National policies for reducing environmental pressures stemming from emissions and the use of natural resources usually adopt a producer approach, i.e. the legislation refers to pressures occurring within the territorial boundaries of a country. An alternative approach to environmental...

The environmental load from consumption can be reduced by changing consumption patterns. For an effective consumer policy to reduce the environmental load from society, we need insight into the environmental load from consumption patterns. This requires detailed accurate quantitative...

The energy requirement of households represents a useful concept in studying energy use in relation to production structures and consumption patterns. Reduction potentials of the energy requirement for households provide insight on the possibilities for reducing energy use in the whole economy....

Consumers only occasionally choose to buy sustainable products. At the same time these consumers say in surveys that sustainability is important to them, and that the government should promote sustainable consumption. Most likely, a social dilemma is at play here. Everyone would be better off if...

We present trends in energy intensities for 56 Dutch economic sectors over the 20-year period 1969–1988. The intensities were calculated by using input–output analysis. The effects of energy-price changes were examined. More than half of the economic sectors show significant declines in...

In order to understand wider sustainability impacts of consumption and to successfully promote and implement sustainable consumption and production policies, there is a need to capture the whole life-cycle impact of products and services across international supply chains. Multi-region...