SDG 12 - Responsible Consumption and Production explained

SDG post #12 - SDG 12 Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns

Hi #sustainability champions, today we continue our  journey exploring the individual SDGs one by one to polish our knowledge and upskill in SDG learning. As mentioned before we send out a post approximately once or twice weekly until we have gone through all 17 SDGs. Today we tackle  SDG 12 -  Responsible Consumption and Production.

You can follow or connect with us and see what we have to offer related to upscaling your change maker abilities (of tools and training) on our SDG toolkit webpages. ✔

So let’s explore Sustainable Development Goal 12 (SDG 12), also known as  "Responsible Consumption and Production" or SCP in a concise manner suitable for learning.

What is SDG 12 about?

Sustainable Development Goal 12 (SDG 12) is a global commitment to "ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns". It covers a substantial and diverse variety of topics in relation to how people consume products and services but also on how their production can occur in a sustainable manner including sustainable consumption and production behaviours, patterns and processes, sustainable and efficient use of natural resources, reduction in chemicals and waste generation and its management, half food waste & losses, abolish inefficient subsidies for fossil fuels, raise awareness and action for sustainable development and sustainable tourism and more, hence a pertinent and crucial topic everywhere, which goes to the heart of our current environmental and other crisis of overconsumption and energy and resources waste, hence a critical  topic for any individual, community or organisation anywhere. 

Why does SDG 12 matter?

The way in which societies use and care for natural resources fundamentally shapes the well-being of humanity, the environment and the economy. One of the core objectives of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is to decouple economic development from resource use and environmental degradation, notably through improved resource efficiency, effectiveness and levels of use (i.e. sufficiency).

The extraction of primary materials has tripled in the past four decades, which has led to severe environmental damage and depletion of natural resources, and inequalities have kept growing, both within and between countries. The richest countries alone consume on average 10 times as many materials as the world’s poorest, and the efficiency of resource use at a global level is now falling as a number of emerging economies grow rapidly.

While considerable efficiency gains have been made over the past decades, they have been insufficient to offset a rapidly growing global population and rising middle class. Inequality is on the rise, with the billion richest people consuming 72 percent of the world’s resources, while the 1.2 billion poorest are responsible for only 1 per cent of global consumption. Unsustainable patterns of consumption and production and the ensuing environmental degradation and social injustice are ultimately at the root of many cases of political instability, conflicts and social and health inequalities.

To ensure sustainable consumption and production practices necessarily entails to respect the biophysical boundaries of the planet and to reduce current global consumption rates in order to fit with the biophysical capacity to produce ecosystem services and benefits.

We are sure it is no surprise that we consume more than what the earth can sustain.  According to Earth Overshoot Day, we currently consume resources equivalent to what 1.8 Earths can replenish and at a western lifestyle that would increase to 4 to 5 Earth, in that sense absolutely delusional levels of resources consumption, which would lead to a systemic collapse of our ecological support systems and with it a collapse of human civilisations.  Many have called for “decoupling” which is the idea that we can separate economic growth from environmental pressures and while there have been some signs of that but its overall way too little and way too slow in order to have any significant impact and overall resources and energy use as well as GHG emissions continue to climb. 

• If current consumption and production patterns continue, the planet will need 183 billion tonnes of material every year by 2050. This is three times today’s amount and impossible to sustain.
• Every year, 4.8 to 12.7 million tonnes of plastic are dumped into our oceans and over 40 million tonnes of electronic waste are generated (increasing annually by 4 to 5 per cent), causing severe damage to ecosystems, livelihoods and our health.
• Pollution is the largest environmental cause of disease and premature death globally, responsible for an estimated 9 million premature deaths in 2015 – 16 per cent of all deaths worldwide and three times more deaths than AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined.
• One third of food produced every year is wasted, yet food security is a growing concern.

We must learn how to use and produce in sustainable ways that will reverse the harm that we have inflicted on the planet.

