A Just Transition to Sustainable Lifestyles for Consumers
Opening Session

Over 94% of consumers are in favour of a shift to more sustainable lifestyles, but more than 80% say they need stronger support from government and business to make this transformation possible.

As we open the Consumers International Summit on the occasion of World Consumer Rights Day, we look at what a just transition to sustainable lifestyles means for consumers around the world. We explore why accessibility, availability and affordability are key drivers to help us live more sustainably.

How do we take action to not only protect our planet, but to strengthen our access to essential consumer rights and needs?

Watch the session

Unwrapping the Plastics Crisis
Sustainable Lifestyles Summit 2025

On average, each person consumes 60kg of plastic each year. In some places, such as Western Europe, this can rise up to an average of 150kg of plastic annually. According to the UN Environment Programme, a combination of policy and market shifts can reduce plastic pollution by as much as 80%.

In this session we centre in on the actions needed to deliver this transition towards a more sustainable, plastic-free economy. 

Watch the session 

Making Sustainability more Human
Sustainable Lifestyles Summit 2025

How can we truly engage consumers on sustainability by connecting to their values and experiences? What is the latest research and practice on shaping behaviours, bridging the intention-action gap, and scaling impact?

Learn practical strategies to make sustainability resonate across diverse consumer segments and drive meaningful change. 

Watch the session 

Regional Dialogue: Consumer Rights for Sustainable Lifestyles in Asia
Sustainable Lifestyles Summit 2025

The Asia-Pacific region accounts for over half of global greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, the region remains off-track to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, and at the current rate of progress will not get there until 2062. Tackling these challenges in parallel is complex, but the solutions are interconnected. Consumers in the region are supportive of a shift to sustainable lifestyles, ensuring our rights and needs are met while remaining within planetary boundaries.

This regional dialogue will help shape a pathway to sustainable lifestyles in line with regional priorities and opportunities, that will leave no one behind.

Watch the session

Consumers Leading the Charge for Change
Sustainable Lifestyles Summit 2025

Consumer power is real – it lives in the choices we make, the collective voice we raise, and the communities we shape. How can we harness consumer power to drive fair access to a safe, sustainable future and ensure the transition is both inclusive and accessible? This session will platform leading initiatives to mobilise consumer voice on sustainable lifestyles, and help us all to be champions for change. 

Watch the session

Love Food, Hate Waste
Sustainable Lifestyles Summit 2025

Food waste is an environmental failure and a top contributor to climate change and biodiversity loss; a humanitarian failure exacerbating hunger and malnutrition; and a market failure costing over US$1 trillion annually. According to the United Nations Environment Programme, 60% of food waste occurs in the household, while 40% of food waste occurs in food service and retail.

How can we rapidly address mounting food waste while listening to consumers and building bridges between consumer advocates, businesses and policymakers?

Watch the session

Achieving Access to Food for a Healthy Planet
Sustainable Lifestyles Summit 2025

Over one-third of the global population cannot afford a healthy diet, and almost one-in-ten are going hungry. Environmental crisis will increase these numbers, reminding us that sustainable lifestyles need to meet our needs as well as those of the planet.

This session will explore how action on sustainable lifestyles, starting from the consumers’ essential right to good food for all, offers a coherent solution to these interconnected challenges. 

Watch the session

Consumer Information for Trust, Safety, and Sustainability
Sustainable Lifestyles Summit 2025

More than 50% of us have lost trust in the sustainability information provided to us in the marketplace. Unreliable, misleading or absent consumer information can lead to unsafe practices, erode trust, and perpetuate unsustainable consumption.

How does accurate and transparent information help us to make healthy decisions? We explore best practice examples and the action needed to put greenwashing in the past. 

Watch the session

Consumer-Centred Energy Initiatives driving a Fast, Fair and Accountable Transition
Sustainable Lifestyles Summit 2025

SDG7 commits countries to ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable energy for all by 2030. We all know this goal is a long way from being achieved. A key reason for this, is that the single largest economic group – consumers – has generally been overlooked in climate mitigation strategies.  

Consumers have a hugely important, but largely untapped, role to play in driving the clean energy transition. Households make around 20% of the investments in energy today. The IPCC estimated that changes in energy use behaviour (households making changes to how they travel, how they eat, and how they heat, cool and power their homes), could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40-70% by 2050. 

The future energy system, based on decentralised renewable energy, has potential to be a more inclusive and more affordable system than the present one. In this session, we are showcasing ways that consumer-centred initiatives are harnessing consumer power to get us there faster and fairer. Participants will share their work in engaging consumers in clean energy both at the policy and practical levels. 

