What is SDG 12?
Sustainable Development Goal 12 (SDG 12) focuses on ensuring sustainable consumption and production patterns. It aims to promote resource efficiency, reduce waste, and most importantly, ensure that economic growth does not come at the expense of environmental health. By encouraging responsible consumption, the hope of SDG 12 is to create a balance between our wants and needs and also the limits of what Earth can withstand.
Why Proper Waste Sorting Matters
Waste management is crucial for reducing the environmental impact and conserving resources. With the world facing a mounting waste crisis, it's more important than ever to know where your items should go. Sorting waste into trash, recycling, and compost bins is one small, but impactful way we can all contribute to the solution.
Below are some key points pertaining to SDG 12 and there's a game on the next page that helps you understand how to sort your waste correctly and understand the impact of responsible consumption and also disposal.
Key Insights from Research
- Impact on Climate Change: The extraction of natural resources has caused the loss of more than 90% of biodiversity and about half of climate change impacts. Implementing resource efficiency and sustainable consumption/production policies could slow resource use growth by 25% and cut greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by 2060 (UNEP, 2019).
- Consumer Culture: Modern marketing often promotes overconsumption, leading to a blurred line between wants and needs. Consumers need to become cognizant of their consumption habits to reduce waste (Philosophy of Futility).
- Post-pandemic Shift: The COVID-19 pandemic led to a shift in consumption patterns, with more people valuing experiences over material goods and wanting transparency about sustainability from brands. People demanding more transparency from companies that they buy from holds the companies to a higher standard which is a step in the right direction (Christensen, 2021).
- Circular Strategies: Circular systems such as closed-loop recycling and product-as-a-service models can significantly reduce resource depletion and minimize waste, but they often come with high initial costs which disuades most companies from adopting them (Welch & Soufani, 2024).
Don't forget to check out the game here!