Israel: Makes
the Switch

  • To sustainable consumption and production for circular and green economies
  • From policy to policy implementation
  • National priorities: social environmental businesses; cleantech; green public procurement; environmental standards and labeling; resource efficiency

Sustainable Consumption and Production National Action Plan (SCP-NAP)

The Israeli Sustainable Consumption and Production National Action Plan (SCP-NAP) was developed under the coordination of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Ministry of Economy under the EU-funded SwitchMed programme, with advisory services and technical support from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The Plan is part of Israel’s efforts to achieve Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals. The SCP-NAP (SDG12.1) addressed sustainable consumption, sustainable production and focuses on connecting the dots and was developed in Israel through nationally owned multistakeholder processes.

The challenge of achieving economic growth and development in the face of the limited carrying capacity of the environment has become increasingly apparent in recent years. In order to meet this challenge, Israel developed Sustainable Consumption and Production strategy as part of the SwitchMed Programme.  Israel formulated its own national roadmap under the guidance of an advisory team from the Israeli Ministries of Environmental Protection and Economy and based on a year-long scoping review process of 8 professional workshops with over 300 participants from over 50 institutions, including government, civil society, private sector, media and academia:

Date Subject Targeted Groups
16-17 December 2013 National Strategies for SCP Multi stakeholders
18 December 2013 SD in Government Companies Government Companies
17-18 June 2014 Policy Tools for Circular Economy Government
19 June 2014 Mainstreaming Life Cycle Thinking Practitioners  
24 June 2014 Toward Sustainable infrastructure Government Companies
6 January 2015 Environmental Funds Management Government
7 January 2015 Environmental RIA Government
8 January 2015 SCP Roadmap consultation meeting Multi stakeholders

 

Building on past experiences the focus of the SCP roadmap is on achievable, innovative and high impact projects. Some of the projects are developments and updates of previous plans and some introduce new concepts and strategies into already existing Israeli policies. Although SCP strategies are by definition spanning the complete life cycle of products and services, most of the designed projects have either a producer- or consumer-oriented approach, which complements each other. The SCP roadmap for Israel is divided into three main parts, according to consumption vs. production focus and includes a series of SCP initiatives that are due to be launched and implemented by 2020.

Sustainable Production: Key issues identified: emphasis on SMEs, the prospects of driving change through governmental and public companies, innovative business models in the adoption of sustainable production. Several projects were developed:

  • Sustainable development strategies in government companies;
  • Best practices for small and medium enterprises(guiding manuals and green labels);
  • Changing the DNA of businesses: Supporting social environmental businesses (SEB);
  • Resource efficiency knowledge center;
  • Green Investments to develop the index methodology and accomplish annual compiling and publication.

Sustainable Consumption: Key levers for change are green public procurement, household behavior and behavioral economics:

  • Green Public Procurement (green procurement portal, product sheets);
  • Lifestyle Labs (sustainability in daily lifestyle by analyzing household behavior with
    recommendations and tools);
  • Behavioral Economics (trials, based on focus groups and control groups, to monitor the impact of different biases on decision making on sustainability issues).

Connecting the Dots – between sustainable production and sustainable consumption: several fields identified for SCP roadmap implementation: sustainable materials management, sustainable urbanism, environmental standards, reliable environmental labeling and greenwash prevention, development of reliable footprint labels:

  • Review of relevant sustainable principles, methods, best practices, domains and success stories from selected countries and conducting in-depth interviews with key stakeholders;
  • Round table events with key stakeholders to propose and prioritize policy instruments
    (government interventions);
  • Developing selected policy instruments (interventions), strategy execution and monitoring.

Resources

  • SCP-NAP Israel

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  • SCP Policies Workshops Summary Israel

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  • Factsheet SCP-NAP Israel

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  • Factsheet SCP-NAP demo- green label

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  • Factsheet SwitchMed demo Israel - Restaurant guidebook

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  • Factsheet SwitchMed demo Israel - Sustainable Industrial Zones

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  • Factsheet SwitchMed demo Israel - SPP

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