From eradication of poverty (SDG 1), end hunger (SDG 2), provision of good health and well-being (SDG 3), quality education (SDG 4), and gender equality (SDG 5), clean water and sanitation (SDG 6), affordable and clean energy (SDG7), decent work (SDG 8), infrastructure, industry and innovation (SDG 9), reducing inequalities (SDG 10), climate mitigation (SDG 13), life under water (SDG 14) and life on land (SDG 15),  SDG 15 connects with most if not all SDGs in a direct or indirect manner, hence the type and way of providing the goods and services everyone needs in a resources efficient and sustainable but also socially just manner is critically important to achieve the SDGs and its targets, be it for the environment, for society and economy.

The crisis of unsustainable consumption and production patterns worldwide is fuelling the ongoing triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature and biodiversity loss and pollution and is responsible for the breach of at least 6 of the planetary boundaries as well as much of social injustice. Domestic material consumption and material footprint continue to rise, some one billion meals worth of edible food are wasted every day in homes around the world and stockpiles of e-waste steadily grow. While countries are starting to work on fulfilling their environmental agreement obligations and embracing more comprehensive approaches to address environmental degradation, public funding supporting the production and consumption of fossil fuels has more than tripled since 2015, impeding the transition to zero or better net-negative emissions (and not just net-zero). Each stage of production or manufacturing but also in consumption of products and services (from cradle to grave) by each and everyone of us presents an opportunity to reduce resource, fossil fuel and toxic chemical use, foster innovation, conserve energy, cut emissions, and advocate for a circular economy approach.

