Products and environment. Report on integrated product policy

The National Commission for Sustainable Development established on 16 November 1999 a subgroup which had as one of its tasks to formulate a national strategy or a strategic view on how Finland should promote integrated product policy in accordance with the requirements of sustainable development. The aim of integrated product policy is to improve the environmental friendliness of products and product systems by taking into account the environmental effects during their entire lifecycles. Its leading principles are lifecycle thinking, market-basedness, integration of environmental aspects into economic activity, and that all actors within the product chain (consumers, trade, companies) decrease the environmental consequences of their activities according to the principle of shared responsibility and to their preconditions. Political decision-making and administration should provide firms and clients with the required preconditions and i.a. remove obstacles to knowledge and promote research. In product policy, emphasis is on especially those instruments that encourage actors to develop their activities. At national level, economic instruments should be directed to domestic demand and use of products. It is often most appropriate to develop economic instruments for production and legislation and other regulation within international co-operation. (orig.)