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Tuesday 17 | On Tuesday morning and afternoon, 17 June, participants met in four parallel working groups to stimulate a more free-flowing discussion on four key questions relating to sustainable consumption and production, taking into account the review of the Discussion Paper and keynote presentations in plenary. Each working group was composed to ensure a reasonable geographic distribution and an approximately equal number of participants, and addressed an identical set of questions. Working Group I on Urban Management and Transport was co-chaired by Alf Wills (South Africa) and Bernard Mazijn (Belgium). Working Group II on General Policy Instruments and Analytical Tools was co-chaired by James Riordan (Canada) and Ariel Carbajal (Argentina). Working Group III on Tools for Changing Consumer Behavior was co-chaired by Susanto Sutoyo (Indonesia) and Aira Kalela (Finland). Working Group IV on Tools for Changing Production Patterns (WG-IV) was co-chaired by Cornelia Quennet-Thielen (Germany) and Young-Woo Park (Korea). Ralph Chipman, UN/DESA, presented the four questions that could be employed as guidelines by the participants during working groups' discussion:

• What are the effective and ineffective experiences of participants in promoting sustainable consumption and production?
   

• What are the main issues to be addressed for implementing sustainable consumption and production?
   

• What are the needs and priorities at the national level for future work on sustainable consumption and production?
   

• What are the actions at the international level needed to support actions at the national level to promote sustainable consumption and production?

Participants' discussions in the working groups are to continue throughout Wednesday morning and afternoon.
 

	On Tuesday morning, 17 June, Rajan R. Gandhi, India's Consumer Unity and Trust Society, presented a paper on consumer behavior and sustainable development to the plenary.

Links to further information |

More information on this meeting is available from the UN Division for Sustainable Development: http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev 
Further background information on consumption and production patterns is available at: http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/sdissues/consumption/conprod.htm
Information on the recent regional meetings is available from UNEP's Technology, Industry and Economics Division's website: http://www.uneptie.org/sustain
Chapter Three of the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation, which addresses unsustainable patterns of consumption and production and was the catalyst for this Expert Meeting, can be viewed online at: http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/documents/WSSD_POI_PD/English/POIChapter3.htm
Agenda 21, Chapter Four – Changing Consumption Patterns is online at: http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/documents/agenda21/english/agenda21chapter4.htm The Earth Negotiations Bulletin reports on international negotiations addressing consumption and production, from the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 through to the Johannesburg Summit in 2002 and the most recent session of the Commission on Sustainable Development, can be found at: http://enb.iisd.org/process/sustdevt.htm