Work Package 2: The Regulatory Dynamics of Sustainability
Work Package leader: Beate Sjåfjell, University of Oslo
WP2 undertook a systemic and thoughtfully structured and coordinated mapping and analysis, identifying barriers and possibilities for market actors’ contribution to sustainability. This step was concluded in August 2018 and was synthesised in the report D2.4: Obstacles to Sustainable Global Business.
Based on all work streams in SMART, WP 2 developed a broad set of reform proposals, which we outlined in the report D2.7: Supporting the Transition to Sustainability. The details of the reform proposals have been developed in three reports (submitted as annexes to D2.7, see below), concerning reform proposals for Business, Finance and Products. WPs 3, 4 and 5 contributed with their insights to this work, with WP4 taking the lead on the Products report.
WP2 furthermore developed guidelines and proposals for EU action on Policy Coherence for Development (PCD). The D2.8 report: SMART Guidelines: Making Policy Coherence for Development Fit for Purpose, presents twelve proposals to make the EU’s strategy for policy coherence for development better fit for purpose.
WP2 also developed an open-access SMART Research Guide (D2.9) to ensure coherence in the project as a whole and identify the relevant environmental and social issues. The Research Guide is a guide that aims to assist scholars that want to develop and integrate the interdisciplinary and systemic approach of SMART.
Public reports
D2.2 International Regulatory Complexity of EU Trade and Investment – mapping and analysis (Tonia Novitz and Clair Gammage)
D2.4 Obstacles to Sustainable Global Business: Towards EU Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development (Beate Sjåfjell, Jukka Mähönen, Andrew Johnston, Jay Cullen)
D2.5 Thinking with care: Exploring interdisciplinarity in a global research project (Maja van der Velden)
D2.6 The role of the state as investor in promoting sustainability: An empirical analysis (Jukka Mähönen and Heidi Rapp Nilsen)
D2.7 Supporting the Transition to Sustainability: The SMART Reform Proposals (Beate Sjåfjell, Jukka Mähönen, Mark Taylor, Eléonore Maitre-Ekern, Maja van der Velden, Tonia Novitz, Clair Gammage, Jay Cullen, Marta Andhov, Roberto Caranta).
Annexes to D2.7:
- Securing the future of European business: SMART reform proposals (Beate Sjåfjell, Jukka Mähönen, Tonia Novitz, Clair Gammage, and Hanna Ahlström)
- Financing the transition to sustainability: SMART reform proposals (Jay Cullen, Jukka Mähönen and Heidi Rapp Nilsen)
- Towards a Sustainable Circular Economy: A Framework Directive for Products (Eléonore Maitre-Ekern, Mark B. Taylor and Maja van der Velden)
- Separate report feeding into the Circular Economy report: Sustainability Through Public Procurement (Marta Andhov, Roberto Caranta, Tim Stoffel, Jolien Grandia, Willem A. Janssen, Roxana Vornicu, Jason J. Czarnezki, Adam Gromnica, Kristin Tallbo, Olga Martin-Ortega, Lela Mélon, Åsa Edman, Pauline Göthberg, Peter Nohrstedt, and Anja Wiesbrock)
D2.8 SMART Guidelines: Making Policy Coherence for Development Fit for Purpose (Clair Gammage, Svein Erik Stave, Hanna Ahlström and Beate Sjåfjell)
Work Package 3: Policy coherence and the social and environmental externalities in the product lifecycle of ready-made garments
Work Package leader: Tineke Lambooy, Nyenrode Business University
WP3 followed one pair of jeans and one T-shirt from raw materials to end of life in order to identify the social and environmental hot spots that occur in this product life cycle (PLC), applicable legislation and companies’ best practices. The PLC of the T-shirt took us from cotton produced in India to the manufacturing activities in Bangladesh, and hence to consumer use and end of life in the Netherlands. The PLC of the pair of jeans followed another route: from cotton produced in Turkey, to the weaving of the denim in Turkey, hence to the manufacturing of the pair of jeans in Vietnam; the garment subsequently was sold to consumers, used by them, and finally, ending as waste in the Netherlands.
WP3 identified a multitude of hot spots concerning the production, use and discarding of T-shirts and jeans. From these hot spots, two were selected for an in-depth study in order to map the regulatory ecology pertinent to such hotspots. These concerned: gender inequality in the PLC of T-shirts and the use and discharge of chemicals in the PLC of jeans and is presented in report D3.1.
WP3 performed a gap analysis could indicating which laws, regulation and policies could be improved in order to raise the legal and regulatory standards up to the level of existing best practices. This included recommendations to the EU Commission and national governments for adopting policies (other than laws and regulations) that could contribute to scaling up best practices and addressing barriers. Finally, suggestions aiming at removing hotspots in the two selected PLCs were formulated and addressed to companies and consumers. See report D3.3.
