About

A fair price for energy must be fair to buyers and sellers, but also to the earth and to future generations.

Oil was the cheapest form of energy until relatively recently. The industrial world thrived on it. Many countries became dependent for their food on its byproducts - fertilizers and pesticides.
Other sources of power - the sun, the wind, the tides, steam in the earth's crust, coal, nuclear fission and fusion - were neglected as too expensive. Some are more costly to the environment to exploit than others. But many are relatively inexhaustible by comparison with oil.

In the above image, cow dung cakes are being prepared to be used in biogas plants in the village of Ugala.
Gobar or biogas plants comprise a digester of adequate size to ferment in an efficient manner cow dung, urine, night soil and any other finely chopped leftover fodder. These plants are available in sizes ranging from 60 cubic feet capacity to 5,000.

The Marrakech Process is a global process to support the elaboration of a 10-Year Framework of Programmes (10YFP) on sustainable consumption and production, as called for by the WSSD Johannesburg Plan of Action.

:: Goals

  • to assist countries in their efforts to green their economies
  • to help corporations develop greener business models
  • to encourage consumers to adopt more sustainable lifestyles.

:: Participants

UNEP and UN DESA are the lead agencies of this global process, with an active participation of national governments, development agencies, and civil society.

:: 7 Task Forces

In order to support the implementation of concrete projects and capacity building, seven Marrakech Task Forces have been created as voluntary partnership initiatives with the participation of experts from developing and developed countries.

:: 45 NCPCs

Forty-five national cleaner production centers are supporting developing countries in their efforts to: raise awareness about sustainable production; train local experts and build local capacity; provide technical assistance to individual enterprises; support development of projects on cleaner development; disseminate technical information; and provide policy support to governments.

:: Regional Implementation Networks

Regional SCP implementation networks have been launched in all regions engaging all interested stakeholders. Institutional mechanisms are supporting implementation projects and capacity building efforts in line with established regional priorities.

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This website also serves as a clearinghouse for issue papers related to sustainability, as well as a library of policy toolkits (coming soon), publications and papers that provide technical guidance on the development of policy frameworks to support sustainable consumption and production.