SPACES Working Group

Overview

Sustainable Production and Consumption Systems (SPACES) working group focuses on integrated management of production and consumption systems. It is part of the International Project on Sustainability Science and Technology: Linking Knowledge with Action (SustSci) which is developing partnerships and dialogues to link sectors and regions in science-based, action-oriented initiatives to promote sustainability. The other closely-related elements include a partnership team on Vulnerability and Resilience in Practice (VARIP), which focuses on enhancing resilience and reducing vulnerability of coupled human-environment systems.  The working group primarily carried out its work between October 2005 - January 2007. A final report and book of case studies in press with Springer-Verlag.

Our goal in the SPACES working group is to help create an improved conceptual framework and agenda for actionable research on the sustainability of production-consumption systems that increasingly stretch across disparate parts of the globe.

There are two key reasons for framing the challenge as one of sustainability of “production-consumption” systems rather than the more conventional focus on production technologies and regulation. The first is the need to bring attention to the processes closer to the decisions and actions of final consumer when undertaking analyses of the underlying reasons for environmental impacts at remote, more primary, “production”, parts of commodity chains. The second is that a commodity chain itself can be thought of a series or network of many production-consumption relationships. For each linkage we can ask questions from both a production perspective (how could this industrial process be made more resource efficient?), and, in addition, a consumption perspective (What are the underlying drivers of downstream demands in the network or value chain?). Consumption and production perspectives are complimentary but not alternatives.

Rationale

Sustainable consumption and production (SPC) has been a distinctive intergovernmental policy issue since the publication of Agenda 21 after the UN Conference on Environment and Development in 1992. Chapter 4 of Agenda 21, entitled ‘Changing Consumption Patterns’ supplies a generic mandate for governments to change production and consumption patterns towards greater sustainability.

The following intergovernmental policy processes, and attendant international research streams, have to large extent drawn up short in the face of three problems: what essentially is SPC about, and what are the technical requirements for understanding it and operationalising it? what differentiates ‘sustainable consumption and production ‘from’ sustainable development? what are the political and social blockages (separate from technical issues) that prevent the arising of SPC.

While commenting on the potency of the third question (political/social barriers to change), the SPACES programme is a scientific endeavour that proposes to take the first two questions to a new level of resolution. In respect of what SPC essentially is, the SPACES group is proposing to study in detail the dynamics of some case studies in which SPC exists, or has a capacity to exist, and to draw particular lessons from these in terms of economic, social, technology, or regulatory approaches. A particular challenge is to go beyond the by-now stale formulations of ‘cost internalisation’, ‘public education’, and ‘efficient technology’, which have been presented as painless panacaeas but either remained implemented, or found to be insufficiently effective in practice. The SPACES programme also works, crucially, on the implicit assumption that a further feature of SPC in practice is what differentiates it from sustainable development: an explicit focus on systems. In these ways it hopes to contribute to the international movements towards SPC.

Members

The working group was co-chaired by Sylvia Lorek and Louis Lebel. Other members were: Michael Maniates, Ooi Giok Ling, Kersty Hobson, Robert W. Kates, John Manoochehri, Uchita de Zoysa, Fritz Reusswig, Yok-Shiu Lee,  Ligia Noronha and Olga Ponizova.   Two post-doctoral fellows supported the working group directly: Hannarong Shamshub and Dao Huy Giap.

Workshops

Dialogue SPACES - Linking knolwedge and Action (Jan 07)

On the 23-27 January 2007 the SPACES working group will be holding an international diaologue on science practice in sustainable development focussed on "Linking Knowledge and Action for Sustainable Production and Consumption Systems". The workshop will be held in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

SPACES Virtual Working Group Meeting (Aug 06)

On the 1-29 August 2006 the SPACES working group will be holding an asynchronous web-based meeting to discuss drafts of case studies and plan the draft report for the January 2007 dialogue event.

Siegburg meeting of the SPACES working group (Oct 05)
The SPACES working group, created to help strengthen frameworks and agendas for research and action on sustainable production and consumption systems, met in Siegburg, Germany, on the 15-16 October 2005.

The purpose of the meeting was to debate and come to agreement on the scope, purpose and priority activities for the next 15 months. This included discussion of potential case studies, the needs for better articulation of key concepts and review of earlier efforts, ways to engage practice and what that meant, and ideas for preparation and communication of findings.

A substantial part of the meeting was spent on discussing the ways knowledge and action were (and were not) related and on the merits and drawbacks of different ways to think about and influence production and consumption systems. Although full consensus was not achieved significant progress was made in better articulating the different approaches.

These conversations also underlined that there is substantial body of theory in existing disciplines which could be drawn on. Reviewing this information and better articulating key concepts in sustainable production and consumption systems should be an immediate priority. This should lead to a more widely accepted and practical definition of “sustainable production-consumption systems”.

At the same time it was agreed that the SPACES activity needs to be aware, and where appropriate link to, other relevant initiatives. There is much expertise and experience that could be draw on. The participation of working group members in some of the activities is one way such links can be made, but additional effort will be needed through mapping and reviewing these efforts.

The value of adopting an integrated perspective on the management of production-consumption systems is in many ways the primary thesis of this group, and as such needs to be tested. We can anticipate demonstrating this value, but also pointing out some limitations, for example, related to complexity and availability of data, or difficulties in bridging knowledge to action gaps.

Involving stakeholders, including but not restricted to practitioners, is critical to success of this activity. It needs to happen early and is often going to be easiest through the specific challenges offered in case studies. As anticipated this means that case studies will have to be drawn from the activities of working group members and other colleagues which have already a history of such engagement. Several such contributions were proposed and discussed. The final set will be confirmed after circulation of an agreed protocol for case studies that was drafted but not finalized in Sieberg.

Working group members can make contributions in three ways. First, by providing inputs to drafts of protocols, outlines, working papers and the main report. All members are expected to do this at least at the “comment on” level. Others will wish to be part of design and drafting groups. Second, by linking work carried out under SPACES with other research and action initiatives. Third, by contributing a case study. At the meeting various people made different combinations of initial commitments. Some of these need to be confirmed once protocols, outlines and so on become available

Frontiers Workshop (Oct 04)
In October 2004 USER hosted a small international workshop on sustainable production-consumption systems that focused on identifying the frontier areas of research.
A quick compilation of the workshop notes and briefs was prepared soon after the meeting. A more critically though-out synthesis was drafted and as of February 2005 was being reviewed by workshop participants.

The e-conference on sustainable consumption has been organized during  September 15, 2003 - October 31, 2003. The primary objective of this e-conference is to discuss the concept of sustainable consumption. One of the main arguments we make is that consumption should be analyzed as part of production-distribution-consumption systems.