Research

UN Environment Global Chemicals Outlook II - From Legacies to Innovative Solutions: Implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

Read the article

Abstract

The first edition of the Global Chemicals Outlook, published in February 2013, assembled scientific, technical and socio-economic information on the sound management of chemicals. It covered trends and indicators for chemical production, transport, use and disposal, and associated health and environmental impacts; economic implications of these trends, including costs of inaction and benefits of action; and instruments and approaches for sound management of chemicals. Decision 27/12, adopted by the Governing Council of the United Nations Environment Programme in 2013, recognized the significance of the findings of the first Global Chemicals Outlook, which highlighted the significant increase in the manufacture and use of chemicals globally, their importance to national and global economies and the costs and negative effects on human health and the environment of unsound chemicals management, and made recommendations for future action. Decision 27/12 also requested the Executive Director to continue work on the Global Chemicals Outlook, particularly in areas where data were found to be lacking or inadequate, and to enhance transparency through regionally balanced stakeholder involvement, inter alia, with a view to developing in the future a tool for assessing progress towards the achievement of the sound management of chemicals and hazardous wastes, including the existing 2020 goal, taking into account and building upon other existing sources of information.