The Northern Alliance for Sustainability, ANPED
The Northern Alliance for Sustainability, ANPED works to empower Northern civil society in creating and protecting sustainable communities and societies world-wide.
ANPED’s main focus is on sustainable consumption and production, the use of goods and services responding to basic human needs and bringing a better quality of life, while minimizing the use of natural resources, toxic materials and emissions of waste and pollutants over the life cycle, so as not to jeopardize the needs of future generations.
 We build capacity among Northern civil society organizations through information, knowledge and skill-sharing, and enable their participation in local, national, regional and international decision-making processes on sustainable development. Whereas our network has a worldwide reach, our member organizations are mainly located in the Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia (EECCA) regions. More...
26 March 2008
 A new report by Chris Church, Co-Chair of the Northern Alliance for Sustainability, ANPED, and Tamara Malkova, Director of Green Dossier, looks at the role of NGOs in tackling climate change. The report, Action on Climate Change: From a Divided Europe to a Common Purpose, is based on a survey carried out by NGOs within the ANPED Network in autumn 2007. It looked first at government action on climate change across Europe. It became clear early on that Europe is divided on this issue. Nations that are part of the EU and that have clear targets under the Kyoto protocol are mostly moving in the right direction (often slowly). But in the eastern part of the pan-European region there are very variable approaches. The survey also looked at NGO activity, asked whether and how the NGO was active on climate change. Again there were big differences between east and west.
10 - 11 March 2008
 Sustainable Consumption and Production: Framework for Action. This conference is organized by the Sustainable Consumption Research Exchange (SCORE!) Network. SCORE! is an EC-funded network project that supports the development of the UN's 10 Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP). For the present conference, a group of scientists and NGO’s teamed up to develop and launch a ‘Framework of Action on SCP’ for consideration of policy makers world wide. The conference also will mark the launch of the structure of the permanent SCORE spin off that has the ambition to be the ‘Science dialogue‘ in support of the UN’s 10 Year Framework of Programs.
March 2008
 The Proposed Organization of Work for UN CSD 16 is now available, with a draft timetable. By the decision of CSD-11, subsequently approved by the Economic and Social Council, the review session of the CSD in the two-year implementation cycle will focus on identifying barriers and constraints in implementation, as well as lessons learned and best practices in relation to its thematic cluster. UN CSD 16’s thematic issues are agriculture, rural development, land, drought, desertification and Africa. It will be held at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, from 5 to 16 May 2008.
February 2008
 A new paper by Chris Church and Sylvia Lorek, Linking Policy and Practice in Sustainable Production and Consumption: an Assessment of the Role of NGOs, looks at NGOs activities in sustainable consumption and production and obstacles being faced. It identifies lessons for policymakers seeking to engage civil society and makes recommendations on how academics can co-operate more effectively with civil society.
Insights are drawn from recent studies on stakeholder involvement in the international political process and a series of surveys and semi-structured interviews. The authors identify four challenges. Effort should: be planned more strategically; link sustainable consumption to current priorities; ensure better links between global and local; and NGOs have to better link to other interest groups.
February 2008
 How to ensure that products are produced and consumed in a sustainable manner is a challenge the European Commission has sought to address in its 2003 Integrated Product Policy (IPP) proposal. But the IPP has been criticised since the policy contains no legislative provisions to ensure the sustainability of products. In response to this criticism, the Commission consulted stakeholders and has begun formulating action plans on sustainable consumption and production (SCP), prepared by DG Environment, and on a sustainable industrial policy (SIP), prepared by DG Enterprise.
Originally scheduled for publication in December 2007, the Commission's SCP and SIP strategies may now be published in the middle of April, although no definite date has been set, according to a Commission spokersperson.
Below you can find links to further information on the SCP Action Plan:
January 2008
 At the Europe and North America Regional Implementation Meeting in preparation of the 16th Session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (UN CSD 16), ANPED Board Members Andrey Ozharovskiy and Janis Brizga delivered the statements on behalf of NGOs.
Andrey Ozharovskiy presented the findings on the issue of land degradation and pollution, which include contamination from obsolete pesticides storages, military and space activities, and nuclear contamination. He recommended the establishment of an international policy on contaminated land management; the mapping and marking on site of all the dangerous areas, and the restriction of any agricultural and other activity in those areas.
In his intervention, Janis Brizga stressed there needs to be focus on the underlying causes of the problems we face; that we need to move beyond gross domestic product (GDP) as an indicator of wellbeing; and that we need to use the instrument of National Sustainable Development Strategy (NSDS) in a participatory manner.
UN CSD 16 will focus on agriculture, rural development, land, drought, desertification and Africa.
January 2008
 What biodiversity implies for sustainable consumption and thus what sustainable consumption can do for biodiversity is an issue neglected so far in both, the biodiversity and the sustainable consumption discourses.
A new publication by the Northern Alliance for Sustainability, ANPED, Biodiversity and Sustainable Consumption: A Qualified Analysis and Unqualified Suggestions, written by Dr. Joachim Spangenberg, compares the place biodiversity and consumption hold in the overall sustainable development discourse, and focuses on the known reasons for biodiversity loss, asking how they could be influenced, in particular by sustainable consumption.
December 2007
 From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It'll teach you something, it'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.
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