Goal 12 is about ensuring sustainable consumption and production patterns, which is key to sustain the livelihoods of current and future generations.
Unsustainable patterns of consumption and production are root causes of the triple planetary crises of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. These crises, and related environmental degradation, threaten human well-being and achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Governments and all citizens should work together to improve resource efficiency, reduce waste and pollution, and shape a new circular economy.
- From 2000 to 2019, total domestic material consumption rose by more than 65 per cent globally, amounting to 95.1 billion metric tons in 2019.
- During this period, Eastern and South-Eastern Asia showed the steepest rise in domestic material consumption, from 31 per cent in 2000 to 43 per cent in 2019.
- In 2020, an estimated 13.3 per cent of the world’s food was lost after harvesting and before reaching retail markets.
- An estimated 17 per cent of total food available to consumers (931 million metric tons) is wasted at household, food service and retail levels.
- Food that ends up in landfills generates 8 to 10 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
- In 2019, the amount of e-waste generated globally was 7.3 kilograms per capita, out of which only 1.7 kilograms was managed in an environmentally sound way.
- E-waste collection rates are relatively high in high-income countries but are much lower in low- and middle-income countries – only 1.6 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa and 1.2 per cent in Latin America and the Caribbean.
- The capacity of developing countries to generate electricity from renewable sources has soared over the last decade, from 109.7 watts per capita in 2011 to 245.7 watts per capita in 2020.
- Renewables represent over a third (36.1 per cent) of developing countries’ total electricity-generating capacity.
- From 2015 to 2020, the compound annual growth rate of renewable energy in developing countries was 9.5 per cent versus 5.2 per cent and 2.4 per cent, respectively, for least developed countries and landlocked developing countries.
- In 2020, governments spent $375 billion on subsidies and other support for fossil fuels.
- Around 90 per cent of countries report that education for sustainable development and global citizenship education are at least partially mainstreamed in national education laws and policies, curricula, teacher education or student assessments in primary and secondary school.
12.1 Implement the 10-year framework of programmes on sustainable consumption and production, all countries taking action, with developed countries taking the lead, taking into account the development and capabilities of developing countries
12.2 By 2030, achieve the sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources
12.3 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
12.4 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
12.5 By 2030, substantially reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse
12.6 Encourage companies, especially large and transnational companies, to adopt sustainable practices and to integrate sustainability information into their reporting cycle
12.7 Promote public procurement practices that are sustainable, in accordance with national policies and priorities
12.8 By 2030, ensure that people everywhere have the relevant information and awareness for sustainable development and lifestyles in harmony with nature
12.A Support developing countries to strengthen their scientific and technological capacity to move towards more sustainable patterns of consumption and production
12.B Develop and implement tools to monitor sustainable development impacts for sustainable tourism that creates jobs and promotes local culture and products
12.C 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
COVID-19 response
The current crisis is an opportunity for a profound, systemic shift to a more sustainable economy that works for both people and the planet.
The emergence of COVID-19 has underscored the relationship between people and nature and revealed the fundamental tenets of the trade-off we consistently face: humans have unlimited needs, but the planet has limited capacity to satisfy them. We must try to understand and appreciate the limits to which humans can push nature, before the impact is negative. Those limits must be reflected in our consumption and production patterns.
COVID-19 can be a catalyst for social change. We must build back better and transition our production and consumption patterns towards more sustainable practices.
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