Every year, about one third of all food produced—about 1.3 billion tonnes—is wasted while 1 billion people remain undernourished and another 1 billion go to bed hungry. Households consume 29% of global energy contributing to 21% of carbon dioxide emissions (UNEP, 2020), pointing to the significant linkage between sustainable consumption and production (SCP) and the climate change challenge of ensuring access to renewable energy and the regulation of building standards to reflect best practice in green architecture.

A family in the Global North throws away an average of 30 kg of clothing each year. Only 15% is recycled or donated, and the rest goes directly to the landfill or is incinerated. Every year, 70 million trees in endangered and ancient forests are cut down and replaced by plantations of trees used to make wood-based fabrics, such as rayon, viscose, and modal (Sustain Your Style, 2020).
Should the global population reach 9.6 billion by 2050, the equivalent of almost three planets would be required to provide the natural resources needed to sustain current lifestyles (UNEP, 2020). Ensuring SCP has been one of the greatest global challenges over the past fifty years.
Evolution of the “Sustainable Consumption and Production” Theme at the UN

Declarations and plans to take responsibility for sustainable consumption and production patterns have been part and parcel of the United Nations cycle of sustainable development conferences stretching back to the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm. The conferences continue trying to respond to scientific and civil society demands to recognize “Spaceship Earth” (Fuller, 1968; Ward, 1966) is a closed system with limited capacity to fuel economic growth and absorb its by-products, including pollution and greenhouse gases.

A ground-breaking initiative came in 1972 with the publication of the report, Limits to Growth, by a network of scientists and industrialists known as the Club of Rome (Meadows et. al., 1972). They commissioned the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to use computer simulations to dramatically demonstrate the futility of the human race we cannot win: the race between our capacity to sustain static stocks of resources and satisfy geometric growth rates in population and consumption.

The SDG Report 2020 observes the material footprint (primary materials required to meet basic needs for food, clothing, water, shelter, infrastructure and other aspects of life) grew from 73.2 billion metric tons in 2010 to 85.9 billion metric tons in 2017, a 17.4% increase in just seven years. In addition, while 79 countries and the European Union reported on at least one national policy instrument contributing to the implementation of the 10YFP between 2017 and 2019, only 10% of all policies reported in 2019 related to economic and financial instruments, reflecting a limited operationalization of the 10YFP vision.

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