188
The government itself is a big consumer, with governmental spending in the
range of 1/6 of nation-wide spending (e.g. in the EU 2002: 16 %). Green Public
Procurement (GPP) is therefore a means that can have a key steering effect for more
sustainable products. Continuous efforts are made for better informed GPP with
comprehensive, life cycle based indicators (e.g. in the recently started project
EURECA for GPP of data centre services (NN 2015)).
Beyond this product-perspective and next to creating markets for less impacting
products, the scale of government procurement can also facilitate the creation of
infrastructures in support of green procurement by consumers: Governments set the
rules of the society and establishes or steers the development of key infrastructures,
which can be favouring more sustainable consumption. Government can hence also
provide options for less environmentally impacting consumption, e.g. public transport.
9
Similar to the situation of companies that offer cost and time saving aspects
of their products for the direct benefit of the consumers, also governments generally
follow the approach of saving costs and time for the citizen. Therefore, only by
understanding the society-wide implications including due to secondary consequences of their projects and policies, the governments can fully take their role of
steering consumption towards a long term stable, i.e. sustainable one. This includes
to steer or counteract the transformational effect (Greening et al. 2000).
Identifying or developing elements that make up sustainable lifestyles and facilitating their adoption by implementing the required infrastructure are key tasks.
Promoting sustainable consumption and sustainable lifestyles, as well as facilitating
them by financial measures are other, main leverages of governments, on the way to
a sustainable society. R&D investments into sustainable products and lifestyles and
their infrastructure, Green Public Procurement, and education courses and campaigns for schools and university courses, are further examples for suitable governmental activities. On international level, the coordination with other national
governments will help improving the common understanding of sustainable consumption and measures. This list above illustrates the crucial role that governments
have in steering the society to sustainability.
4.4 Others
A range of other actors play a role in society and also in efforts to a more sustainable
consumption:
9 Such measures can have relevant negative environmental secondary consequences, if they free
household resources at the consumer, i.e. if they are cheaper, save time (or allow to do two things
at the same time, e.g., working during commuting), as already mentioned. Gillingham et al. (2013)
however have found from the analysis of studies that negative environmental secondary consequences of energy-efficiency improvements are typically in the range of 5–30 % and hence less
than is sometimes feared and warn that paying too much attention to single cases where the effect
is higher may be used as excuse to not take action.
M.-A. Wolf and K. Chomkhamsri
The government itself is a big consumer, with governmental spending in the
range of 1/6 of nation-wide spending (e.g. in the EU 2002: 16 %). Green Public
Procurement (GPP) is therefore a means that can have a key steering effect for more
sustainable products. Continuous efforts are made for better informed GPP with
comprehensive, life cycle based indicators (e.g. in the recently started project
EURECA for GPP of data centre services (NN 2015)).
Beyond this product-perspective and next to creating markets for less impacting
products, the scale of government procurement can also facilitate the creation of
infrastructures in support of green procurement by consumers: Governments set the
rules of the society and establishes or steers the development of key infrastructures,
which can be favouring more sustainable consumption. Government can hence also
provide options for less environmentally impacting consumption, e.g. public transport.
9
Similar to the situation of companies that offer cost and time saving aspects
of their products for the direct benefit of the consumers, also governments generally
follow the approach of saving costs and time for the citizen. Therefore, only by
understanding the society-wide implications including due to secondary consequences of their projects and policies, the governments can fully take their role of
steering consumption towards a long term stable, i.e. sustainable one. This includes
to steer or counteract the transformational effect (Greening et al. 2000).
Identifying or developing elements that make up sustainable lifestyles and facilitating their adoption by implementing the required infrastructure are key tasks.
Promoting sustainable consumption and sustainable lifestyles, as well as facilitating
them by financial measures are other, main leverages of governments, on the way to
a sustainable society. R&D investments into sustainable products and lifestyles and
their infrastructure, Green Public Procurement, and education courses and campaigns for schools and university courses, are further examples for suitable governmental activities. On international level, the coordination with other national
governments will help improving the common understanding of sustainable consumption and measures. This list above illustrates the crucial role that governments
have in steering the society to sustainability.
4.4 Others
A range of other actors play a role in society and also in efforts to a more sustainable
consumption:
9 Such measures can have relevant negative environmental secondary consequences, if they free
household resources at the consumer, i.e. if they are cheaper, save time (or allow to do two things
at the same time, e.g., working during commuting), as already mentioned. Gillingham et al. (2013)
however have found from the analysis of studies that negative environmental secondary consequences of energy-efficiency improvements are typically in the range of 5–30 % and hence less
than is sometimes feared and warn that paying too much attention to single cases where the effect
is higher may be used as excuse to not take action.
M.-A. Wolf and K. Chomkhamsri