• From 2019 to 2023, only one-third of member states (63 countries) have reported policy instruments related to sustainable consumption and production.
• From 2015 to 2022, Domestic Material Consumption (DMC) increased by 5.8%, and Material Footprint (MF) rose by 6.8%. Regional disparities between DMC and MF continue to grow, particularly between regions where MF is higher than DMC (Eastern and South-Eastern Asia, Europe and Northern America, Northern Africa and Western Asia) and those where MF is lower than DMC (Central and Southern Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Sub-Saharan Africa, Oceania), showing different patterns of material consumption and their corresponding environmental impact, where high DMC indicated generally high domestic environmental impacts due to production, something which has shifted in recent decades from North America & Europe towards East and SouthEast Asia.
• 30% of global food was wasted, totalling 1.3 billion tonnes, with household waste accounting for 60% of the share. This waste generates significant greenhouse gas emissions, with the food sectors using 20% of total land area, 32% of energy use and 70% of water use, and the waste costing over $1 trillion annually, while 783 million people suffer from hunger, which shows clearly that there is no lack in food but a distribution, consumption and use problem. Addressing this issue is crucial for halving food waste by 2030, yet only 9 out of 193 countries have included food waste in their Nationally Determined Contributions as of 2022. Meanwhile, the percentage of food lost globally after harvest on farm, transport, storage, wholesale, and processing levels is estimated at 13.2% in 2021. To put the numbers in more concrete terms in the EU each and every person puts 173 kg of food into the waste bin. Or in the city of Vienna (2 million inhabitants) so much bread is wasted every day, as is consumed daily in the second largest city of the country (Graz with approx. 300,000 inhabitants)
• There are over 140,000 different chemicals used in all economic sectors globally. They have many benefits but also potential adverse impacts to human health and the environment if not properly managed. This target is focused on properly managing chemicals that waste according to a number of already existing multinational environmental agreements or MEAs for short (e.g. Montreal, Basel, Stockholm Protocols), where at least good majorities of countries have so far committed to their obligations. On the other hand hazardous waste generation has overall not declined and more and more often hazardous chemicals come onto markets and use, often with poor prior evaluation on their possible impacts on health and environment. .
• E-waste generation rose to 7.8 kg per capita from 6.2 kg per capita in 2015, but only 1.7 kg per capita was properly managed (22 %). Mismanaged e-waste leads to resource loss, increased use of virgin resources, and environmental hazards, underscoring the urgency for improved and environmentally sound management.
• Plastic waste tripled worldwide from 1970 to 2000, and over half of all plastics have been produced since 2000. Plastic production exceeded 390 million tons only in 2021. This is connected to fossil fuels, as 98% of single-use plastics are made from them. The seven largest plastic-producing companies in the world are fossil fuel companies. With the switch to solar and wind-cutting power and transport fossil fuel needs, many in those industries are now eyeing plastics as a financial lifeline. Plastic production accounts for ≃12% of global oil consumption, which is expected to increase with demand for plastic. Only around 9% of plastic waste is currently recycled, with much of the waste ending up in landfills, or being incinerated. Every year 19-23 million tonnes of plastic waste leaks into aquatic ecosystems, polluting lakes, rivers and seas. Between 1 to 2 million tons of plastic are released in the ocean annually provoking the death of 100 million marine animals each year. And the situation is set to becoming worse. There could be 850-950 million tons of plastic in the ocean by 2050, potentially outweighing the number of fish populations.It has been estimated that annual plastic release to the terrestrial environment is 4–23 times that emitted to the oceans. Micro- and nano-plastic can now be found everywhere, in any environment, from soils, plants, water, animals and humans alike, of which the health and wider consequences are so far poorly known, but have the potential to turn into a health and environmental disaster of unknown proportions, which we are only starting to understand. 
• More than 350,000 synthetic chemicals are in some form of use nowadays, of which only 10 to 20% of these have been tested (often poorly) for their health or environmental impacts and only very few are regulated sufficiently or have been banned so far. But we are exposed to at least hundreds if not thousands of chemicals on a daily basis in the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, the clothing we wear, the devices we use and whenever we come into contact with any artificial substance all around us, and at least hundreds of such chemicals are found in every single human on the planet, many of which we do not know much about their effects, particularly in combination with each other. And regulations often allow the use of substances until they are proven harmful, now also the issue with micro- and nano-plastics and the chemicals they contain.
• Construction and building waste makes up approximately one third of the total waste produced worldwide, which means enormous resources and energy use (construction and demolition accounts for 34% of global energy demand and 37% of GHG emissions as well as approximately 50% of resources use) depletion from extraction to disposal and like with many other resources only about 40% are currently being reused or recycled  
• Only approximately 7.6% of global total resources used are in any form moved into a circular system and this percentage has been declining steadily in recent years. 
• 73% of companies included in a sample published sustainability reports, with the number of companies tripling since 2016. This growth was observed in all regions in 2022. However, this says basically nothing about the quality and veracity of any sustainability claims largely due to relatively loose reporting standards, most of which have no substance (danger of greenwashing).
• Education for sustainable development (ESD) and for global citizenship education (GCED) is at least to some extent part of mainstream education policies in about 90% of countries, however  only 15% of countries show high level integration into all levels of education.  And surveys indicate that only a small part of teachers and educators feel in a position to teach ESD and GCED. 
• Even though tourism accounts for around 10% of total global GDP and is worth some US$ 9 trillion a year, only around 10% of tourism could be labeled sustainable, and hence is an enormous source of resources and energy use as well as environmental degradation and pollution, not to mention social issues related to tourism. 
• Fossil fuel subsidies hit a record high of US$7 trillion in 2022. Amounting to 7% of global GDP and rising by US$ 2 trillion since 2020, reversing the declining trend observed from 2012 to 2020. The post-COVID energy price surge inflated these subsidies, prompting some governments to introduce new support measures. Consequently, public funding for oil, coal, and gas production and consumption more than doubled from 2021 to 2022 and tripled since 2015, impeding progress towards zero (or better net-negative) carbon  transition (and not just net-zero, which is insufficient).

This means using services and producing products that minimise the use of natural resources and toxic materials as well as the emissions of waste and pollutants over the life cycle of the service or product so as not to jeopardise the needs of future generations.

After all the definition of sustainable consumption and production is “the use of services and related products, which respond to basic needs and bring a better quality of life while minimising the use of natural resources and toxic materials as well as the emissions of waste and pollutants over the life cycle of the service or product so as not to jeopardise the needs of future generation.”

