United Kingdom Supply Chain Analysis

Assessing environmental and social impacts of consumption in the U.K.

Production and consumption form the basis of all economic activity and are consequently at the centre of the challenges and solutions to sustainable development. With this in mind, the United Kingdom's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) established the Sustainable Consumption and Production Programme to break the links between economic growth and environmental degradation. As part of its effort to ensure that the U.K. economy delivers new products and services with lower environmental impacts across their lifecycle, while boosting the country's international competitiveness, DEFRA commissioned a study to assess the environmental and social impacts of the U.K.'s consumption of key commodities produced in other countries and to recommend policy actions that might mitigate these impacts.

The research, carried out by Scott Wilson Ltd., IISD, John Clement Sustainability Consulting, and the Global Footprint Network, had three main objectives:

  1. To identify those commodities having significant environmental impact and to establish where policies or initiatives are having an environmental benefit.

  2. To identify the policy activity and voluntary initiatives already underway at national and international levels on sustainable commodities.

  3. To recommend areas for policy development

The project team reviewed data on over 100 commodities, and in consultation with government experts, selected eight commodities that had large environmental and social impacts and for which the U.K. was a major importer. The commodities included:

The report and case studies are currently in the peer review process and will be posted in the near future.

For more information, please contact IISD Associate, Graham Ashford.