Presentation of SCP activities in Costa Rica
 

Sergio Musmanni, Director, National Cleaner Production Center, Costa Rica, outlined SCP activities in Costa Rica. These included: an environmental discharge fee to internalize water production costs; a UNEP/Wuppertal Institute “Efficient Entrepreneur Calendar” helping companies achieve SCP autonomously; sector-specific guides and an eco-design manual; plans to promote degradable plastics for niche applications; integrating cleaner production goals into a broader corporate social responsibility initiative; “Fempac,” a Costa Rican packaging scheme following Europe’s successful “Green Dot;” and an initiative establishing baselines of material imports for planning their recycling, treatment and disposal. He said Costa Rica’s current electricity generation is relatively low impact, but that fossil fuel consumption was projected to increase, and that this should be averted through efficient public transport and car sharing, increased biomass power capacity and renewable fuels programmes. He outlined challenges including: finance and technology transfer; encouraging life cycle thinking; hazardous materials treatment and accounting; increasing  waste collection efficiency; developing regulatory land use plans, ecolabels and awards; and increasing consumer awareness and engagement.

Miguel Araujo, Basel Convention Secretariat, made a presentation on the “Basel Convention and the Global Waste Challenge.” He reviewed goals and achievements of the Convention, including the Global Network of Basel Convention Regional Centers, and outlined the 2004 Ministerial statement on partnerships for meeting the global waste challenge. He said the GEF recently began supporting Basel Convention-related work, and that strengthening Regional Centers would enable countries to access more financial resources and submit stronger proposals.

Participants then discussed recommendations from the working groups, noting that in some cases much untapped funding exists, and that in other cases funds are lacking and that the challenge is to close this gap. Recommendations included the following: sustainable funding for municipalities; integration of family planning into long term urban planning; setting up SCP centers in every country, which could be linked to existing networks such as NCPCs, the World Urban Forum or UN Habitat; innovative financing, such as using the CDM funds available at the World Bank; a sustainable development trust fund administered by the UN; tapping into existing initiatives that reward innovative project proposals, such as the SEED Initiative and the World Bank’s Development Marketplace; better coordination between UN agencies addressing SCP and sustainable livelihoods; and preparation of a sustainable urban environmental programme by every capital city in every country.

Eveline Venanzoni, Swiss Agency for the Environment, Forests and Landscape, outlined success factors for sustainable public procurement, including: a sustainable development strategy and high-level commitment; centralized procurement organization as in the Swiss case; a conducive legal framework; a leading procurement body; cooperation of competent partners; awareness-raising of all stakeholders involved in public procurement; handbooks, practical tools, and economical product criteria; training of purchasers; and international collaboration and information-sharing. Drawing on case studies, she concluded that sustainable public procurement was already possible and that minimum sustainability criteria should be met by all suppliers as entry preconditions to the global market. She said a Marrakech sustainable public procurement task force should work on these issues, giving practical examples of how this might work.

Working Group IV - Regional and National Strategies for SCP

During the discussion on national SCP strategies, common challenges in both developed and developing countries were identified. Some participants stressed the importance of integrating SCP into national sustainable development strategies as an overall national objective, and of developing concrete sectoral action plans that promote SCP, with targets and indicators. Lack of public understanding of SCP was identified as a challenge. Participants agreed that for some developing countries SCP is still a new issue and not a priority, and that integrating SCP into poverty reduction strategies would be a better approach. Participants acknowledged that countries and regions had different priorities, but identified some common priorities for action, including public procurement and government leading by example, education and awareness-raising, changing behavior, energy, poverty reduction, and overcoming trade barriers and distortions. Individual examples from Switzerland and Norway included setting climate change as a national environmental priority and exploring polices to promote sustainable use of energy, in order to achieve Kyoto Protocol targets.

Participants discussed: involving stakeholders early on to utilize their expertise; the need for clear, coherent targets on SCP and sound, scientific evidence-based decision making; integrating progress monitoring into the strategie formulation process; and establishing a small set of globally accepted indicators, which reflect the ecological, social and economic dimensions of SCP, and are easily communicated.
 

The working group broke into smaller groups to discuss questions related to: guidelines to SCP strategy formulation; SCP linkages to poverty reduction strategies, especially the MDGs; indicators and monitoring; bringing together policy makers and academics; involving the private sector, NGOs and local governments more effectively; further work on the costs of inaction; and sustainable procurement. During the discussions, participants reiterated that different countries required different strategies, said voluntary approaches had limits, and discussed whether to establish new strategies or to integrate SCP into existing strategies. On links with poverty reduction, issues addressed included more cooperation between the SCP agenda and poverty reduction, especially the MDGs, and mainstreaming SCP into Poverty Reduction Strategies (PRS). On indicators, the group advocated developing a small set of key indicators at the international level, which could be adapted for national-level use.

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Working Group V - Energy, Climate and Air Pollution

Experts were asked to identify priorities at the national and international levels for improving energy efficiency, reducing air pollution, and cooperation. At the national level, experts identified their countries’ priorities including: energy efficiency awareness; public procurement and contracting schemes; sustainable transport strategies, including rural transport; demonstration of renewable energies from a life-cycle perspective; capacity building; pollution monitoring systems; access to technology; and identifying new energy technologies and barriers to those technologies.
 

Moderator James Riordan, Canada, reported on outcomes of the cooperation dialogue sessions and said all agreed that poverty eradication was the starting point. He reported that the sessions covered: reference to the MDGs; emphasis by development agencies on priorities set by governments in their national development plans; ownership of development initiatives by governments; harmonization of work between development agencies; developing South-South cooperation; supporting regional projects; and preparing and implementing CDM projects.

Sherif Arif, World Bank, stated that the World Bank would finance projects in sectors leading to SCP, and highlighted incentives, institutions, investment and information as necessary components of eligible projects. He said approximately $500 million was available from the Bank for CDM projects and invited countries to submit proposals. He also said that free trade will have a long term impact on SCP, and said this needs to be addressed.

Yamada Taizo, JICA, Japan, stressed that aid agencies need to know how they can be useful to the Marrakech Process. He said more support was needed, and that that the application process can be very cumbersome. Taizo noted that this meeting provides a forum to discuss issues at the technical level without political discussion.

Kathleen Abdullah, UN DESA, stressed that UN DESA is not a typical donor agency. She underscored the need to see how innovative ideas from one project fit into another SCP project, and to make sure that available funds get used in SCP projects. She stressed the importance of the private sector and the need to work more closely with WSSD partnerships.

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