Key targets and indicators  

SDG 12 is defined by 10 targets, which  are measured by 13  indicators, which makes SDG 11 by its focus a major SDG to tackle as it affects the lives of everyone of us, ensuring progress can be tracked and goals can be met, that look at all dimensions of sustainable consumption and production for all which explores a variety of topics like related to that focus on how we produce, consume and dispose of products, this includes everything from how products and services are designed to resource use efficiency to recycling to waste reduction and management and more.  This goal also looks at sustainability education, reporting and the elimination of harmful fossil fuel subsidies.  The main targets summarised include (if you want to know the exact wording in the Agenda 2030 you should have a look here):

• implement the UN 10-year sustainable production and consumption framework 
• achieve the sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources
• halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains
• achieve the environmentally sound management of chemicals and all wastes throughout their life cycle
• substantially reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse
• encourage companies to adopt sustainable practices and to integrate sustainability information into their reporting cycle
• promote public procurement practices that are sustainable
• 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 more sustainable patterns of consumption and production
• develop tools to monitor sustainable tourism
• remove inefficient fossil-fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption by removing market distortions

Challenges & Progress

Progress towards SDG 12 still faces significant challenges as diverse as this SDG is, from rising issues of increasing resources and fossil fuel energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, increasing waste generation (including food waste, hazardous waste, e-waste, plastic waste) and management, low level and  lacklustre monitoring and reporting requirements on sustainable production, missing or slack supply chain regulations, significant room for improvement on sustainability education and training, lack of progress on abolishing fossil fuel subsidies or removing money for further fossil fuel exploration and more At the same time due already breaching at least 6 of the 9 planetary boundaries, using 80% more resources annually than the planet can sustain, mounting impacts from climate change combined with social inequalities and deprivation our consumption and production patterns  are under increasing pressure and vulnerability, making it more and more difficult for socially equitable and environmentally sustainable development for all to proceed. 

To expedite progress towards SDG 12, efforts should prioritize sustainable development, which requires minimizing the natural resources and toxic materials used, and the waste and pollutants generated, throughout the entire production and consumption process and supply chains. Sustainable Development Goal 12 encourages more sustainable consumption and production patterns through various measures, including specific policies and international agreements on the management of materials that are toxic to the environment.for all.

"Each and every one of us is responsible for the future of all of us”  Gro Harlem Brundtland, author of the Our Common Future report 1987, former president of Norway and leader of the WHO . 

With energy and resources use and carbon emissions on the rise and overshooting the earth annual resources by at least 80% with no end in sight, the urgent implementation of sustainable production and consumption, trade and management policies on reporting, chemicals and waste regulation and management, sustainable procurement all the way to sustainability education for all to truly sustainable tourism is imperative to create resilient and sustainable societies and economies that meet the needs of all.

Overall the latest UN SDG progress report on SDG 12 shows variable progress from regression (fossil fuel subsidies, food waste & losses), stagnation (sustainable resources use, managing chemicals and waste, reduction in waste generation, sustainable tourism),  but also some  targets on track (implement sustainability policies, sustainability reporting, sustainable procurement, R&D support for sustainable development), noting the latter category starting from or attaining relatively low standards, but for some indicators there are so far insufficient data available to determine meaningful trends,  but we are overall way off track with enormous regional differences and hugely significant acceleration is required on most of  SDG 12 targets. 

Countries have made strides in meeting obligations under international environmental agreements on hazardous waste and other chemicals and implementing approaches to combat environmental degradation. Patterns of unsustainable consumption and production persist, however. In 2022, global food waste reached 1.05 billion metric tons, yet only 9 of 193 countries included food waste in their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) on climate change actions. The rapid growth of global e-waste remains largely unaddressed, with only 22 per cent collected and managed sustainably.

While domestic material consumption and material footprints continue to expand, growth rates have slowed. Regional disparities underscore the need for targeted interventions based on varying consumption patterns and environmental impacts.

However, our current governance structures and approaches are not responsive enough to meet the interconnected challenges that result from the accelerated speed and scale of environmental change and rising inequalities. Fragmented and siloed institutions, as well as short- term, contradictory and non-inclusive policies have significant potential to put achievement of the global development and sustainability targets at risk. This can be addressed by moving towards holistic and systemic governance approaches’: more integrated, inclusive, equitable, coordinated and adaptive approaches.

