The recent United Nations Summit for the Future, a historic gathering of world leaders, marked a significant milestone in global cooperation. While the three key documents signed off on – The Pact for the Future, The Global Digital Compact, and the Declaration on Future Generations – represent ambitious aspirations for a sustainable future, they fall short in addressing a critical aspect: the material-energy nexus.
Despite acknowledging the importance of energy in mitigating poverty and achieving universal access, the documents fail to recognize the equally crucial role of materials and minerals. This oversight is a missed opportunity to adopt a truly systems-based approach to global challenges, one that acknowledges the interconnectedness of resources and their constraints.
This plan remains relevant today, as minerals and energy continue to be the ultimate primary resources.
The plan advocates for:
- Material and energy conservation: Prioritizing efficient and responsible use of resources through ecological design.
- Sustainable livelihood assessment: Linking livelihood creation to specific material and energy supply chains.
- Resource-constrained environmental policy: Considering different lifestyle scenarios based on resource constraints.
- Responsible mineral and material extraction: Controlling the temporal scale of operations and emphasizing ecological restoration.
- Environmental education and innovation: Promoting scientific creativity and human-created material retrieval.
While the UN Secretary General’s recent report on critical minerals acknowledges their importance for the green transition, it lacks tangible policy deliverables. The report calls for new funding mechanisms and councils, but fails to address the core issue of reducing geopolitical tensions around minerals and energy infrastructure.
The Summit for the Future is an opportunity to redefine the world’s sustainable development agenda beyond 2030. It is time for the UN and other international organizations to return to the fundamentals and recognize the critical role of natural resources in delivering development in all its forms. By addressing the material-energy nexus and adopting a systems-based approach, we can create a more sustainable and equitable future for generations to come.
While the documents address broader environmental issues, a specific focus on cardboard recycling could significantly contribute to sustainable resource management. Promoting recycling initiatives, improving collection infrastructure, and encouraging the use of recycled cardboard products can help reduce waste, conserve energy, and create circular economies.
