SDG: 12: Responsible Consumption and Production

Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.

Community curated research on ScienceOpen. Keyword SDG 12

SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production

If your research contributes to meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goal 12: Responsible Consumption and Production add the keyword "SDG 12", "SDG12: Responsible Consumption and Production"  and/or "Sustainable Development Goals" to your article/book/chapter/conference paper/ dataset and we will automatically add it to this rapidly growing collection of research outputs. See the instructions here


Worldwide consumption and production, a driving force of the global economy, rely on the use of the natural environment and resources in a model that continues to lead to destructive impacts on the planet. The pandemic offers countries an opportunity to build a recovery plan that will reverse current trends and change consumption and production patterns towards a sustainable future.

As at 2019, 79 countries and the European Union reported on at least one national policy instrument that contributed to sustainable consumption and production in their efforts towards the implementation of the 10-Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns. 

Global domestic material consumption per capita rose by 7 per cent, from 10.8 metric tons per capita in 2010 to 11.7 metric tons in 2017, with increases in all regions except Northern America and Africa. However, domestic material consumption per capita in Europe and Northern America is still 40 per cent higher than the global average, indicating the need to enhance resource efficiency and practices to reduce consumption in the future.  

The global material footprint rose, from 73.2 billion metric tons in 2010 to 85.9 billion metric tons in 2017, a 17.4 per cent increase since 2010 and a 66.5 per cent increase from 2000. The world’s reliance on natural resources continued to accelerate in the past two decades.

The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer has been universally ratified by 198 parties, and, as a result of its implementation, the overall abundance of ozone-depleting substances in the atmosphere has decreased over the past two decades, with projections to return to 1980 values in the 2030s for northern hemisphere mid-latitude ozone.

From 2010 to 2019, global e-waste generation grew continuously, from 5.3 kg per capita to 7.3 kg per capita, while the environmentally sound recycling of e‑waste increased at a slower pace, from 0.8 kg per capita to 1.3 kg per capita.

Global fossil fuel subsidies amounted to more than $400 billion in 2018. The continued prevalence of such subsidies, more than double the estimated subsidies for renewables, adversely affects the task of achieving an early peak in global carbon dioxide emissions. 

Source: Progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals, Report of the Secretary-General, https://undocs.org/en/E/2020/57

Join us at ScienceOpen in collectively curating a list of research articles by tagging your work via keywords, either through the publication process with your publisher, or after the fact by adding keywords to your work on ScienceOpen.

If your research contributes to meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goal 12: Responsible Consumption and Production add the keyword "SDG 12", "SDG12: Responsible Consumption and Production" and/or "Sustainable Development Goals" to your article/book/chapter/conference paper/ dataset and we will automatically add it to this rapidly growing collection of research outputs. See the instructions here: 

To raise awareness for this important research, the UN Sustainable Development Goals on ScienceOpen collection is promoted throughout the discovery environment in search menus, as "Related collection" banners and article recommendations. If you are working on a particular SDG you can add your work to the collection in 4 easy steps:

  1. Register on ScienceOpen at https://www.scienceopen.com/register.
  2. Link to your ORCID profile (or create an ORCID ID): This will automatically add your publication list to ScienceOpen.
  3. Choose the relevant article and then click on "Add keywords" from your profile page.
  4. Add the relevant SDG(s) to the keyword section, for example "SDG 1" or "SDG1: No poverty" and/or "Sustainable Development Goals" and then hit save! Your article will now be automatically added to the relevant collection within 24 hours. You can also add a lay summary, catchy image, disciplines and data availability statements to your work to increase its visibility.

We believe that this is too important of a topic to leave to the computers alone. Join this community curation effort to support progress towards these essential goals for humanity and the world.

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