The twelfth sustainable development goal provided by the United Nations is to “ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.” (2019) This was created to minimize the waste output of people within a nation in hopes of protecting environmental resources and reducing waste. As of 2015, 12 tons of natural resources are required to satisfy a person’s need which has risen from 8.1 from 1990. (United Nations 2019) The material foot print per capita is highest in high-income countries sitting at 27 metric tons globally compared to low income countries with 2 metric tons. (United Nations 2019) In today’s world, there is almost always room to minimize consumption and reducing it should be a priority in every country, especially those that have high-income populations that can afford to buy their own products and dispose of them how they please. This topic affects climate change because of the disposal of said products and carbon dioxide emissions from factories that produce mass quantities for the mass number of consumers. (Ritchie, H., Roser, M. 2019) This will lead to an irreversible change in the environment to which us humans won’t be able to survive in.
Currently, the country of Switzerland has efforts in order to alter the amount of consumption citizens and companies are contributing to the environment. They plan on enhancing these areas for the cost of “several million francs”; have e-waste partnerships, chemical leasing concepts, environmental credit lines, waste management and waste water treatment plants, organic farming, standards for commodities, and a rising awareness for the introduction of quality systems. (The Swiss Confederation 2019) They also currently have recycling programs and an improved style of creating goods. These will be monitored by said partnerships.
Switzerland is one of many high-income countries that need to better this goal in order to prevent further damage to the environment. Since these high-income countries can afford to produce so much waste, they should be able to afford and alternate way to dispose of them or to end this waste pile up. Fortunately, there are nearly a hundred countries adopting these newly adopted policies and measures to promote this change.
Ritchie, H., & Roser, M. (2017, May 11). CO2 and Greenhouse Gas Emissions. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emissions
The Swiss Confederation. (2019). Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns. Retrieved from https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/dsd/dsd_aofw_ni/ni_pdfs/NationalReports/switzerland/scp.pdf
United Nations. (2019). Goal 12: Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform. Retrieved from https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg12
The efforts in creating a way for sustainability and reduce patterns of waste is important to the entire world. We fail to look at the large scale of waste at times because we do not see it at the large scale or in person. Overtime it started to become realized that waste was an issue and impacted the world in many factors. I do believe that there are way to help create a balance in waste and keep it to a minimum. With reforms to create a more waste water treatment plants makes a difference. With projects being designed and implemented we can change the effects we have on consumption and reduction.
ReplyDeleteInsightful. We need to make a practice of doing more and better with less. The organic farming, waste management and waste liquid treatment which I believe can be the solution to the pollution and solution to the global warming. Although this may take years but will be all worth it if we could leave such impact for future generations.
ReplyDeleteThe SDG chosen is a very important one for the future of the world. Reasons such as destroying the planet or even over use of resources. This can be a very dangerous problem that can go bad quickly. With innovation and the desire to make the world better there are ways to help create sustainability.
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