Nordic Programme on Sustainable Consumption
One significant challenge is the difficulty for circular solutions to establish themselves or scale up. Additionally, the rapid increase in e-commerce floods the market with new products, many of which have short lifespans and low compliance with EU regulations. These low-cost products often undermine the sustainability ambitions of Nordic citizens.
The Nordic Programme on Sustainable Consumption bridges this gap by aligning the region's high sustainability values with actual consumption behaviours. The programme focuses on educating consumers, supporting sustainable business models, and ensuring compliance with regulations.
Focus Areas
- Sustainable consumption patterns: To lead consumers to more sustainable consumption patterns based on sufficiency and durability and minimize the purchase of non-compliant products that contain harmful substances.
- Enforcement, surveillance and cooperation: To strengthen the enforcement, cooperation and information spreading of public authorities in their journey to tackle the import of products that are non-compliant with EU legislation.
- Business models that provide long life span and other circular solutions: To support business models that provide long life spans (repair, upgrading, renting etc.) and other circular solutions and increase their adoption by consumers.
Given the fast-paced nature of consumption, the programme starts off with mapping current consumer behaviours, e-commerce environments, and sustainable business models. Based on this analysis, suitable initiatives will be decided upon.
