All publications and documents

Multiple global crises and backlash against women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights worsen gender disparities. At the current rate of progress, it may take close to 300 years to achieve full gender equality, the “Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG): The Gender Snapshot 2022” shows. Global challenges, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath, violent…

Worldwide, the beverage industry buys more than 500 billion plastic bottles every year to package its products. This insatiable demand for plastic bottles drives the production of a common plastic known as polyethylene terephthalate or PET. Plastic bottles consume a quarter of all PET plastic production worldwide. A first-ever study, Hidden Hazards: The Chemical Footprint of a…

In 1972, the UN General Assembly designated 5 June as World Environment Day (WED). The first celebration, under the slogan “Only One Earth” took place in 1973. In the following years, WED has developed as a platform to raise awareness on the problems facing our environment such as air pollution, plastic pollution, illegal wildlife trade, sustainable consumption, sea-level increase, and food…

📚 Facts and figures • Only 9 per cent of plastic globally is recycled and much of the plastic used cannot be recycled at all. Current recycling systems are not capable of recycling the huge volume of plastic produced, with 46 per cent of all plastic landfilled every year. A life-cycle approach to plastics is needed which looks at everything from extraction of raw resources to product…

Plastics are accumulating in the world’s soils at a worrying rate, according to a new report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The 29th edition of UNEP’s Foresight Brief highlights how plastics used extensively in farming – from plastic coated plastic fertilizers to mulch film – are contaminating the soil and potentially threatening food security. Microplastics…

Plastic is one of the most enduring materials man has created. Nowadays, we all know that it can take hundreds of years for plastic to degrade, and research is showing that it is possible that it does not even fully degrade, but becomes what we call microplastic. Microplastics are tiny particles of plastic that can be eaten by marine animals and end up in their bodies and tissues,…