunities.   

 

Identifying new Sustainable Consumption Market Opportunities

The next step in the workshop series was to explore corporate value chains from the perspective of mapping out sustainable consumption opportunities at each value chain stage. Exciting opportunities and new sustainable consumption markets were explored in this workshop in June 2008.

 

New Partnerships for Sustainable Consumption

As a final phase of the workshop series participating firms were invited to explore new partnership models to advance sustainable consumption to strategically engage suppliers, NGOs, consumer groups, the science community and others. This fourth and final workshop was held in October of 2008 and focussed on best practice examples of building strategic partnerships to advance sustainable consumption. All workshops within the series included stimulating presentations by business leaders, external stakeholders, NGO and political leaders with follow-up participatory dialogues.  

 

Background

The workshop series was supported by an advisory group comprised of the Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ), Henkel KGaA, German Aluminium Association (GDA) and Volkswagen AG.