Sustainable consumption: promoting an energy-efficient economy to move from awareness to action

Faced with the imperative of the environmental transition, the Prime Minister asked the EESC what changes need to be made in our consumption patterns, how to reconcile them with the objectives of reindustrialisation and the role of advertising. 

For the EESC, despite growing environmental awareness, our lifestyles are unsustainable with respect to "planetary limits". Paradoxically, marketing and advertising encourage consumption, if not over-consumption. Sustainable consumption requires a sustainable and affordable offer. Faced with the ecological emergency and the need for social justice, only a more energy-efficient economy, which puts the environment and people at the heart of the production 
system, can enable us to meet the commitments in the Paris Agreement on climate change.