Addressing Sustainable Consumption and Production in the Post-2015 Development Agenda

Sustainable consumption and production (SCP), has been a defining element of the international sustainable development agenda since the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. The Earth Summit called for action “to promote patterns of consumption and production that reduce environmental stress and will meet the basic needs of humanity.”

It has since become an established and internationally-agreed principle referenced in the Millennium Declaration2 and reaffirmed in the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development, which designated SCP as one of the “overarching objectives, and essential requirements for, sustainable development” and called for a 10-Year Framework of Programmes (10YFP) to accelerate the shift towards SCP. The Marrakesh process, a multi-stakeholder initiative launched in 2003 to support the implementation of SCP policies, paved the way for adoption of the 10YFP at the Rio+20 Conference, providing an important mechanism through which SCP commitments can be implemented and tracked during the post-2015 period.