The EU and its member states have established global leadership of the drive to halt and reverse climate change. But setting ever-tougher post-Kyoto environmental standards has yet to be paralleled by a strategy for simultaneously underpinning economic development in the world’s poorest countries and continued growth in rich ones where voters have the final say. What new breed of policies could reconcile environmental responsibility, on which mankind’s survival may ultimately depend, with the many pressures for sustainable economic growth? Is the time ripe for the EU to turn its moral leadership on the environment into a credible industrial strategy?

Co-moderated by Giles Merritt, Secretary General of Friends of Europe, and Shirin Wheeler, Europe Correspondent of BBC TV

Consumer demand for environmentally responsible goods and services is growing, and this has led many manufacturers to find cost-effective ways of improving their environmental performance and thus their image. But many NGOs still say they see more advertising creativity and “greenwash” than real environmental benefit. Companies have long promoted products through self-declared ecoclaims without having to offer hard evidence, and while the EU and some European governments have since demanded more solid proof, the EU’s flowered eco-label has won only limited support from industry. Could the EU label, if better promoted, help change market dynamics, and what EU-level system could put climate change policies on a par with energy and resource efficiency? Should the EU create a CO₂ label to make Europe’s different labelling schemes more coherent?

Co-moderated by Giles Merritt, Secretary General of Friends of Europe, and Shirin Wheeler, Europe Correspondent of BBC TV

Co-moderated by Giles Merritt, Secretary General of Friends of Europe, and Shirin Wheeler, Europe Correspondent of BBC TV