A third of the world’s food intended for human consumption – around 1.3 billion tons – is wasted or lost. In developed countries, inter alia in European countries, 40 % of food waste occurs at the retail and consumer levels. At the retail level, a shocking amount of food is wasted because of aesthetic reasons –  more than 50 % of all produce thrown away is done because it is deemed to be “too ugly” to be sold to consumers. This leads to food insecurity, another one of the biggest environmental problems on the list. In countries with higher levels of well-being, the inhabitants should take responsibility for global food security, thereby providing support to the societies of regions and countries lacking food.

Sustainable waste management aims to keep goods and materials in use for as long as possible and minimize the amount of solid waste that is disposed of in landfill or through incineration. However, in the existing economies, waste begins even before products are manufactured, and a more in-depth approach to sustainable waste management must focus on the entire lifecycle of a product to enable us to help reduce the negative environmental, social, and financial impacts of 21st-century consumption habits. Whether focusing on waste reduction at end-of-life or designing waste out of the production cycle at the conceptual stage, new waste management practices are required to effectively deal with existing waste streams while also reducing the amount of waste at the same time.

The last time carbon dioxide levels on our planet were as high as today was more than 4 million years ago. Increased emissions of greenhouse gasses have led to a rapid and steady increase in global temperatures, which in turn is causing catastrophic events all over the world: tropical storms, hurricanes, heatwaves and flooding tend to be more intense and frequent than seen before. 

In 1950, the world produced more than 2 million tons of plastic per year. By 2015, this annual production swelled to 419 million tons and exacerbated plastic waste in the environment. Considering that plastic takes 400 years to decompose, it will be many generations until it ceases to exist. There’s no telling what the irreversible effects of plastic pollution will have on the environment in the long run. 

Consumption and production relies on the input of natural resources, which are extracted from the environment and often processed or manufactured to form the final products and services that we produce and consume. The products and services we produce and consume also depend on burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas to generate the energy that powers machinery, factories, processing plants, transportation and the use of many products and services. Even services like education, healthcare and telecommunications rely on infrastructure, technology and energy that are built and powered using natural resources. The amount of materials used in production and consumption continues to rise at the global level and the rate at which materials are being extracted globally is outpacing both population and economic growth, meaning we are using more materials and less efficiently. If business as usual continues, global resource extraction will increase 110% by 2060. 

The past 50 years the world have seen a rapid growth of human consumption, population, global trade and urbanization, resulting in humanity using more of the Earth’s resources than it can replenish naturally. A recent WWF report  attributes the biodiversity loss to a variety of factors, but mainly land-use change, particularly the conversion of habitats, like forests, grasslands into agricultural systems.