INSTITUTIONS FOR COMMITMENT AND CONSISTENCY Sylvia I. Karlsson International Environment Forum Consumer Citizenship Network Third International Conference Hamar, Norway, May 2006 International Environment Forum

Outline The role of institutions Institutions and consumer citizenship Designing and changing institutions Conclusions

International Environment Forum The role of institutions Are knowledge and values enough to transform our consumption patterns in more sustainable directions and make us remain committed to act as responsible consumer citizens, to act consistently in different situations and over time? No, for at least five reasons linked to institutions.

International Environment Forum Institutions are “systems of rules, decision-making procedures, and programs that give rise to social practices, assign roles to the participants in those practices, and guide interactions among the occupants of the relevant roles” (Young 1999) The role of institutions Do we explain the behavior of individuals by the institutions that surround them or do individual action explain the design of institutions?

International Environment Forum Are knowledge and values enough to transform our consumption patterns in more sustainable directions and make us remain committed to act as responsible consumer citizens, to act consistently in different situations and over time? Institutions and consumer citizenship No, because...

International Environment Forum Institutions and consumer citizenship 1. Our decisions not only influenced by the knowledge and values we have, but they are also influenced institutions of what is considered desired, acceptable or allowed consumer behavior in our families, communities or countries. 2. It is very difficult for individual consumers to acquire sufficient and appropriate information. 3. For consumers to be able to consume sustainably there needs to be options to do so, alternative products. And these options are made available (or not) depending on the institutions and structures in society.

International Environment Forum Institutions and consumer citizenship 4. Even if there are alternatives, how attractive and available those alternatives are also depends institutions. 5. Many of the sustainability challenges require consistent incremental decisions and policy over many years, even decades to affect change and this can be difficult to accomplish through consumer pressure only.

International Environment Forum Institutions have a certain robustness within them, making them slow to change. If we manage to create stable institutions which are effective in influencing behavior, they may thus encourage certain patterns of behavior which could facilitate consistency over time. Changing institutions

International Environment Forum What do institutions look like which take our societies in the right direction towards sustainability and what can we base them on? Changing institutions Which institutions are most important to change, and which ones would be easiest and fastest to change?

International Environment Forum Relatively easy to change with few resources and within a short time span. Difficult and costly to implement/enforce at local level, particularly at global scale. Global (or national) guidelines for safe use such as codes of conduct, label instructions or safety sheets. Operational Moderately difficult to change with large variation in time and resources required Relatively easy to implement as it involves few sectors and actors. National, regional or international laws and regulations banning or restricting certain pesticides. Collective- choice Very difficult to change, requiring significant political will at global and national level involving multiple sectors and actors, or widespread changes in consumer preferences Favoured type of agricultural system (including system of pest management) Constitutional Proneness to changeExamplesInstitution type

International Environment Forum Institutions create incentives for behavior and, if effective, can influence the commitment of and consistency of individual and collective actors. The major challenge is for society is to institutionalize concerns for inter- and intra-generational equity so that global and long-term thinking are made more permanent. The crunch-point is of course that in order to change the institutions to encourage these kind of values, we need to change the values in society. Conclusions

International Environment Forum What type of institutions are needed for consumer citizenship to be more than a passing buzzword/trend/fashion that ends with the funding of the network? Which of the three types of institutions can the network itself focus on changing? For discussion