Many countries are not including sustainability in consumer protection laws, an action regarded as a critical way of hastening the implementation of the Global Biodiversity Framework, a UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) officer said Tuesday.
Speaking at the ongoing 7th BioTrade Congress in Geneva, Ana Cipriano, a legal officer at the UN agency for trade and development, called on governments to align legislation with the targets agreed upon at the 2022 biodiversity summit COP15.
“We are lagging behind when it comes to achieving or including sustainability in consumer protection policies. Consumers have the right to a safe environment, safe products, and sustainable services,” she said.
Of over 100 countries implementing the UNCTAD’s BioTrade Principles and Criteria initiative, only 32 have integrated sustainability into consumer protection legislation, said Cipriano.
The programme aims to support conservation, sustainable use of biodiversity, and fair and equitable sharing of benefits through trade, as highlighted by a paper by EU-funded project Post 2020 Biodiversity Framework presented during the panel published last month.
“Governments have a crucial role to encourage businesses to invest in the environmental performance of their products, and set regulatory standards on how to responsibly and transparently communicate sustainability to consumers to gain market advantage,” it said.
“Unfortunately, many existing consumer protection laws do not fully address sustainable consumption,” added Maria Durleva, UNCTAD lawyer, who co-authored the paper.
UN GUIDELINES
Durleva urged governments to leverage the UN Guidelines for Consumer Protection (UNGCP), which set global principles in consumer protection.
Nations should provide consumers with clear information to make informed decisions, as well as combating misleading practices such as greenwashing, she said.
“UNGCP provides a blueprint for crafting legislation and policies that uphold consumer rights, while fostering sustainability that aligns with the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) objectives,” Durleva said during the panel.
“Integrating the UN guidelines with the GBF targets will streamline the efforts towards sustainable consumption and consumer protection,” added Cipriano.
Under GBF target 16, governments are required to empower consumers with education and accessible information to make more sustainable choices. Under target 15, nations committed to getting businesses to “provide information needed to consumers to promote sustainable consumption patterns”.
As consumer spending is projected to rise by $2.3 trillion in 2024, unsustainable resource use is poised to put biodiversity under increasing pressure, according to the paper.
A separate study, published earlier this month by UN Environmental Programme, estimated that extraction of natural resources, including crops, wood, and minerals, is set to increase by 60% by 2060, with devastating effects on biodiversity.
By Sergio Colombo – sergio@carbon-pulse.com
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