Preventing and reducing plastic pollution is about more than waste management. This report applies a circular economy perspective to plastics and presents frameworks for addressing related sustainability challenges. A shift to a circular economy will require coordinated policy interventions at all stages of the life-cycle of plastics, including: resource extraction and refining, design and manufacture of products, trade and retail, use and reuse, recycling, and final disposal when necessary.
This report from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) proposes a five-phase method to assess the value of storage and create viable investment conditions, to guide storage deployment for the effective integration of solar and wind power.
This report provides key messages on major environmental trends in areas such as climate change, biodiversity, water resources, air quality, and circular economy, based on indicators from the OECD Core Set of Environmental Indicators.
This document acts as a technical annex to the Technical Expert's Group on Sustainable Finance's (TEG) final recommendations to the European Commission on the EU Taxonomy of Sustainable Finance.
Projections estimate that between 2000 and 2050, the world population will grow 50 percent and global energy and materials use will grow 300 percent. Therefore, the strategic importance of materials is causing many people to look carefully at all aspects of the material lifecycles that comprise our industrial practices and consumer habits.
This report discusses materials management—how best to provide for human needs and prosperity while using fewer materials, reducing toxic products, and recovering more of the materials used. It includes background information on material usage within the United States, describes challenges related to sustainability and environmental impacts, and provides an analytic framework for materials management. The report also provides three key recommendations for achieving sustainable materials management: