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August 30, 2023
How can food service businesses implement a reusable system to reduce single-use plastics in office buildings or small community settings? This final webinar from Sustainability Victoria (SV)'s Reuse Pilots Fund will showcase the reuse systems implemented by Huskee, Cercle and Investa Asset Management. Come away with some tips on fast-tracking sustainability in your organisation.
Why Reuse Pilots?
To help stop plastic pollution, the Victorian Government has banned single-use plastic straws, cutlery, plates, drink stirrers, expanded polystyrene food and drink containers, and cotton bud sticks from February 2023. Sustainability Victoria (SV) is running a business engagement program to support businesses in transitioning away from single-use items. The Reuse Pilots Fund supported 16 pilots across the state by providing over $600,000 of funding to collect data that will inform other businesses on the feasibility of reuse systems in different hospitality settings.
Find out more by reading the Reuse Pilot case studies.
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category : Topics
August 24, 2023
Worldwide consumption and production—a driving force of the global economy—have been based on a linear economic model of “extraction, use and waste”; which continues to increase the demand for finite natural resources and create environmental impacts, leading us to the triple planetary crisis of “climate, nature and pollution”. Economic and social progress over the last century has been accompanied by environmental degradation that is endangering the very systems on which our future development—indeed, our very survival—depends.
Therefore, a new type of “economic transformation” is critical for sustainable development— eradicating poverty, changing unsustainable patterns of production and consumption, and protecting and managing the natural resource base of economic and social development.
Asia and the Pacific is becoming the largest market in the world with strong economic growth, driven by infrastructure development, increasing domestic private consumption and intraregional trade. The GDP of the Asia- Pacific region is currently $31 trillion by 2025, making it the largest economic region in the world(World Bank). However, this growth remains largely based on unsustainable patterns of consumption and production, exacerbating inequality and environmental degradation, and intensifying existing risks and vulnerabilities in a changing climate. The region plays a central role in global value chains, therefore improving resource efficiency rates, and mainstreaming opportunities for circular economy practices are critical.
Asia-Pacific countries have increasingly adopted policy measures designed to fulfil their climate pledges under the Paris Agreement. These policies range from air-quality regulations to renewable-energy subsidies, from vehicle emission standards to carbon-pricing mechanisms. Hence, analysing value chains for environmental impact hotspots is decisive to achieving pledges. Countries can identify hotspot sectors and value chains to tackle those generating more environmental damage while promoting competitive advantages in the integration of solutions for decarbonisation through multi-stakeholder collaboration and financing mechanisms.
However, based on an analysis from UNEP’s Policy and Programme Division, the uptake of SCP and their means of implementation is still not sufficient, as reflected in Common Country Analysis and UN Development Cooperation Frameworks. Therefore, it is important that UN Country Teams and Resident Coordinator Offices in Asia-Pacific and across regions have the capacity to promote SCP and circular economy policies through scientific evidence.
Hence, this regional workshop aims to enhance knowledge of SCP approaches and their contributions to the economic and social transformation to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals in the Asia Pacific. The workshop will facilitate knowledge exchange (South-South Cooperation) on SCP and circularity and green economy. This effort is jointly led by the One Planet Network and GO4SDGs, in collaboration with PAGE and the International Resource Panel.
Lear more at the One Planet Network Knowledge Center.
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category : Topics
August 18, 2023
From 2018 - 2021, a dynamic cooperation project took place in Senegal, supported by the UN Development Account and coordinated between the One Planet Network and representatives from the Government of Senegal. The objective was to strengthen institutional and technical capacities for SCP in Senegal through a number of activities.