Public reports
D3.1 Sustainability Hotspots Analysis of two Ready-made Garments (Tineke Lambooy, Martine Bosman and Sam Solaimani)
D3.3 The Regulatory Ecology of two severe Sustainability Hot Spots in the product life cycles of a pair of jeans and a T-shirt (Tineke Lambooy, Martine Bosman, Aikaterini Argyrou, Bart Jansen, Setara Begum and Ayub Nabi Khan)
Work Package 4: Policy coherence and the social and environmental externalities in the product lifecycle of mobile phones
Work Package leader: Maja van der Velden, University of Oslo
The main conclusions from the research in WP4 are firstly that the social and environmental externalities found in the mobile phone lifecycle (and electronics in general) can be traced back to two main characteristics, namely precarious work and eco-human toxicity. This is presented in the D4.1 report.
Secondly, WP4 identified four main sources of resistance to regulation at for these main social and environmental externalities or hotspots: Regulatory Disjunctures – off-shoring, out-sourcing; Business Models – arbitrage, evasion/avoidance; Design of Technology – promotes unsustainable production and consumption; and Marginalisation – undermines demand for enforcement. These four combine to ensure that our systems of production and consumption are predisposed to resist regulation aimed at sustainability.
Public reports
D4.1 Sustainability Hotspots Analysis of the Mobile Phone Lifecycle (Maja van der Velden and Mark Taylor)
Social and Environmental Risks in the Mobile Phone Lifecycle (Maja van der Velden)
Work Package 5: Sustainability Assessment Guidelines
Work Package leader: María Jesús Muñoz Torres, Jaume I University
WP5 has produced a science-based framework for analysing the extent to which companies are operating sustainably. This Guide presents a logical framework to assess sustainability, integrating different well-known tools and processes, as well as others created specifically for this Framework.
WP5 designed this Guide as a manual of processes and tools for analysing environmental, social, economic and governance factors, in order to operationalize the assessment of the sustainable management of an organization within a life cycle perspective. WP5 structured the Guide in two parts. In the first part, WP5 presented the fundamentals that were used as a basis for the definition of the Sustainability Assessment Framework. In a second part, WP5 developed the Framework in detail. For that end, WP5 defined three processes (traceability, assurance and continuous improvement) that operationalize the framework and second, WP5 deepened in the three steps that conduct an analysis of the organization and the different tools proposed to assess sustainability. This work is presented in the D5.4 report.
WP5 also tested the suitability of this Sustainability Assessment Framework based on two case studies belonging to two sectors, the textile and mobile phone sectors. In each of the two sectors, WP5 considered three scenarios designing global supply chains with companies operating in a broad range of countries and applying different end of life strategies (see report D5.6).
Public reports
D5.1 Lifecycle thinking: Issues to be considered (María Jesús Muñoz-Torres (lead author), María Ángeles Fernández-Izquierdo, Juana María Rivera-Lirio, Idoya Ferrero-Ferrero, Elena Escrig-Olmedo, José Vicente Gisbert-Navarro, María Chiara Marullo)
D5.2 List of best practices and KPIs of the textile products life cycle (María Jesús Muñoz‐Torres, María Ágeles Fernádez‐Izquierdo, Juana Marí Rivera‐Lirio, Idoya Ferrero‐Ferrero, Elena Escrig‐Olmedo, JoséVicente Gisbert‐Navarro)
D5.3 List of best practices and KPIs of the mobile phone cycle (María Jesús Muñoz‐Torres, María Ágeles Fernádez‐Izquierdo, Juana María Rivera‐Lirio, Idoya Ferrero‐Ferrero, Elena Escrig‐Olmedo, José Vicente Gisbert‐Navarro)
D5.4 Sustainability assessment guide (María Jesús Muñoz‐Torres, María Ágeles Fernádez‐Izquierdo, Juana María Rivera‐Lirio, Idoya Ferrero‐Ferrero, Elena Escrig‐Olmedo, José Vicente Gisbert‐Navarro)
D5.5 Multi-criteria Decision Framework to Assess Supply Chain Management (María Jesús Muñoz‐Torres, María Ágeles Fernádez‐Izquierdo, Juana María Rivera‐Lirio, Idoya Ferrero‐Ferrero, Elena Escrig‐Olmedo, José Vicente Gisbert‐Navarro)
D5.6 Testing Sustainability Assessment Tool in the selected case studies from Textile and Mobile Phone Sectors (María Jesús Muñoz-Torres, María Ángeles Fernández-Izquierdo, Juana María Rivera-Lirio, Idoya Ferrero-Ferrero, Elena Escrig-Olmedo, José Vicente Gisbert-Navarro)
