BCSD UK participates in new UK taskforce formed to help companies move to greener practices

The WBCSD's regional partner BCSD-UK has joined a new business taskforce that has been brought together to identify ways in which companies can move to more sustainable consumption and production practices.

The UK Business Taskforce on Sustainable Consumption and Production will look for practical ways in which businesses can minimise the negative impacts of products and services throughout the whole of their life, while remaining profitable and make recommendations to the government on how policy can support such effort.

In welcoming the taskforce, United Kingdom's Environment Minister Elliot Morley stressed that "moving to more sustainable consumption and production practices is one of the major challenges we face. We need a major shift to deliver new products and services with lower environmental impacts across the whole of their life, as well as new business models which meet this challenge while boosting competitiveness."

"I am therefore delighted that, at the joint invitation of Defra and the Dti, four leading business-sustainability networks in the UK have come together to create this new Taskforce to help us achieve this", he said.

The Taskforce has been convened on behalf of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Department of Trade and Industry (Dti) by four business networks - Business in the Community, the Business Council for Sustainable Development - United Kingdom, the University of Cambridge Programme for Industry and its Business and the Environment Programme - and with guidance from the Small Business Consortium and the Sustainable Development Commission.