If you would like to know more about where your country currently stands with SDG 12 (and all other SDGs), you can check out the latest Sustainable Development Report - Country Profiles (as well as Rankings, Interactive Maps and a Data Explorer), and additional visual presentations available on Our World in Data or specifically an UN Issue brief on SDG 12, but also the UN Global Resources Outlook, the Circularity Gap Report, Ellen MacArthur Foundation, EU 1.5 °C Lifestyles project, Ecological Footprint Network, IPBES Food, UN Sustainable Development Performance Indicators, Plastics - A Health and Environmental Emergency. Various countries and regions have started to address at least some of the issues related to SDG12 for example through Circular Economy strategies and policies (e.g. through the EU Green Deal), but there is certainly still a long way to go in developing strong policies, measures and their successful implementation..  

More than 2 billion people globally are overweight or obese, and the resulting medical costs are escalating. Yet, the link between lifestyle, diet and health is systematically undermined by the advertisement and sale of unhealthy food. This is just one example of where behavioural change and making unsustainable patterns socially unacceptable would help SDG implementation.
A simple shift in behaviour, like a universal switch to energy efficient light bulbs would save US$120 billion per year and reduce energy needs and environmental impacts, hence its not alway difficult to get started. To include the costs of environmental and social damage of products in their price would help drive behavioural change. 

How to ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns?

As SDG 12 is at the core of the Agenda 2030 and SDGs, it is the SDG which will require a true and entire transformation of our economies and societies starting from our relation with nature, the purpose of our economies as an action plan for people, planet and prosperity.

Policies addressing overconsumption, mitigating environmental and social impacts that disproportionately affect the poor and promoting social justice can create greater social cohesion, leading to greater stability and security within societies.

Sustainable development requires minimising the natural resources and toxic materials used, and the waste and pollutants generated, throughout the entire production and consumption process and value chains. Sustainable Development Goal 12 encourages more sustainable consumption and production patterns through various measures, including specific policies and international agreements on the management of materials that are toxic to the environment.

Achieving Goal 12 requires fostering circular economy models, sustainable production practices and responsible consumption (i.e. sufficiency). These approaches can take advantage of opportunities at every stage of production to reduce resource and fossil fuel and overall energy use, drive innovation, conserve energy and mitigate emissions. Progress largely depends on robust regulatory frameworks, financial incentives and support systems and public awareness and behaviour change campaigns.

This requires deep interventions along a number of entry points involving a range of actors. Public policies are required to create conducive environments and influence the market and economy as a whole, including sustainable public procurement policies and practices to drive sustainable innovation, and smart subsidies to divert investments away from environmentally damaging practices, combined with rigorous sustainability reporting requirements by companies also as a basis to gain access to funding and loans. A profound transformation of business practices along global value chains is also required, including new and innovative business models in the sharing and circular economies. Significant steps have been taken but implementation at scale remains a challenge for the coming years, as well as our ability to develop and equitably distribute the socio economic benefits of this transformation. Even at a UN level there are many initiatives in relation to SDG 12, like the GO for SDGs, SCP Hotspot Analysis, One Planet Initiative, SDG 12 Hub and more like the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Waste (trying to negotiate another international agreement in this case for plastics), which try to tackle a number of issues on a global level, with a strong focus on circular economy.  Similarly the EU has been working on circular economy policies as part of their Green Deal for some years now, with a number of member states putting CE frameworks and policies together as well, but progress on a practical and scaled level so far is marginal.

Like any other SDG, also SDG 12 and particularly because consumption and production are responsible for the majority of resources and energy use and related environmental degradation and climate change. That means that making production and consumption sustainable, safe, resilient but also socially just will help us to achieve many of the SDGs. It would require a multifaceted and multi-dimensional approach, but in general SDG 12  is one of the very complex and most far reaching and tightly interconnected (with other) SDGs to tackle which will require transformations on many levels like poverty, hunger, health, education, social protection, decent work, energy, water, sanitation, agriculture, industry, environmental protection, waste management and more, particularly for vulnerable and disadvantaged peoples, regions and countries. Some of the more higher level (and often global to national) aspects of achieving SDG 12 could possibly include in summary (but by far not be limited to) of what is already spelled out in the targets,  something like the following, which aim to create a holistic approach to various interconnected areas such as resource and energy efficiency, waste management, circular economy, and the reduction of environmental footprints towards achieving sufficiency, acknowledging that some regions are or have been developing various policies in this area (e.g. Circular Economy Directive & policies (like Eco Design regulations), as well as Chemicals Regulations as part of the European Green Deal), of course for the better or worse

