SPAC Watch

Introduction
SPAC Watch at WSSD
Current activities

Introduction

An NGO initiative to monitor national progress towards sustainable production and consumption

Civil society monitoring and assessment of progress towards sustainable production and consumption (SPAC) is needed to complement and improve development of policies and practices by the government and industry. This is especially important to the success of intergovernmental efforts to develop and implement a ten-year work programme on sustainable production and consumption.

The road ahead SPAC Watch offers a civil society perspective to the dialogue on production and consumption policies and practices, monitoring and assessing progress by governments from rhetoric to realization.

SPAC Watch was launched in early 1999 at the international NGO Conference on Sustainable Production and Consumption, "From Consumer Society to Sustainable Society: Towards Sustainable Production and Consumption" [PDF] held in Soesterberg, Netherlands. It aims to address the need for greater public knowledge and information on production and consumption trends, to encourage greater public awareness and advocacy, and to help encourage pressure on governments, business leaders and institutions to promote and implement sustainable production and consumption policies and practices

GOALS

The ultimate purpose of ICSPAC and the SPAC Watch initiative is to help reverse the current negative environmental and social trends resulting from unsustainable production and consumption. The three basic goals of ICSPAC and the SPAC Watch initiative are to:

Strengthen capacity of NGOs promoting sustainable production & consumption, especially through exchange of information and knowledge.
Raise public awareness and engagement on SPAC issues, trends and policies.
Encourage governments to implement their commitments to eliminate unsustainable production and consumption patterns.

OBJECTIVES

To realize these goals calls for an approach involving the following objectives and activities:

Identify and expand ties with and among public interest organizations and networks in different global regions, particularly those NGOs monitoring and assessing progress by government and industry in implementing Agenda 21 commitments to promote sustainable production and consumption policies and practices.
Regularly gather observations and assessments of progress in a select number of issue areas, examining policy instruments, as applied within different sectors and regions.

Produce a timely series of progress reports and presentations on results from the above activities with special comprehensive assessments and reports as contributions to global UN and regional review sessions in the follow up to WSSD, for example in 2007 and 2015.
Maximize the multiplier effects of collaboration among NGOs in efforts encouraging governments and industry to achieve stronger performance on their commitments, especially on integrating SPAC into national policy priorities.

METHODOLOGY

SPAC Watch uses a collaborative research approach drawing upon input and discussion among a range of civil society and research organizations around the world. Focusing on agreed-upon sets of common questions, taking into account trends, available data and the experience of country- and region-based organizations, the reports will contribute to ongoing inter-governmental discussions of national and regional priorities, policies, practices, obstacles and strategies.

This collaborative exchange and analysis will also aim to sharpen NGOs' and policy makers' conceptual and theoretical understanding of SPAC problems, problem-solving practices, and as an overall integrative cross-sectoral approach to addressing sectoral sustainable development issues. With this aim in mind, ICSPAC members have been working with the CIPM schema, which expands the relationship of production and consumption to include the influences investment and marketing/trade policies