Sustainable Consumption
Introduction
Each year until 2030, at least 150 million people will be entering the middle class. This will bring almost 60% of the world’s population into a middle income bracket. Over the same period energy demand is projected to increase by 40%, and water demand is expected to outstrip supply by 40%.
Providing for the next generation of consumers in a sustainable manner presents both a challenge and an opportunity. Leaders can position themselves to succeed in this changing framework by redefining their strategies. New products, services and value chains can embrace "absolute sustainability".
These issues are examined in a report entitled: More with Less: Scaling Sustainable Consumption and Resource Efficiency. The challenges and solutions are explored through the lens of:
- consumer engagement (demand)
- value chains and upstream action (supply)
- policies and an enabling environment to accelerate change (rules of the game).
The main outcome is the identification of key focus areas for business leadership through concrete goals and collaboration across industries. Find out more in the executive summary.
Following from the ‘More With Less’ report, our research team is now exploring what motivates consumer behaviour in order to develop recommendations on how companies can engage the consumer and use those motivators to encourage sustainable consumption and create business value.
Our key question is: How can companies engage consumers to trigger simple behavioural shifts that enable more sustainable lifestyles and create business value?
In support of this effort, the project team is currently collecting examples of initiatives whose goal is to change the behaviour of consumers. If you have such a case study example, please submit it to: kevin.eckerle@weforum.org
Over the last few years, the World Economic Forum has been working at the cutting edge of these issues. This work has been supported by collaboration with a growing group of partner organizations and leading subject experts. The following reports are the results of this collaboration:
- The Consumption Dilemma: Leverage Points for Accelerating Sustainable Growth (2011)
- Redesigning Business Value: A Roadmap for Sustainable Consumption (2010)
- Sustainability for Tomorrow’s Consumer (2009)
The Forum can bring organisations together to demonstrate the aggregate scale of business actions, and use its multi-stakeholder platform to support existing commitments. Over the following years, the Forum will help to support new collaborations, building on and developing its expertise and practices.
Engaging Tomorrow’s Consumer
The World Economic Forum, in collaboration with its Partner companies from a range of sectors including retail, consumer goods, technology and advertising have collaborated to explore the key question, “How can companies engage consumers to trigger simple behavioural shifts that enable more sustainable lifestyles, grow demand for more sustainable products and create business value?”During 2012, the project pursued three areas of work, each derived from the aforementioned key question
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January 16, 2013
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January 27, 2012
More with Less: Scaling Sustainable Consumption and Resource Efficiency
This report focuses on how consumption can be made more sustainable through decoupling growth from environmental impact at the scale and speed required. It builds on four years of engagement by the World Economic Forum with leading businesses around the issue of sustainable consumption. Through this engagement with chief executive officers, business leaders and experts, the report aims to answer six key questions:What are the key trends in sustainable consumption?What is the size of the opportunity for countries, companies and consumers?What are the barriers to scaling existing models of...
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witnessed the emergence of a new generation of economic leaders.
Recognizing their importance, the Community engages those players that, in addition to showing consistently high growth rates, act as disruptors of traditional industries through
their new technologies and innovative business models. GGC members come from both fast growing emerging markets and established economies.
As of August 2011, the Community includes...
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This year marks the fifth anniversary of the founding of the World Economic Forum’s Community of Global Growth Companies (GGCs). During the past five years, we have
witnessed the emergence of a new generation of economic leaders.
Recognizing their importance, the Community engages those players that, in addition to showing consistently high growth rates, act as disruptors of traditional industries through
their new technologies and innovative business models. GGC members come from both fast growing emerging markets and established economies.
As of August 2011, the Community includes...
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This year marks the fifth anniversary of the founding of the World Economic Forum’s Community of Global Growth Companies (GGCs). During the past five years, we have witnessed the emergence of a new generation of economic leaders.
Recognizing their importance, the Community engages those players that, in addition to showing consistently high growth rates, act as disruptors of traditional industries through their new technologies and innovative business models. GGC members come from both fast growing emerging markets and established economies.
As of August 2011, the Community includes more...
Post date:
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Trailblazers, Shapers and Innovators - Models of Success from the Community of Global Growth Companies
This year marks the fifth anniversary of the founding of the World Economic Forum’s Community of Global Growth Companies (GGCs). During the past five years, we have
witnessed the emergence of a new generation of economic leaders.
Recognizing their importance, the Community engages those players that, in addition to showing consistently high growth rates, act as disruptors of traditional industries through
their new technologies and innovative business models. GGC members come from both fast growing emerging markets and established economies.
As of August 2011, the Community includes...
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This session is on the record and open to the reporting press.
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The Consumer Industries community develops multistakeholder projects on themes such as sustainability, agriculture, health and water security. Over the year, Partners contribute to a broad portfolio of projects and actively participated invarious working groups and task forces with key public officials and other constituents.
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