“Facing a triple global crisis – climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution, – (...) [our] world needs unprecedented joint efforts to accelerate, at all levels, shifts towards sustainable consumption and production patterns.” This eye-opening statement is drawn up by the Board of the 10-Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP) in the recently published Global Strategy for Sustainable Consumption and Production 2023-2030. Organised around four central pillars, this Global Strategy emphasises the importance of inter-institutional dialogue and cooperation of a wide range of actors SCP. Various projects illustrate the purpose of this Strategy, such as the series of projects Strengthening institutional and technical capacities for SCP, carried out simultaneously from 2018 to 2021 in Argentina, Bhutan and Senegal. Organised around a common structure, these projects aim to bring together various public and private, institutional and non-institutional actors to work hand in hand on the design, adoption and enforcement of national SCP implementation strategies. Three areas of expertise of the One Planet network (OPN) have been harnessed and highlighted in these projects, but for the purpose of this article we will only focus on Senegal and its choice to work on Sustainable Public Procurement.
Thus, the project in Senegal consisted of three activities. Under the first activity, key ministries — Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Transport, etc. — were trained in SCP through various meetings held by the One Planet network. These sessions were instrumental in demonstrating to such a diverse group of actors, how SCP is relevant to their own agendas. This first activity allowed these actors, who were not necessarily working together at first, to come together around a set of common principles in order to reinvigorate the institutional backing for SCP in the country. Students of the Higher School of Applied Economics (ESEA) of the Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar also had the chance to be trained on SCP, providing an important link to the next generation of policy makers.
The second activity was dedicated to the design, adoption and implementation of a national strategy for SCP, based on the results of the first activity and taking into account an analysis of data on the environmental and socio-economic performance of Senegal set out in the SCP-HAT report. The aim was to analyse Senegal’s strengths and constraints in terms of SCP in order to identify key points to focus on when designing the national SCP strategy. This activity consisted of multiple inter-ministerial consultations with the participation of OPN experts, demonstrating once again the willingness of these institutional actors to collaborate in order to design and adopt a national strategy for SCP that is both consistent with national priorities – sustainable energy, circular economy, SPP, etc., – but also consensus based.
Hence, the third activity revolved around one of these national priorities, which is a particular area of the SCP and an OPN area of expertise, Sustainable Public Procurement. Senegal’s choice to focus on SPP is far from trivial. Indeed, it is motivated by the Senegalese authorities’ desire to promote SPP in procurement processes, to integrate socio-economic and environmental sustainability considerations and to focus on vulnerable groups in public procurement. A working group composed of public and private actors was created for this purpose. Thus, SPP experts, members of the One Planet network,FAO, AFB, CEC, Ecoeff lab, as well as Senegalese Ministries and members of the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority met several times to work on the implementation of a Senegalese SPP action plan. Various workshops and meetings were also conducted during this activity, underlining the important role of the OPN and its SPP experts on the theoretical level. On a practical level, it is also important to highlight the role of the OPN in supporting institutional actors in the design and implementation of this SPP action plan. This last activity also resulted in the conception of a development programme on SPP to enable the dissemination of knowledge gained during this project to other African countries such as Tunisia or Ghana through SPP training modules and workshops for key state actors.
As outlined in the Global Strategy, there is a need to work closely with governments, public authorities, and other actors to promote SCP and SPP. As illustrated by the example of the Senegal project Strengthening institutional and technical capacities for SCP, this collaboration between key state actors is crucial to help developing countries integrate and implement sustainable consumption and production patterns based on their national policies and priorities. As is the case here, SCP can serve as a bridge between different actors with different agendas, enabling them to collaborate around a common goal. It is therefore essential to enable all states, as was the case for Senegal, to receive tailor-made support from the OPN for national implementation of SCP. Therefore, this project is a great example of successful collaboration between state actors and the OPN, paving the way for future projects to be implemented under the Global Strategy on SCP.
Learn more at One Planet Network Knowledge Center.
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category : Topics
August 11, 2023
With the support of UNEP, a Kyrgyz village has inaugurated its first waste collection facility, a crucial step towards achieving sustainable development and tourism. The new facility was established through the pilot project "Sustainable Tourism and Management of Plastic and Food Waste" within the GO4SDGs 2022-23 programme.
Following up on this progress, GO4SDGs hosted a two-day regional webinar to discuss the challenges and solutions to plastic pollution and food waste in tourism areas, as well as to introduce integrated environmental certification as a tool for sustainable tourism.
More in details at UNEP website.
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category : Topics