Promote and Support a Circular Economy

• Resource Efficiency Regulations: Governments can introduce stricter regulations on resource use in production and manufacturing processes including the internalisation of currently externalised (social and environmental costs), encouraging industries to adopt technologies that minimise waste and optimise the use of raw materials.
• Incentives for Reduce, Reuse & Recycle: Policies can provide financial incentives for businesses and consumers to rethink, reduce, reuse, repair, repurpose, remanufacture and recycle goods. This includes the development of advanced waste collection and recycling infrastructure, as well as incentives for designing products (eco-design) that last long and are easy to repair, reuse, remanufacture and recycle.
• Sharing Economy: Provide support and incentives for shared use of products and services instead of individual ownership. This will require easy and simple and secure access as well as affordable use of products and services. 

Sustainable Production and Consumption

• Green/Sustainable Procurement Policies: Governments can lead by example by implementing green/sustainable procurement policies that prioritise environmentally friendly products and services, best supplied on a local to bioregional level. This would create a market demand for sustainable products and services.
• Sustainable Consumption and Sufficiency Campaigns: Public education campaigns focused on responsible consumption, reducing food waste, and promoting sustainable choices could shift consumer behaviour. For example, campaigns could focus on reducing and eliminating single-use plastics, or promoting energy-efficient appliances as well as opting for shared products and services. Education at all levels and for the general public to move towards sufficiency. 

Carbon Footprint and Energy Efficiency

• Carbon/resources Pricing and Emission Reduction: Governments should implement carbon pricing mechanisms, such as carbon taxes or cap-and-trade systems more rigorously, to internalize the environmental costs of carbon emissions. This would incentivize businesses and consumers to reduce their carbon footprints, but must be handled in a socially just manner. This could also be extended to internalising other environmental and resources costs over time. .
• Energy Efficiency Standards: Setting strict energy efficiency standards for buildings, transportation, and industry will help reduce the demand for fossil fuels. This could include policies promoting the use of renewable energy and for the use and expansion of public and active transport.

Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems

• Promoting Sustainable Agriculture Practices: Policies can support farmers in adopting sustainable practices, such as agroecology, organic farming, and precision agriculture, which improve food security while reducing environmental impact (also part of SDG 2 and SDG 15).
• Reduction of Food Loss and Waste: Progressive policies could include introducing measures that reduce food loss across the supply chain, from production to consumption. This can involve incentivizing retailers and consumers to reduce food waste, such as through donations of unsold edible food, but also encourage more local to regional food production and consumption and improved purchasing planning. .

Sustainable Building and Construction

• Reuse and Recycling of Construction Materials: Provide for regulations and incentives on design and use of building and construction materials so that materials can be easily segregated and reused and recycled, also minimising downcycling effects and reducing building and construction waste. The use of hazardous materials should be minimised and needs rigorous management. 
• Renovate, rebuild and use of natural materials: Provide for policies and regulations to prefer renovations and rebuilding above new builds wherever possible, options for disassembly and rebuilding, and incentives for the use of natural (and often locally available) building materials, including from renewable sources (e.g. like straw, hemp, timber, loam etc.). 

Sustainable Business Practices

• Corporate Accountability and Reporting: Implementing regulations that require companies to disclose their environmental impacts, including resource use, waste generation, and carbon emissions, will promote transparency and accountability as well as the need for comparing to thresholds and allocations.
• Eco-labeling and Certification: Establishing eco-labeling systems to certify products that meet high sustainability standards will help consumers make informed choices and incentivize businesses to adopt more sustainable practices.