Watch the session

Sustainable Living, Your Way
Sustainable Lifestyles Summit 2025

A majority of consumers globally support a shift towards sustainability, but our best efforts and intentions are inhibited by barriers of availability, accessibility, and affordability. Frequently, efforts to change consumer behaviour do not start with the consumer and their interests and needs.

How can businesses and policymakers start with the consumer to make sustainable choices the easy option for us all? What role does consumer insights play in addressing the barriers we face?  

Watch the session

Available, Accessible, Affordable: Unlocking Dietary Shift
Sustainable Lifestyles Summit 2025

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a shift towards plant-rich diets is the single most influential demand-side action for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. Some 68% of consumers worldwide are interested in eating more plant-based food, for reasons of health as well as sustainability, but only 20% regularly do so.

How can sustainable food systems drive healthy diets, making good food more available, accessible and affordable for us all? How can we build better for consumers and farmers? 

Watch the session

Fair Consumption: A Bedrock for Nature and Biodiversity
Sustainable Lifestyles Summit 2025

The material footprint of our global consumption is using up natural resources twice as fast as nature can regenerate. As consumers, our livelihoods depend on a realignment of our relationship with nature.

This session explores how we can diversify our dependence on natural resources and achieve global biodiversity goals with consumer rights for access, safety and economic choice.

Watch the session

40 Years of the UN Guidelines for Consumer Protection
Sustainable Lifestyles Summit 2025

Celebrating the World Consumers Rights Day and marking the 40th anniversary of the adoption of the UN Guidelines for Consumer Protection by the UN General Assembly, this webinar will reflect on their enduring impact in shaping consumer policies worldwide. Experts and policymakers will discuss how the Guidelines have guided countries in fostering fair, inclusive, and sustainable consumer protection frameworks. The session will explore emerging challenges, including digital transformation, environmental sustainability, and consumer vulnerabilities, and highlight best practices for ensuring consumer rights remain at the heart of economic policies. Join us to examine the future of consumer protection in an evolving global marketplace and reaffirm the Guidelines’ role in advancing the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda.

Watch the session

Gender Justice in the Shift to Sustainable Lifestyles
Sustainable Lifestyles Summit 2025

Consumer action towards sustainability has gender-specific nuances, which are often not accounted for in policy or practice. Women drive nearly 80% of household spending decisions worldwide and are often more inclined to make sustainable choices. They are also disproportionately impacted by climate change and natural disasters.

A just transition to sustainable lifestyles means recognising and adapting interventions to these specificities. With leading gender experts we explore case studies of good practice and the role of consumer insights in strengthening gender justice and climate policy.  

Watch the session

Empowering Communities to Participate in Clean Energy
Sustainable Lifestyles Summit 2025

Around the world, millions face challenges in accessing energy, particularly in low- and middle-income countries where energy costs can be crippling. To support sustainable lifestyles, we need to be empowered to make investment and behavioural choices that lower energy demand. Direct engagement with local communities – across all economies – is a powerful way to do this.

This session will explore practical examples of community-driven solutions and partnerships between local stakeholders in the drive towards the clean energy transition. Find out more.

Watch the session

Regional Dialogue: Sustainable Lifestyles in Latin America and the Caribbean
Sustainable Lifestyles Summit 2025

Latin America and the Caribbean are exploring innovative policy and business solutions to advance sustainable lifestyles, but there is an opportunity to accelerate the impact of these efforts by aligning with action to protect consumer rights and needs. Consumers are supportive of a shift to sustainable lifestyles but many face challenges in accessing essential needs.

This regional dialogue will identify solutions to ensure that action for sustainable lifestyles can have strong co-benefits for consumers across the continent.

This session is in Spanish. 

Watch the session

Raising the Pulse for Sustainable Lifestyles for Consumers in 2025: COP30, UNEA-7, and Beyond
Closing Session

In 2025, sustainable lifestyles will be on the agenda at COP30 in Brazil and the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA-7) in Kenya. Countries will have an opportunity to integrate action on sustainable lifestyles into their wider environmental strategies and commitments, combining a much-needed shift in consumption patterns with essential protections for our rights and needs.

What is needed to unlock action at national and global levels? This closing session explores the commitments needed to reach urgent global goals.

Watch the session

Community Action at the Heart of Sustainable Lifestyles
Sustainable Lifestyles Summit 2025

Grassroots, community-led solutions can transform society from the ground up, building powerful alternative models for sustainable lifestyles that put people and planet first. Green Action Week is an annual global campaign that centres on local solutions, is led by consumer organisations around the world, and speaks to the growing demand we see from consumers to live more sustainably.

But what barriers must we break down to drive community action? How can we deepen impact through collaborative solutions? From across Africa, Asia-Pacific and Latin America, we celebrate green action campaigns and explore next steps.

Watch the session