Welcome to European Parliamentary Research Service podcast on sustainable consumption.

Our choices as consumers can help save or further destroy our planet.

Most of us say we care about the environment, but how many of us remember this when we choose what to buy?

Not so many, so how can the EU help consumers make eco-friendly choices?

Stay with us.

Household consumption accounts for a fifth of the EU's greenhouse gas emissions.

And guess what are the categories with the largest environmental footprint?

Food, housing, especially energy used for heating and mobility.

And we keep on travelling more and buying more and more house appliances,

despite scientists warning that our consumption habits may already be causing irreversible changes

to our climate, or land and water resources, leading to high concentrations of particular matter and increasing

the incidence of cancer.

So why are we doing that if we know it's bad for us?

Well, two-thirds of European consumers are well aware that their consumption habits are

bad for the environment and know what the solution is, but there's a gap between what

they think and what they do. Indeed, and that's

because sustainability is not the only thing we consider when choosing what to buy. We are also

influenced by price, availability and convenience, habits, values, social norms and peer pressure,

emotional appeal, and the feeling of making a difference. Tell me what you have and I'll tell you who you are.

You got it.

But millennials are changing the rules of the game

by leading more simple, less materialistic lives.

...