Many cities worldwide are growing rapidly, and by 2050 it is estimated that 70 per cent of the world’s population will live in urban areas. This dramatic trend is greatly affecting natural resource availability—including access to clean drinking water—waste management, transport, and other aspects of modern cities.

The combination of climate change and an increasingly urbanizing global population requires city officials, urban planners, and members of the private sector to find innovative approaches to efficient resource management, while simultaneously reducing greenhouse gas emissions and opening the door to new green technologies. It is time for us - citizens - to push local governments, investors and urban planners to invest in efficiency and renewable energy, green areas, rebuild our cities, towns, municipalities and communities. 

We have asked you to show us how is your city adapting to a sustainable management and we got great positive responses. However, Yiga Vianney shared this week's #Photo4Climate Finalist Photo under the theme #GreenCities. Congratulations, your picture ilustrates how Uganda is responding to Climate Change effects finding new ways in adapting to renewable energy.

Take a look at the original caption:

Uganda the land of green energy. Inset are briquettes made from agricultural wastes. Picture taken during the Drying Process.
Photo Credit: Yiga Vianney 

Rising consumption fuelled by a growing middle class has seen the amount of primary materials extracted from the Earth triple in the last four decades, according to a new report by the United Nations Environment Programme - hosted International Resource Panel (IRP). 

The dramatic increase in the use of fossil fuels, metals and other materials will intensify climate change, increase air pollution, reduce biodiversity and ultimately lead to the depletion of natural resources, causing worrying shortages of critical materials and heightening the risk of local conflicts, warns the report. “The alarming rate at which materials are now being extracted is already having a severe impact on human health and people’s quality of life,” said IRP Co-Chair Alicia Bárcena Ibarra. “It shows that the prevailing patterns of production and consumption are unsustainable.

“We urgently need to address this problem before we have irreversibly depleted the resources that power our economies and lift people out of poverty. This deeply complex problem, one of humanity’s biggest tests yet, calls for a rethink of the governance of natural resource extraction to maximize its contribution to sustainable development at all levels.” The information on material flows contained in the new report complements economic statistics, identifies the scale and urgency of global environmental issues and supports the monitoring of the progress countries are making towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The amount of primary materials extracted from the Earth rose from 22 billion tonnes in 1970 to a staggering 70 billion tonnes in 2010, with the richest countries consuming on average 10 times as many materials as the poorest countries and twice as much as the world average. If the world continues to provide housing, mobility, food, energy and water in the same way as today, by 2050 the planet’s nine billion people would require 180 billion tonnes of material every year to meet demand. This is almost three times today’s amount and will likely raise the acidification and eutrophication of the world’s soils and water bodies, increase soil erosion and lead to greater amounts of waste and pollution.

Photo Credit: UNEP

The report also ranks countries by the size of their per-capita material footprints – the amount of material required for final demand in a country, an indicator that sheds light on the true impact of a country on the global natural resource base. It is also a good proxy for the material standard of living in a country. Europe and North America, which had annual per capita material footprints of 20 and 25 tonnes in 2010, are at the top of the table. By comparison, China had a material footprint of 14 tonnes per capita and Brazil 13 tonnes.

The annual per-capita material footprint for Asia-Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, and West Asia is between 9 and 10 tonnes. Africa’s footprint is below 3 tonnes per capita. Global material use has rapidly accelerated since 2000 as emerging economies like China undergo industrial and urban transformations that require unprecedented amounts of iron, steel, cement, energy and construction materials.

Since 1990, there has been little improvement in global material efficiency. In fact, efficiency started to decline around 2000.  The global economy now needs more material per unit of GDP than it did at the turn of the century because production has shifted from material-efficient economies such as Japan, South Korea and Europe to far less material-efficient economies like China, India and South East Asia. This has led to an increase in environmental pressure for every unit of economic activity.

The report, Global Material Flows and Resource Productivity, presents various ways the world can maintain economic growth and increase human development while reducing the amount of primary materials it uses to achieve this.

Decoupling escalating material use from economic growth is the “imperative of modern environmental policy and essential for the prosperity of human society and a healthy natural environment”, states the IRP, which is a consortium of 34 internationally renowned scientists, over 30 national governments and other groups.

