SAMFUNN: Regulations, markets and consumer self-regulation in global sustainable development. A comparison of three European countries, 2011

This project deals with the interrelationships between production and consumption, which in global supply chains represent a significant challenge in policies for environmental sustainability. The project focuses on the ways in which consumption can be regulated in order to become more sustainable. This includes strong measures of state intervention as well as softer, more indirect and voluntary forms of regulation. In particular, the project aims to get a better understanding of how consumer self-regulation develops within global/national systems of provision, consumer cultures, and regulatory initiatives. A comparative approach was employed in order to identify basic political, market and cultural conditions and path-dependencies. Two items, beef and cotton, were selected, both with significant and complex environmental impacts. Moreover the project compares how the environmental impacts of these items are handled in three countries with different regulatory traditions, provisioning systems, and consumer cultures; Norway, the UK and France. The comparative analyses are obtained by linking up with ongoing research in France and the UK. Collaboration is also established with India and the US for studying the regulation of global supply chains.