No abstract

No abstract

The promotion of sustainable consumption and production (SCP) as the most important goal and the main challenge to continuously improve the well-being of present and future generations was stated in the European Union (EU) Sustainable Development Strategy, which was renewed in 2006. Consumers show more concern about their consumption patterns. Unfortunately, actual consumption behaviour is changing very slowly and achievements in industrial efficiencies do not ensure significant positive changes. Even though old member states of the EU still have the largest volume of consumption expenditure, new member states are already not so far from them with one of the highest increases recorded in the Baltic States according to the data from Eurostat. This paper will highlight the most important results from the survey for Lithuanian consumers in order to ascertain their attitudes and habits and to determine relevant factors that influence, inhibit and motivate their consumption behaviour.

The encouragement of sustainable consumption and production (SCP) in order to continuously improve the well-being of present and future generations is the most important goal stated in the European Union (EU) Sustainable Development Strategy, which was renewed in 2006. The challenge for every company on the way to SCP is not only to use appropriate methods and measures to solve their specific sustainability problems, but, first of all, to select appropriate performance indicators and implement an effective sustainability performance evaluation system. It may be useful to apply an integrated indicator as a single comparable index, reducing the number of sustainability decision-making criteria that need to be considered. However, despite various approaches to create frameworks and methodologies for the development of integrated sustainability indicators that measure, monitor and assess the progress of an enterprise towards sustainability, there is still no comprehensive framework for integrated sustainability assessment of the overall company state on the basis of manufacturing processes, products/services as well as relationship with various stakeholders. An algorithm is here presented in respect of this demand. This algorithm offers methodical suggestions to assess the customers' opinion about the presence of company's environmental and social sustainability activities and initiatives, to identify and select most appropriate sustainability indicators, to determine their significance according to analytic hierarchy process (AHP), and to solve the most important sustainability problems in 3 aforementioned levels by adapting most suitable tools. The final suggestions are based on the values of 3 sub-indices of a new integrated index for the overall assessment of the SCP state in the company, ISCP.