Switch Asia Indonesia Programme - Moving towards Sustainable Consumption in Indonesia through Increased Consumer Information

The objective is to strengthen Indonesia’s regional leadership in consumer information and accelerate the shift towards SCP. The EU SWITCH-Asia Programme partnered with the 10YFP CI-SCP to scale up national and global activities in this thematic area in Indonesia. In collaboration with Yayasan Pembangunan Berkelanjutan (YPB), a series of workshops and trainings to build capacity, support policy advocacy and strengthen consumer information in Indonesia were organized throughout 2016. This collaboration has been developed as a response to a request from the Indonesian MoEF to conduct national policy research, capacity building and advocacy that will strengthen consumer information in Indonesia. The kick off workshop of the series was held on 8 August 2016 in Jakarta, Indonesia. It focused on strengthening Indonesia's labels and guidelines for consumer information and had as its objective to identify a pilot sector on which subsequent research activities and other workshops would focus. Two consecutive technical workshop on eco-labelling for government and private sector were held on 3 and 4 October 2016 in Jakarta with international speakers from GIZ Thailand (Advance SCP Project) and UN Environment/ Coordination Desk 10YFP CI-SCP. The last two workshops were held on 24 and 25 October 2016 in Jakarta. These two workshops were focusing on the plastic packaging, specifically plastic shopping bag and Styrofoam that are currently two key issues in Indonesia. Final Recommendation to scale up the Consumer Information practices in Indonesia and other countries: 1. Eco-labels are one of the tools for giving reliable information to consumers on ‘green products’. For Indonesia, one way to promote eco-labelling is for the government to provide incentives and examples through GPP. Therefore, as it was noted from the technical workshop for government, coordination to implement GPP and eco-labelling needs to be enhanced and harmonized. Such cooperation can start between the MoEF and the Ministry of Education and Cultural. 2. Strengthening consumer information in public facilities was identified as a way for promoting the CI-SCP in Indonesia in a more practical way. Indonesia, besides strengthening stakeholder collaboration, will strengthen SCP implementation on the ground through community-based actions in public facilities, where consumer information and practical education will be key instruments for intervention. The progress in implementing a standard of public services for implementing sustainable consumption and production in public facilities will be reviewed. 3. After the series of workshops, focusing on plastic packaging sector, even though YPB has tried to invite related ministries, YPB was made aware that there were a number of related workshops held by other ministries or organizations, discussing plastic as well. Therefore, it is crucial that MoEF engages those stakeholders further. Also, to harmonize understanding on eco-labelling or CI-SCP itself, it will be important to enhance coordination between different directorates of MoEF itself. 4. Programmes like education, campaigns, awareness raising, incentives were often mentioned throughout the series of workshops as they are important to promote ecolabels and ‘green products’. Along with those programmes, information through tools such as eco-labels was also noted to be important. Therefore, it can be reiterated that the Consumer Information Programme for SCP is very closely related with Sustainable Lifestyle and Education. 5. Capacity building for consumers will be needed: a. It was suggested that a classroom method can be organized to a group of consumers. E.g.: community organization to enhance women capacities (PKK) or youth organization in Indonesia (Karang Taruna). Monitoring and evaluation of the method’s success could be done through beginning and ending surveys. 6. A campaign should be established covering different sectors, including ‘regular’ people (who do not yet know about SCP), e.g: students, practitioners, women in the organization of PKK. 7. Expand to media: a. The activities on information and communication can be expanded to media (audio and visual) to reach a larger target audience of individual consumers. b. Campaign activities, including a communication team, should be developed and spread through media, e.g.: radio, TV commercial / programme, bloggers, Facebook, newsletters, and other social media. c. It is crucial to engage media and journalist to write about the importance of reliable information given to consumers and the importance for consumers to be more critical on what goods and services they are buying. d. In today’s digitalized world, an application (apps) would be a good tool to promote ecolabels and raise awareness of consumers in general. 8. A spokesperson/ ambassador should be identified to enhance the campaign. For the plastic packaging, especially plastic shopping bags, this could be an ambassador on zero waste lifestyle through consumer information.