Business must empower consumers to solve climate change

The report – ‘Consumers, Business And Climate Change’ –argues that consumers are a key part of the solution to global warming and stimulating consumer demand for low carbon products and services could prove to the quickest and most effective means of reducing global carbon emissions.

Professor Mohan Munasinghe, director general of the University of Manchester’s Sustainable Consumption Institute, who led the research, said: “Consumers are fundamental to the solution, although they are often seen as part of the problem.”

Professor Munasinghe, who shared the 2007 Nobel Prize for Peace with former US Vice President Al Gore and others, as Vice Chair of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, says consumption is the root cause of emissions and therefore the best means of solving it.

“Consumption is directly linked to greenhouse gas emissions through fossil fuel power sources, the use of carbon-based materials in manufacturing and large greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture,” he said.

The research points out that much hope is being invested in international negotiations and big-ticket solutions as a way of tackling climate change, but with emissions rising exponentially, the planet requires solutions more quickly than governments can achieve on their own.

“Consumption transcends national boundaries; businesses serve consumers, operate globally and can work quickly,” the report says. “So the opportunity is there for consumers helped by businesses, to lead a green revolution: this paper shows how this can be achieved.”

Emissions statistics are traditionally divided along the lines of where they are produced. The report proposes instead to allocate them according to where they are consumed and says the results are striking.

“For example, nearly 20 per cent of China’s emissions are produced on behalf of other countries. Conversely, emissions from the US would be eight per cent higher when counted by consumption,” the report states.

It estimates that consumers are responsible for 75 per cent of UK greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and their actions could leverage major reductions within a few years.

In order for this to happen though, businesses need to stimulate consumer demand for low carbon products and services. The report suggests a range of tools, such as tax incentives, public procurement decisions and targeted marketing, as the means to do this.

It also recommends that business take action to reduce emissions focusing on all stages in the lifecycle of their products and services: primary production, manufacture, distribution, consumer use and disposal.

Other recommendations of the report, include getting governments to develop internationally agreed measures of the carbon content and impact of products and services, and empowering consumers to make greener choices by using better pricing and information.

Professor Munasinghe said: “We need new and innovative solutions, because with conventional mitigation methods, people in developed countries are unlikely to accept the sort of reductions in their standards of living that would be needed to deliver emissions reductions on the required scale of 80 per cent by 2050.

“Similarly, people in developing countries will not be prepared to forego the benefits of economic development in the name of mitigating climate change.”

The report will be presented to decision makers at the United Nations Copenhagen Climate Change summit in December.