Waste
Rapid increase in volume and types of solid waste and hazardous waste generation mainly due to economic growth, urbanization and industrialization has severe impacts on global and local environment, natural resources, public health, local economy and living conditions, and threatens the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals.
The United Nations Environmental Programme's approach to waste is inspired by the 3R approach (reduce, reuse recycle) and includes programs based on integrated waste management led by the International Environmental Technology Centre (IETC) and waste minimization directed by the SCP Branch. Special challenges of waste management include Hazardous Waste Management and E-waste. The waste management and waste minimization actions are structured around the themes of waste prevention, and improving waste collection, disposal and recycling. Decoupling, the idea of breaking the link between economic growth and waste production, also plays a central role in UNEP's waste strategy and is addressed by the International Panel for Sustainable Resource Management.
Sustainable Building & Construction
As the building and construction sector has a significant impact, both in positive and negative terms, on society and environment, UNEP considers it as a key sector for sustainable development. This sector represents over 111 million people directly employed worldwide and at the time responsible for the built environment contribution to global environmental issues such as water use (20%), energy use (25-40%), solid waste generation (30-40%), global greenhouse gas emission (30-40%) in each country.
The situation in the areas of key concern, like production of construction materials, use and recycling, consumption of hazardous materials, integration of buildings with other infrastructure and social systems, has not passed unnoticed. The building and construction sector is increasingly under pressure from authorities and the public to address environmental and social issues. In response to these demands UNEP is working on the development of baselines for the sector to contribute to developing a common and well-understood approach, through the implementation of the pilot projects and interactions with other stakeholders (public, governmental, financial and international). SBC Forum 2002-2004.
Our vision for sustainability in the building and construction sector
- Buildings are routinely designed, constructed and maintained to be optimized over their entire life span.
- Legislation and building standards include sustainability considerations and requirements.
- Environmental aspects are normally considered in any project and include short-term as well as long-term aspects.
- Policies and incentives provided by the Government support sustainable building and construction practices.
- Investors, insurance companies, property developers and buyers/tenants of buildings are aware of sustainability considerations and take an active role in encouraging such practices.
Water
Water is a cross-cutting issue in sustainable consumption and production:
- Water is an essential natural resource that industry needs to produce goods and services that consumers use.
- Water is scarce (has limited availability) in various regions of the world, and particularly in many under-developed regions limiting prospects to enhance human welfare and achieve economic development.
- Water as a medium is a receptor of emissions that influence its quality (and hence availability) and cause environmental damage.
Because of its primacy, water is addressed by numerous UN-led initiatives coordinated under the UN Water mechanism for follow-up of the water-related decisions reached at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development and the Millennium Development Goals. It will support Member States in their efforts to achieve water and sanitation goals and targets. UN Water's work encompasses all aspects of freshwater, including surface and groundwater resources and the interface between fresh and sea water. The United Nations Environment Programme focuses on freshwater, the work on water is being led by the Division of Environmental Policy Implementation (DEPI). Within the Division of Technology, Industry and Economics (DTIE) the International Environmental Technology Centre (IETC) focuses on water and environmentally sound technologies (ESTs) and sanitation.
Sustainable Procurement
(for governments)
UNEP is actively promoting sustainable public procurement by:
- Facilitating global consensus on the integration of sustainable development considerations in procurement at all levels (UN; national governments and local authorities)
- Fostering information exchange to have a wide number of organisations to benefit from the experience of the forerunners;
- Providing practical tools for capacity building to translate sustainable procurement policies in a reality
According to UNEP, sustainable procurement is the process in which organisations buy supplies or services by taking into account:
- the best value for money (price, quality, availability, functionality);
- environmental aspects ("green procurement") over the entire life cycle of products;
- social aspects (issues such as poverty eradication, labour conditions, human rights).
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Sustainable Consumption
UNEP's Sustainable Consumption programme was initiated in 1998 to supplement UNEP's production process oriented activities with activities on the demand side. Production and consumption policies were considered to be two sides of the same sustainability coin, which needed to be addressed in an integrated manner. The programme has led to the establishment of the Sustainable Consumption and Production Branch with its integrated life-cycle approach towards achieving more sustainable consumption and production patterns.
Activities of the programme included developing projects on advertising, marketing, communication, youth, retail and sustainable procurement. These and other projects have become separate activity clusters.
The project "Tracking Progress" raised awareness of governments about the need to develop policies on Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP) which led to the Marrakech Process and the project on national action plans.
The Sustainable Consumption (SC) programme has resulted in better understanding about the forces that drive consumption patterns around the world and how to translate those findings into tangible activities for business and other stakeholders. Consumption patterns are the result of choices and activities of a wide variety of actors including business, government and individual households. Influencing these choices means stimulating and facilitating new economic opportunities - better products and services - and altering the current infrastructure and regulatory framework that lock consumers into unsustainable behavior.
Chemicals (Responsible Care Program)
Responsible Care® is a voluntary initiative within the global chemical industry to safely handle our products from inception in the research laboratory, through manufacture and distribution, to ultimate disposal, and to involve the public in our decision-making processes. Born in Canada in 1987, Responsible Care has quickly spread to 45 countries. While Responsible Care goes above and beyond what is legally required in most countries, we hold ourselves accountable by making Responsible Care a "condition of membership" in industry associations. Today, Responsible Care is taking leading chemical companies above and beyond their prior accomplishments, to achieve even higher standards of performance and generate greater value for their businesses.
Responsible Care is moving beyond codes of management practices to achieve better EH&S performance and obtain more business value for our members and Partners. The Responsible Care Management System (RCMs) replaces the current practice of applying six Codes (e.g., community awareness and emergency response, distribution, employee health and safety, pollution prevention, process safety and product stewardship) with a combined 106 management practices.
Instead, relevant aspects of the existing Codes are subsumed into a RCMS that is based on benchmarked best practices of leading private sector companies, initiatives developed through the Global Environmental Management Initiative, International Standards Organization and other bodies, and requirements of national regulatory authorities.
Sustainable Transport or Mobility
Sustainable Transport, also commonly referred to as Sustainable Transportation or Sustainable Mobility, has no widely accepted definition. Since it is a sector-specific sub-set to the post-1988 sustainable development movement, it is often defined in words such as this: “Sustainable transportation is about meeting or helping meet the mobility needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.” But this is only a starting point.
Colloquially, sustainable transport is used to describe all forms of transport which minimize emissions of carbon dioxide and pollutants. It can refer to public transport, car sharing, walking and cycling as well as technology such as electric and hybrid cars and biodiesel and Personal Rapid Transit and other green transport. In particular the phrase has been adopted by environmental campaign groups and the British and Australian national and local governments, though both the phrase and the concepts have now spread around the world.
The World Business Council for Sustainable Development defines "sustainable mobility" as "the ability to meet the needs of society to move freely, gain access, communicate, trade, and establish relationships without sacrificing other essential human or ecological values today or in the future."
This definition encompasses the following dimensions:
- Accessibility
- Financial outlay required of users
- Travel time
- Reliability
- Safety
- Security
- Greenhouse gas emissions
- Impact on the environment and human well-being
- Resource use
- Equity implications
- Impact on public revenues and expenditures
- Prospective rate of return to private business
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