Waste Management and Pollution Reduction

• Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR): Policies that hold producers responsible for the lifecycle of their products, from cradle to grave or cradle to cradle,  including post-consumer waste, will encourage businesses to design products that are easier to repair, reuse, remanufacture and recycle and have a lower environmental impact and resources use.
• Waste-to-Energy Initiatives: Encouraging the development of technologies to convert waste into renewable energy can help divert waste from landfills and reduce emissions while providing a source of clean energy, for remaining wastes which cannot be dealt with in other ways. 
• Ban on single use plastics: Remove all single use plastics, and provide strict regulations on the use and reuse of plastics where deemed necessary or desirable and provide for strict plastics waste management policies and facilities to significantly reduce plastics production, particularly from virgin materials and incentivise reuse and recycling. 
• Hazardous Chemicals and Waste: Reduce through regulations the evaluation and classification of all potentially hazardous chemicals, regulate the use of hazardous chemicals to the least necessary and encourage green chemistry and/or biomaterials alternatives, and strictly manage their use. Manage existing and remaining hazardous chemicals through strict regulations on national, regional and international level with an aim for eventual phase out and clean up of the pollution already caused, including the impacts on human health and on ecosystems. 

International Cooperation and Trade

• Sustainable Trade Agreements: International trade agreements should include strong provisions that require and support sustainable production practices and environmental protection, ensuring that global trade does not contribute to overconsumption or environmental degradation and accounts for all factors in production (environmental & social). The EU supply chain directive goes somewhat into this direction. 
• Global Knowledge Sharing: Encouraging international collaboration to share best practices, technologies, and innovations in sustainable production and consumption can help accelerate global progress toward SDG 12, particularly supporting developing countries.

Support for Innovation and Green Technologies

• Subsidies for Green/Sustainable Innovations: Governments should provide funding and tax incentives for research and development of green/sustainable technologies that promote sustainable production, such as clean energy, biodegradable materials, and efficient manufacturing processes and set this as a standard in order to receive funding and loans.
• Green/Sustainable Technology Transfer: Facilitating the transfer of environmentally friendly technologies, particularly to developing countries, will help them leapfrog to more sustainable practices and achieve SDG 12 more quickly.

Public Participation and Stakeholder Engagement

• Inclusive Policy Development: Engaging all sectors of society, including marginalized groups, in the development of policies related to sustainable consumption and production will ensure more equitable and effective implementation and support the move towards sufficiency.
• Education for Sustainable Development: Policies that promote and strongly support and to some extent mandate education on sustainability and global citizenship education in schools, universities, and all levels of education and through public campaigns will empower individuals to make more sustainable choices and support the realisation of the SDGs on a systemic level (i.e. empowering civil society).

Every year, one third of the world’s food production, about 1.3 billion tonnes of food, worth more that US$ 1 trillion, rots and goes to waste, which needs to be managed and causes environmental harm directly and indirectly.
The follow-on costs of the use of toxic and hazardous chemicals affect economies of countries all along the supply chain. Their health and environmental impacts are externalised from the cost of the final products. Industry leaders have slowly started combining efforts to clean up supply chains and implement principles of the circular economy.

Should the human population reach 9.6 billion by, we would need more than 3 planets to provide the natural resources to sustain current lifestyles. Land and marine environment degradation, declining soil fertility and soil erosion, unsustainable water use particularly for agriculture and over-fishing are causing a rapid degradation of ecosystem functions. Our health and the lives of future generations depend on the redesigning of both our production and consumption systems and patterns. 

Instead of putting too much emphasis on generic larger scale ‘solutions’, which are likely somewhat removed from the realities and contexts of many local communities wherever they are and these and similar policies are likely not sufficient to steer us towards regenerative futures. And because the supported approach by Gaia Education for regenerative design and development, is about the context specific potential of each and every place and community. Hence, we want to support the life affirming or life regenerating local to bioregional conversations and co-creative processes which should be a starting point of whole systems based realisation of SDG 12 and all strongly linked and all other SDG systemically together. From this we provide some useful questions to ask yourself or a group you work with locally in relation to SDG 12 (sourced from the Gaia Education SDG Flashcards) in a multidimensional manner in the social, ecological, economic and worldview/cultural dimensions. SDG 12 which is about local to bioregional communities is particularly suitable for applying community level processes (in cities or elsewhere alike) for tackling this and all related SDGs head on. 

