Toward sustainable products in sweden

Abstract

AbstractToday's environmental problems are associated, to a great extent, with the industrialized world's consumption of goods and services. Consumption leads to different kinds of environmental impacts from all parts of a product's life cycle: raw material extraction, production, use, recovery, and final disposal, including transportation throughout the cycle. Working with products embraces many different environmental problems, instruments and mechanisms, stakeholders, various policy areas, etc. The current structure of industry and the considerable amount of international trade requires a strategy that takes these conditions into account in advancing sustainable production and consumption. The European Union has developed an Integrated Product Policy, built on life cycle thinking, in order to reduce resource use.The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) was commissioned by the Swedish Government in 2001 to develop the Integrated Product Policy (IPP). The aim of IPP is to minimize the impact of products on human health and the environment throughout their life cycles, from cradle‐to‐grave, to improve sustainable production and consumption, and advance the government's environmental quality objectives. SEPA studied how instruments and mechanisms can work together and be made more effective, and what new instruments and mechanisms might be needed to achieve the goals laid down in IPP. This paper presents the results of the study.