4° meeting of experts on scp for latin america and the caribbean

Participation

17. People from different countries and organizations of the region participated in the Meeting. They were:

24	Latin America and Caribbean countries through their members of the Council of Government Experts on SCP;
12	NGO’s from 6 different countries;
5	National Centers for Cleaner Production, members of the Network of Centers for Cleaner Production in the region;
6	Companies and Worker Union representatives;
7	Academia and Research Center representatives;
2	Regional Banks and/or Cooperation Agencies;
7	Local Organization representatives;
10	International Agency members.

18. Anexx II contains the List of Participants of this Meeting.

I. Opening of the Meeting

19. Mr. Fernando Rei, President of the Sao Paulo Environmental Agency (CETESB); Mr. Marcelo Kos, Technical Director of Industrial Affairs of the Brazilian Chemical Industry Association (ABIQUIM); Mr. Mohan Peck, representing the United Nations Division for Sustainable Development (UNDESA) and Mr. Ricardo Sánchez Sosa, Director of UNEP/Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean were present at the inauguration of the meeting.

20. Mr. Rei outlined the challenge that the insertion of the topic represents for cleaner production in the activities of CETESB, specifically the environmental licensing. In addition to this, he focused on the potential role played by CETESB that supports the SCP initiatives within the Brazilian and Latin American contexts.

21. Mr. Marcelo Kos warmly welcomed the participants on behalf of ABIQUIM, enterprise that contributed with the meeting place and the group work during the two days. He highlighted the commitment of the Brazilian industries and particularly the Brazilian chemical industry concerning the care and respect for the environment.

22. Mr. Mohan Peck, on behalf of UNDESA, stressed the purpose of the meeting within the framework of new regional round of consultations on sustainable consumption and production disclosed after the III International Meeting on SCP (Stockholm, Sweden, 2007).

23. On the other hand, Mr. Ricardo Sanchez pointed out the need to invite representatives from the Sub-regional Offices, NGO’s, the Cleaner Production Center Network, the academic and business sectors, and labor unions to the Fourth Meeting of Government Experts. He underlined the direct mandate issued by the regional Ministers of the Environment to implement a 10-year program to step up the change toward sustainable consumption and production patterns.

24. He also underscored the need to link the Marrakech Process to the climate change, since this has an obvious impact on the consumption and production patterns. As for the region, the energy issue is a key factor in competitiveness; thus, this problem needs to be analyzed as an opportunity to introduce changes in the consumption and production patterns. Latin America is far from using energy efficiently. In fact, Mr. Sanchez mentioned, as well, that the Mesoamerican Region has increased the use of fuel in its productive matrix.

25. He continued pointing out another priority topic for the region in the framework of the Marrakech Process. This was the sustainable public purchases. Governments have the main market power in our countries; so, if they introduce sustainability criteria in their purchases and contracts, this will generate a great positive strength, which will produce more sustainable life styles.

26. Mr. Sánchez, also emphasized that another essential element for the change in our life styles is the participation of all social actors. And he concluded stating that it is important to analyze fully and go deeper in what we understand by quality of life, and recognize that increasing consumption is not the way to satisfy human needs. It is vital to advance firmly, with longer and more frequent steps.

II. Progress and Activities in the Marrakech Process

27. First, Adriana Zacarìas from UNEP-DTIE presented and describe the concept and characteristics of the Marrakech Process. She pointed out that the need to change the patterns of consumption and production has its roots in the failure of the present system to put apart the economic rise and the environmental damage. Even though during the last years, some important progression and technological improvements have been made to allow a more efficient use of the natural resources, the increase in the consumption and production levels have blocked these benefits, given, as a result, a bigger pressure on the planet resources.

28. In the description of the Marrakech Process, she called attention to the identification of the following 4 different stages for the building up of the 10YFP.

a) Regional consultations to identify regional priorities and needs on SCP.

b) Preparation of regional strategies and implementation mechanisms to be coordinated by key institutions in each region:

c) Implementation of concrete projects and programs at regional, national and local level to develop and /or improve instruments and methods on SCP, where Marrakech work groups (Task Forces) and the Cooperation Dialogue with the developing agencies form the main implementation mechanisms.

d) International meetings to evaluate the progress, the information exchange and international cooperation.

29. Adriana Zacarías presented the outcomes of the meetings previous to the Marrakech Process taken place in Morocco (2003), Costa Rica (2005) and Sweden (2007), pointing out that the conclusion of the process will be the presentation of the 10YFP programme framework before CDS, for the session periods 2010–2011. At the same time, she highlighted the performance of the Marrakech process diverse mechanisms, not only in the definition of the action framework, but also in the implementation itself. Among the most important ones, she mentioned the meeting of Experts, the Dialogue tables, and the Policies and Strategies on SCP. As for the implementation, she pointed out the Work groups, the Dialogue rounds with cooperation agencies, the NGO Forum, and the Enterprise Forum as implementation mechanisms.

30. During the second presentation of the panel, Mohan Peck from UNDESA presented some elements to be considered by the region in order to strengthen the Marrakech Process, based on the best experiences taken from other world regions, and those regional structures and implementation mechanisms, which have proven to be efficient to go along with the process. He referred to the building up and approval of the African 10 year Action Plan on SCP, supported by the German government that by means of the creation of a specific Work Group for the region has established identifiable priorities and defined a series of pilot projects to move forward on SCP. He pointed out the development of an interesting information interchange mechanism that functions as a Regional Support Table on SCP.

31. He continued explaining the ways the European legislature determines the standards or directions to support more sustainable product making. He also underlined that the region’s expectations were centered on the need to create a long-term mental picture on SCP, to patronize the participation of all interested parties and involve them in the action, to identify regional goals, to promote SCP in the public and private investment decisions, and to effectively and efficiently use the sources for development.

32. Mr. Peck highlighted the need to strengthen the role of the Government Experts Council, to support the SCP project development and execution, to consider the utilization of legislative documents in order to develop sustainable product markets, and at the same time, the possibility to establish a Support Table on SCP and a funding to sustain all these activities.

33. Immediately, Christopher Browne, from the United Kingdom, presented the role of the task forces in general, emphasizing the Sustainable Public Purchases (SPP) directed by the Swiss government. From the Latin American region, the countries that participate in the Task Forces are Argentina, Mexico and Sao Paulo State (Brazil).

34. The identification of existing instruments to apply SPP, the development of new tools, and the testing of the training activities are being arranged. The implementation still needs to go ahead to reach the group objective which is that at least 10% of the countries in all regions use sustainability criteria in their purchases and contracts by the year 2010.

35. In the same panel, Graciela Scavone (Argentina) presented the work group on Sustainable Life Styles, directed by the Swedish government whose objective is to provide proven elements for the building of the 10YFP as tools for the policies, methods and better practices to reach the goal.

36. The purpose of the work group is to have material and communication tools, as well as informal education for sustainable life styles. Among others, the main expected outcomes, she mentioned, a government communication guide for sustainable consumption, courses and training tools for trainers in the Youth for the Change (YxC) Programme; a study in sustainable life styles, consumption patterns, sustainable development and genre; identification of better performance for governments, companies and NGO’s; policy recommendations based upon demonstrative projects; and the definition of a set of indicators.