1.3 billion tons of food are wasted every year.
Goal 12: Responsible Consumption & Production
Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.
Implement the 10-year sustainable consumption and production framework
Implement the 10‑Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns, all countries taking action, with developed countries taking the lead, taking into account the development and capabilities of developing countries.
Sustainable management and use of natural resources
By 2030, achieve the sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources.
Halve global per capita food waste
By 2030, halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses.
Responsible management of chemicals and waste
By 2020, achieve the environmentally sound management of chemicals and all wastes throughout their life cycle, in accordance with agreed international frameworks, and significantly reduce their release to air, water and soil in order to minimize their adverse impacts on human health and the environment.
Substantially reduce waste generation
By 2030, substantially reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse.
Encourage companies to adopt sustainable practices and sustainability reporting
Encourage companies, especially large and transnational companies, to adopt sustainable practices and to integrate sustainability information into their reporting cycle.
Promote sustainable public procurement practices
Promote public procurement practices that are sustainable, in accordance with national policies and priorities.
Promote universal understanding of sustainable lifestyles
By 2030, ensure that people everywhere have the relevant information and awareness for sustainable development and lifestyles in harmony with nature.
Support developing countries' scientific and technological capacity for sustainable consumption and production
Support developing countries to strengthen their scientific and technological capacity to move towards more sustainable patterns of consumption and production.
Develop and implement tools to monitor sustainable tourism
Develop and implement tools to monitor sustainable development impacts for sustainable tourism that creates jobs and promotes local culture and products.
Remove market distortions that encourage wasteful consumption
Rationalize inefficient fossil-fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption by removing market distortions, in accordance with national circumstances, including by restructuring taxation and phasing out those harmful subsidies, where they exist, to reflect their environmental impacts, taking fully into account the specific needs and conditions of developing countries and minimizing the possible adverse impacts on their development in a manner that protects the poor and the affected communities.
Current Situation
Annual estimates of 1.3 billion tons, or 13.8% of food is wasted due to poor transportation, in-efficient harvesting practices, processing, and natural spoilage.
Electric waste has grown by 38% while e-waste recycling continues to drag at 20%. Only about 0.5 % of freshwater on earth is available for drinking, and our water consumption rate has been increasing about 1% annually since 1980.
Agriculture uses 69% of the water available, while other industries and households utilize 19% and 12% respectively. If people continue to operate in this fashion by 2050 and a projected population of 9.6 billion, we would need three planets just to sustain us.
1.3 Bn
tons of food are wasted every year.
0.5 %
of freshwater on earth is available for drinking
Impact Opportunity
The UN Campaign for Individual Action Act Now allows individuals to connect with others and track personal progress on daily habits to make a change and impact for good. Globally, 79 countries and the European Union reported at least one policy to promote Sustainable Consumption and Production.
In addition, 93 % of the world’s 250 largest companies are now reporting on sustainability. The UN Development Programme works with governments and organizations to create carbon neutral business models. Individual cities and countries worldwide have pledged to attain carbon neutrality including Bhutan, Chile, Costa Rica, Norway, and Morocco.
Globally, 79 countries and the European Union reported at least one policy to promote Sustainable Consumption and Production.
Progress
Fragile Earth
Applying data science for a sustainable planet
Fragile Earth Community brings together research, industry, and policy professionals around enhancing scientific discovery in the earth sciences through the joint use of data, theory, and computation.
SDG Trendscanner
Tracking the world's progress towards sustainable solutions
The SDG Trend Scanner Project explores different ways to identity and track disruptive trends that can deliver on global sustainability. The aim of the platform is to:
- Provide an opportunity to understand key disruptive trends through a global sustainability lens.
- Create a web-platform where different trends and trend assessments can be compared, their relations explored, and the original sources accessed.
- Make it easier to identify trends with low probability high-impact characteristics.
- Allow companies and other stakeholders to turn trend assessments into drivers for sustainable innovation.
SDG Launchpad
Reducing the uncertainty around carbon mitigation potential of forests
Carbon Sequestration Project is part of the SDG Launchpad project series, between the AI for Good Foundation and the Applied Data Science with Venture Applications Course at SCET, UC Berkeley.
The project scope is to reduce the uncertainty around carbon mitigation potential of forests by narrowing the range of estimates of the size of land available for reforestation and by more accurately determining carbon sequestration rates worldwide.
Research Paper
Leveraging traditional ecological knowledge in ecosystem restoration projects utilizing machine learning
By Bogdana Rakova and Alexander Winter
The Fragile Earth 2020 paper “Leveraging traditional ecological knowledge in ecosystem restoration projects utilizing machine learning” posits that data scientists would benefit from an understanding of indigenous traditional ecological knowledge systems.
Resources
Shared Datasets
This platform provides access to data compiled through the UN System in preparation for the Secretary-General's annual report on "Progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals."
SDG Tracker is a free, open-access publication that tracks global progress towards the SDGs and allows people around the world to hold their governments accountable to achieving the agreed goals.
A collaborative data platform that integrates different types of data to allow the Moldovan Government access to exhaustive information on land coverage, population density and mobility behaviour.
The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), an intergovernmental organization that supports countries in their transition to a sustainable energy future, compiled this dataset by measuring the maximum net generating capacity of renewable and non-renewable energy sources by country.
Ongoing Research
PAGE is a collaboration between the UN Environment Programme, the International Labor Organization, the UN Development Programme, the UN Industrial Development Organization and the UN Institute for Training and Research to provide support to countries and develop knowledge on sustainable growth and environmental stewardship.
The One Planet network brings together actors from all regions and sectors to build a database of research, expertise and resources in order to encourage innovation and commitment by government agencies and private businesses to more sustainable modes of production and consumption.
Publications
Goal Partners
Hortas Cariocas (Urban Green Gardens)
Created in 2006, Hortas Cariocas (Urban Green Gardens) encourages urban agroecology and provides access to healthy food in the city’s most vulnerable regions. By identifying areas with the potential to hold urban farms, the project offers local population the inputs and material supplies to develop organic agriculture while also fostering environmental education.
FairChain Foundation
FairChain’s mission aims to help build Cross Sector Partnerships where businesses work together with NGOs and Governments to create shared value chains based on positive instead of negative externalities. The Foundation’s objective is to substitute development aid with sustainable consumption.
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