Decoupling, which will be necessary for countries to achieve the SDGs, requires well-designed policies. Investments in research and development, combined with better public policy and financing, will be essential. This will create significant economic opportunities for inclusive and sustained economic growth and job creation. But increasing material efficiency alone is not enough. By lowering costs, greater efficiency will allow for higher economic growth and perhaps hamper efforts to reduce overall material demand. The IRP recommends putting a price on primary materials at extraction in order to reflect the social and environmental costs of resource extraction and use while reducing the consumption of materials. The extra funds generated could then be invested in R&D in resource intensive sectors of the economy.

Looking to the future, the IRP warns that low-income countries will require increasing quantities of materials to achieve the same level of development experienced by high-income countries. This expanding demand for materials will possibly contribute to local conflicts like those seen in areas where mining competes with agriculture and urban development.

Gender Equality is a Human Right. It is also fundamental for a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world. Women are entitled to live with dignity and with freedom. As the 5th Sustainable Development Goal - to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls - it means that we have to work together in order to provide women and girls with equal access to education, health care, decent work, and representation in political and economic decision-making processes that will fuel sustainable economies and benefit societies and humanity at large.

This week you've accepted the challenge of sharing with us a visual story connecting #GenderEquality and #ClimateChange. Oluwaphemmy - the week's Finalist - showed us, with a great picture, how women are able to earn a living in Delta (Nigeria). Congratulations: your image really exemplifies the topic of gender equality!

Take a look at the original caption:

Hardworking female farmer coming from farm with some of her harvest on her bike. Farming can give women a chance to control more income and reducing gender inequality. Location: AMAI town of Delta state Nigeria.
Photo Credit: Femi Jahplus/ Oluwaphemmy 

The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) established by the United Nations in September 2015 are a demand note for governments, society and companies to elaborate strategies for sustainability in order to make this planet livable and peaceful in the next century.

Photo Credit: Sustainable Development Goals - UN

In the case of Colombia, there have been outstanding efforts of politics as well as the private sector to accomplish the integration of the SDG’s. For example, the Colombian government has established an interinstitutional commission to ensure their integration in the National Development Plan – that happened in February 2015, even seven months before the SDG’s were officially announced, which makes the country a pioneer. Furthermore, Colombia has the largest number of companies publishing sustainability reports in Latin America after Brazil[1], and large national companies such as Nutresa and Argos are included in the exclusive Dow Jones Sustainability Indices, which measure and report the performance of the world's sustainability leaders every year.

Although large companies appear to be conscious of how urgent the adoption of the SDGs is, we must not forget that they only account for a very small part of the economy. In Colombia, micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME’s) represent more than 95 percent of the total number of enterprises. In all of Latin America, their share is even higher with 99 percent[2]. The contribution of MSME’s will thus be crucial for the private sector to comply with the SDG’s. However, publications about how MSME’s may achieve this contribution are rare yet, even more in Spanish so that they could serve those enterprises in Latin America.

This is the starting point for the publication “Business and the Sustainable Development Goals – A guide for getting started”. Written by Innove, a sustainability-focused think and do tank based in Medellin, Colombia, the manual launched in Spanish and English equips MSME’s with the basic knowledge they need to start adopting and applying the SDG’s.

The document starts with an overview on the SDG’s, explaining how they differ from their predecessors, the Millennium Development Goals and how they are interconnected. Since the issues that are relevant for an individual company can differ across industries and business models, the guide provides steps to help businesses identify which SDG’s are most applicable for them.

Photo Credit: Innove

They also learn how they might interact with other actors of their core business, the community and the public dialogue. Thereupon, the publication suggests how to approach the adoption of the SDG’s presenting an amplified version of the SDG compass launched by the Global Reporting Initiative, Global Compact and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development in September 2015.

This guide is the kick-off for a series of publications related to sustainability and businesses that Innove is currently working on and which shall, altogether, give profound knowledge and support to the private sector to enable their transition to sustainability.  

Click here to download this first publication.