Think2050

“People believe environmental ‘bads’ are the price we must pay for economic ‘goods.’  However, we cannot, and need not, continue to act as if this trade-off is inevitable”  

UN Under Secretary-General Achim Steiner, UNEP’s Executive Director

** UNEP publishes new report on decoupling growth **

The report shows how long-term thinking can be integrated into a world that currently relies too heavily on finite resources - without thinking about the impact this will have on the future. 

At the launch UNEP stated:

By 2050, humanity could devour an estimated 140 billion tons of minerals, ores, fossil fuels and biomass per year – three times its current appetite – unless the economic growth rate is “decoupled” from the rate of natural resource consumption.

Developed countries citizens consume an average of 16 tons of those four key resources per capita (ranging up to 40 or more tons per person in some developed countries). By comparison, the average person in India today consumes four tons per year.

With the growth of both population and prosperity, especially in developing countries, the prospect of much higher resource consumption levels is “far beyond what is likely sustainable” if realized at all given finite world resources, warns this report by UNEP’s International Resource Panel.

Already the world is running out of cheap and high quality sources of some essential materials such as oil, copper and gold, the supplies of which, in turn, require ever-rising volumes of fossil fuels and freshwater to produce. Improving the rate of resource productivity (“doing more with less”) faster than the economic growth rate is the notion behind “decoupling,” the panel says.

That goal, however, demands an urgent rethink of the links between resource use and economic prosperity, buttressed by a massive investment in technological, financial and social innovation, to at least freeze per capita consumption in wealthy countries and help developing nations follow a more sustainable path.

re-blogged from http://www.unep.org/resourcepanel/Publications/Decoupling/tabid/56048/Default.aspx

“Financial short-termism represents a critical barrier to businesses’ transition to sustainability, according to a new poll.”

A survey - The Sustainability Survey - conducted by GlobeScan and SustainAbility shows that “of attitudes across businesses, NGOs, academia and government … a very large majority (88%) of the 642 experts polled see pressure for short-term financial results as a barrier to businesses becoming more sustainable.”

Here is some really useful data that shows how businesses and top academics are considering that bringing long-term thinking into the heart of a business is a key to ensuring that it achieves sustainability. 

The results of the Sustainability survey will be published in an upcoming UNEP report on how business can play a role in transitioning to the Green Economy.

Achim Steiner, who is the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Executive Director, said: “The Green Economy analysis by UNEP and partners clearly outlines pathways towards growing the global economy, generating employment and combating poverty while keeping humanity’s footprint within ecological boundaries.

“This survey underlines that governments must play their part, national and internationally, in setting the standards and backing the smart policies needed to promote sustainability over extraction and degradation of the world’s natural resource base. It is happening, but not fast enough. Rio+20 in June offers an opportunity for governments to accelerate and to scale-up a better future for seven billion people” he states [my emphasis].

Rio + 20 is an important milestone in the year 2012 and it has the potential to ensure that the long-term interests of young and future generations are at the forefront of the decision-making process.

First published by UNEP, 26 January 2012