Title: Problems and challenges in the EU sustainable consumption and production action plan

Authors: Joanna Kielin-Maziarz

Addresses: College of Business Law, Kozmiski University, Jagiellonska 57/59 03-301, Warsaw, Poland

Abstract: The challenges today are to move towards an energy and resource efficient economy in order. The EU Commission presented a series of proposals in the Sustainable Consumption and Production Action Plan in 2008 aimed at integrating environmental sustainability with economic growth and welfare whilst improving the environmental performance of the products. The proposal contained norms such as the Ecodesign Directive, Ecolabel legislation, EMAS Regulation and the Green Public Procurement scheme. These norms are included in the Action Plan and they create the 'key actions', which aim is to realise the strategy. The evaluation of the norms was carried by the study of their amendments and on the basis of the reports prepared for the European Commission. The aim of the paper is to consider the possibility of realisation of the norms predicted by the Sustainable Consumption and Production Action Plan and to indicate the problems which are connected with their implementation.

Keywords: sustainable development; sustainable consumption; sustainable production; ecodesign; ecolabelling; green public procurement; GPP; eco-management and audit scheme; EMAS; EU; European Union; environmental sustainability; economic growth; welfare; product environmental performance.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPLAP.2013.054745

International Journal of Public Law and Policy, 2013 Vol.3 No.3, pp.276 - 286

Published online: 29 Nov 2013 *

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