Business Taskforce on Sustainable Consumption & Production

Why Was the Business Taskforce Set Up?

Photo: The Coca Cola Company

The Business Taskforce on Sustainable Consumption and Production was convened by Defra and the Department of Trade and Industry between 2006 and 2008, following through on a commitment in the UK Government’s sustainable development strategy.

The aim of the Business Taskforce was to bring forward practical proposals that enable companies to move to more sustainable patterns of consumption and production (SCP) in ways that boost competitiveness and contribute to economic growth.

How Was the Business Taskforce Distinctive?

The Business Taskforce approached SCP from a practical business perspective, exploring the experience of companies that are actively seeking to make SCP a foundation for future value generation and profitability, and identifying the perceived obstacles.

Questions the Business Taskforce Sought to Answer

• Can SCP offer business and the economy a viable route to sustainable growth?
• Will the gains from shifting to SCP business models more than compensate for the costs of transforming markets?
• What are the risks for the UK economy of business as usual?

The Business Taskforce was led by a small Steering Group.

Steering Group Members

How the Collaboratory Worked

The Steering Group set the focus and agenda for the Business Taskforce and identified the priority themes:

• Building Capacity for SCP, including communicating SCP;
• Energy transformation in business and the community;
• Tackling SCP through the value chain – integrating actions to transform product and service markets;
• Globalisation and SCP;
• Promoting SCP through procurement.

Development of the priority themes was undertaken by a number of Working Groups. Each Working Group brought together cross-sectoral business representation and came forward with practical recommendations on steps that can be taken by government, business and consumers.

Over the lifetime of the Business Taskforce, the Steering Group consistently monitored and directed the progress of these priority themes. At the end of the process the Steering Group championed the outputs from the Business Taskforce to government, business and wider society.

The work of the Steering Group was supported by an independent Secretariat which was responsible for the day-to-day functioning of the Business Taskforce. An Advisory Group was drawn from the Government departments and business networks which supported the Business Taskforce. Their role was to oversee the work of the Secretariat.

Business Capacity for SCP Including Communicating SCP

Accelerating progress in adoption of SCP practice by business requires companies to examine how they can satisfy needs with new business models that generate more value while using significantly fewer resources.

Through dialogue and conversations with companies, the Business Taskforce:

• Identified strategic barriers and opportunities for adoption of SCP in business models and how these can be addressed by business and government;
• Developed clear messages for business around SCP;
• Explored the priorities for capacity building on SCP.

Energy Transformation in Business and the Community

Tackling the issue of sustainable energy supply, production and consumption is a key priority for business and government. The Business Taskforce explored the potential for business to contribute to the uptake of distributed energy as a driver of sustainable economic growth at the local level. It used the food industry as an exemplar and explored the scope to follow an integrated approach.

Tackling SCP Through the Value Chain – Integrating Actions to Transform Product and Service Markets

Rapid action on high-impact products is key to making progress towards SCP and integrated action along the value-chain will be critical to achieving necessary transformation in products and services.

The Business Taskforce focused its work in this area around personal mobility, with a specific emphasis on understanding how this system impacts the production and consumption of cars in the UK.

The evidence gathered by the Business Taskforce through multiple workshops was used to develop a ‘roadmap’ towards a lower carbon UK car fleet. This will provide a long-term policy framework, integrating milestones and action by government, business and consumers, and will have a central role to play in encouraging the move to new business models.  

Globalisation and SCP

For more and more UK businesses, of which the majority are SMEs, operating within a globalised supply chain is an everyday reality. SCP in this context can be perceived as a potential threat to competitiveness, meaning that companies have to shoulder environmental costs that businesses elsewhere may not have to bear.

This issue could be compounded if a plethora of environmental and social standards emerge that ultimately paralyses suppliers in the UK and overseas.

Through interviews with leading supply chain practitioners, study visits and personal engagement, the Business Taskforce:

• Clarified the issues for SCP arising from globalisation;
• Explored best practice and develop case studies;
• Investigated the opportunities for innovation in global markets;
• Made recommendations on the implications of SCP for SMEs.

Promoting SCP Through Procurement

Procurement (by the private and public sectors) is a powerful tool for driving action on SCP. Failure to engage procurement will be a major barrier to delivery of SCP. Government action which stimulates the market is essential if business is to make the shift to deliver better products and services. Business also has an important role to play in its own procurement practice and in its marketing to public sector organisations.

The Business Taskforce’s work in this area focused on the practice of forward commitment procurement (FCP) and how this can be deployed most effectively by business and government to translate policies around SCP into tangible results.

CPSL hosted the secretariat of the Business Taskforce on Sustainable Consumption and Production from 2006–2008, following through on a commitment in the UK Government’s sustainable development strategy. The following publications were outputs of the Taskforce.

SCP provides a major platform for innovation that reaches into all corners of business activity. Its emphasis on finding ways to achieve more with less opens new avenues to improved performance, competitive advantage and stronger reputation. The primer is all about opportunity. It encourages business to look outside its natural boundaries and probe wider markets for better ways of meeting customer needs.

This Business Primer provides an introduction to the challenges and opportunities for business as it moves SCP into mainstream business strategy. Set in the context of a ‘one planet economy’, the primer explores the drivers, techniques and enablers of sustainable consumption and production available to business today supported by case studies from companies that are leading the way.

Today, the car is at the heart of personal mobility, offering us independence and our own space – at the price of congestion, pollutants and a rising contribution to climate change. Can we do things better? Industry and the public need to work together to achieve a low carbon future. The Business Taskforce has developed a road map to trigger change and guide us to Mobility 2020.

Through its working group on energy transformation, the Taskforce has investigated how, by taking a strategic approach to energy use, resource efficiency and waste management, companies can integrate sustainable consumption and production into their business model. It has focused specifically on the role that decentralised (distributed) energy can play.

Sustainable consumption and production (SCP) seeks to promote social and economic development within the carrying capacity of the Earth’s ecosystems. It addresses the links between economic growth and environmental degradation and brings forward solutions that improve eco-efficiency and sustainability in the use of resources, in production processes and the use of final products and services.

What is the Challenge?

If replicated worldwide, current patterns of Western consumption and production would, it is estimated, need at least 3 planets’ worth of resources. Business has a central role to play in helping society harness ingenuity, deliver technological innovation, and lead behaviour change so that we can meet our goals and aspirations within the capacity of the planet.

The SCP challenge has been incorporated into many national and international policies and frameworks. In the UK, the Government set out its goal to move to a ‘One Planet Economy’ in Securing the Future, its 2005 sustainable development strategy, and in Changing Patterns: a framework for sustainable consumption and production, launched in 2003.