The SDG Flashcards

The SDG Flashcards can  provide you with some ideas on how one can possibly work with the SDGs in different (not top down but bottom up) and generative approaches. Based and part of the Gaia Education SDG Flashcards, they contain more than 200 questions on the system-wide approach to achieving the 2030 Agenda.

The cards enable a participatory and problem-centric group conversation and solutions oriented multi-perspectival dialogue. They invite participants to engage and to collaborate to identify actions and solutions to implement the SDGs in ways that are relevant to their lives and communities, locally. This is an effective way to establish local to bioregional community ownership and realisation for the UN SDGs.

The SDG Flashcards are used in the SDG Training of Multipliers. Check out the freely downloadable SDG Training of Multipliers Handbook for a detailed description of how to prepare, promote, and how to use these cards  more easily to promote community activist training, in various settings (e.g. local public bodies, communities, schools, universities, business etc.) as well as many other tools from our SDG webpages.

There are of course many examples of working on SDG 12  and  sustainable production and consumption, sometimes also in a systemic way  (see initial SDG post). 

Gaia Education is involved in educational and training offerings which support the implementation of the SDGs including SDG 12, but is also part of projects and initiatives where at least one, mostly several SDGs are targeted. Examples of training or project involvement with some focus on SDG 12  in a wider sense are: 

Youth Glocalisers for Change,

The Youth Glocalisers for Change training programme holds the vision of an informed, empowered, imaginative and interconnected generation of Youth Glocalisers, able and willing to adapt lifestyles and consumer behaviours to planetary boundaries while achieving the SDGs by 2030.

Whilst it is universally acknowledged that the SDGs need to be achieved urgently, how does this change become reality on the ground? In Austria, where the project was developed and funded in a cooperation between Gaia Education and Plattform Footprint, there has been concern about the lack of participatory and holistic education on sustainability issues, to empower young people to become the confident changemakers society so very much needs. The programme aimed to bridge that gap.

We developed a youth-focused training package, which blends Plattform Footprint’s work on Ecological Footprint in schools with Gaia Education’s cutting edge curricula and participatory methodology for sustainable development including the Whole Systems Design Framework and SDG Training for Multipliers was adapted for young students (age range 12 to 18+). 

The educational package was trialed with hundreds of high school students as well as disseminated in a number of multiplier training events for teachers, providing a hands-on learning experience which measures their footprint on Earth and looks at ways to reduce this so that our societies tread more lightly and ways to collaborate for implementing the SDGs on a local scale through project based learning.

Ecological Design (part of the Design for Sustainability and Regeneration online course),

Ecological Design refers to sustainability from a whole systems design perspective that embodies systemic thinking. 

Ecological education and design is a multifaceted field embracing green regenerative architecture, sustainable agriculture, ecological engineering, permaculture solutions, clean renewable energy sources, ecosystem restoration and regenerative development. Any practices that help to sustain a pattern of ecological interdependencies and nurture the conditions for all living systems to thrive.

This course is part of the full Design for Sustainability online course, which includes as an important part the appropriate approaches and technologies for the sustainable production and consumption.

The course part looks at ecological design of regenerative agriculture, agroforestry and ecosystem regeneration to co-create thriving regional food systems which can ensure the production of healthy and nutritious food for all within planetary boundaries, ecological and resources efficient construction methods appropriate for each kind of local conditions, ecological design of products and services in a circular and shared economy system, application of appropriate technologies with local resources for local communities and more.  as part of a resilience strategy for sustainable communities and ecovillages. Scaling and scale linking are important aspects to consider in order to appropriately cater for various types of developments, locations and bioregions.

How does your local community's sustainable consumption and production SDG project look like? 

Again, let’s take our future into our own hands, and start your SDG journey and locally to bio-regionally  based community project now!

And to close if you would like to learn much more about SDG 12 and all other SDGs and the Agenda 2030 and many more topics, approaches and methods to practically work with the SDG in your local to bioregional context we encourage you  to start or re-invigorate your personal SDG journey through the upcoming online SDGs Multipliers course, starting on 20th October 2025. 

SDG Multipliers course

For more and the video affine the SDG 12 Responsible Consumption and Production - UN Sustainable Development Goals - DEEP DIVE

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