The United Nations has set a number of SDGs in order to achieve harmonious, sustainable development while preserving our planet. Among them is the SDG on sustainable production and consumption. This article will analyze this SDG and its implications from a national and international perspective, and will then make the case for, and offer recommendations toward, production and consumption that respect ethics, CSR standards and working conditions.

Through the Lens of the French Case

In France, the State has already taken measures to promote ways of producing and consuming that meet certain standards. Today, in our canteens, our restaurants and our homes, we have bins for our different kinds of waste: recyclable waste such as plastic and glass, and non-recyclable waste such as food scraps, etc.

This allows us to build an eco-responsible production cycle by sorting our waste, and to adopt a production and consumption cycle based on the circular economy. We produce first, and the way we consume then gives products a new life, without drawing on other natural resources that are so precious to our ecosystem, such as timber, etc. This is the virtuous cycle we need to create to keep from overexploiting our resources.

In France, we are becoming aware that we must produce better and consume better to reduce our carbon footprint, etc. We are in a phase of growing awareness of climate issues and of responsible production and consumption. It is a period of transition, and like every transition it still meets resistance, notably from French people who have not been made aware of the issue. But attitudes are changing… When it comes to production, in fact, we are starting to see the emergence of an economy based on use and rental rather than ownership. This completely changes our relationship to production, because we use goods for what they do: we rent bikes rather than buy them, we take public transport instead of using our cars. We are also gradually switching to electric vehicles, even though this takes resources and money.

But much still needs to be done in France to achieve production and consumption that respect the demands of sustainable development. The way we produce our energy, largely based on uranium and nuclear power plants, is a problem, because this mode of production generates significant pollution, notably through radiation, etc. Moreover, in France as in many European countries, food is wasted, even though the WFP, according to its figures, has shown that several million people die of hunger every year, and these wasted resources could save millions of lives, particularly in Africa south of the Sahel, toward Sudan, and even in South Asia.

In France, we have made progress on the sustainable production and consumption SDG, but more remains to be done, particularly on international solidarity and on using our surplus resources to ensure sufficient production and consumption, especially for developing countries.

The Challenges of the Global South

In the countries of the South, the question of responsible production and consumption is especially pressing. First, our countries face the question of how production can benefit the entire population, since many people struggle with hunger, access to jobs, etc. The first factor, then, is being able to take part in the production cycle and benefit from resources in order to meet basic needs; so the first question is access to the essential goods people need to survive. And as we have seen in areas hit by conflict or drought, accessing resources is difficult: in some parts of the world, some households have an abundance of goods, while for others the problem is access to the most basic resources, water, food and healthcare.

Africa also faces the question of responsible production, because it is the continent hit hardest by global warming yet the one with the smallest share of the carbon footprint, since, owing to its often tropical climate, Africa absorbs more CO2 and retains more of it in its atmosphere. Multinationals are present in Africa too, notably the large mining companies in Guinea, Congo, etc. These companies are sometimes less scrupulous about CSR in Africa, because on various indicators of their CSR policies, namely their social and environmental impact, they often fail to provide the compensation owed.

In Guinea-Conakry, mining areas are often the poorest. Many multinationals build very little in the way of schools or community infrastructure to offset the impact of their activities on pollution, air quality and soil degradation, and sometimes on wildlife, with animals being displaced, and on plant life. Yet these companies should do more to compensate for the externalities of their activities, by contributing to the quality of infrastructure and to people’s living standards. Production therefore needs to be more responsible, taking into account the fragility of the environment in these countries, but also the fragility, and even the vulnerability, of human populations, and sometimes of plant and animal species as well. In Africa, multinationals must pay closer attention to fragile ecosystems so that production can benefit the communities living there.

In some countries of the South, there is also the problem of overexploitation of our waters, through illegal fishing and overfishing; closed seasons are less and less respected, which slows the reproduction of fish stocks. Often it is large trawlers that come to fish in fishing zones reserved for certain countries, particularly in Africa. These African countries own these waters, but because they lack the means to monitor them, some trawlers fish in zones that are not theirs… Here again, we need more responsibility, respect for the law and a degree of ethics…

The excessive use of plastic is also a problem in Africa and even in Asia. Mineral water is sold in plastic sachets, and this causes problems, because the sachets are often thrown on the ground; in the rainy season they wash into the sea through the gutters, polluting our seas and oceans, and they sometimes block rainwater drainage and cause flooding. People therefore need to become aware of the issue, through stronger awareness-raising on responsible production and consumption, so that achieving this SDG contributes to more sustainable and harmonious development in the years ahead.

As we have seen, then, reaching the targets of this SDG requires us to rethink our practices, our most deeply rooted “habitus” and our relationship to production and consumption. But the targets are within reach; what we need is willpower, and altruism in the way we relate to our neighbors, our community and the world.

Our States must play a central role, but people are the main actors of this change. We have to accept that the future of our ecosystem and our planet will depend on the way we produce and the way we consume. The issues in France and in the countries of the South are not quite the same, but they have points in common, and the watchword must be the same for everyone: greater respect for the production and consumption cycle, so that our use of resources follows a virtuous and sustainable cycle.