Mid-term Status on SDG 6 Indicators: 6.3.2, 6.5.1, & 6.6.1 (2024)

United Nations 2 years ago

Water is vital to human and planetary health and the internationally agreed goals that back it, including the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, the Sendai Framework and the Paris Agreement. Yet the triple planetary crisis – the crisis of climate change, nature and biodiversity loss and pollution and waste – is affecting the availability, distribution, quality and quantity of water. Despite water being essential for human health, food security, energy supplies, sustaining cities, and ecosystems and on the front lines of the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution, SDG 6 is alarmingly off-track. For most of the SDG 6 Indicators, the current rate of progress is not fast enough to close the gap before 2030. In some cases, progress is even relapsing. The new mid-term status reports for SDG 6 indicators: 6.3.2, 6.5.1, and 6.6.1 found that if the priorities under SDG 6 are to be achieved by 2030, action on these indicators needs to be accelerated four times faster. These priorities can be ensured if adequate investments are made towards institutions, infrastructure, information, and innovation, where concerted action and institutional coherence is required, and new ideas, tools, and solutions are developed that draw from existing knowledge and indigenous practices. Working with partners within the framework of the UN-Water led Integrated Monitoring Initiative for SDG 6, UNEP officially launched reports, in August 2021, on the three SDG 6 indicators for which it is custodian. These indicator reports are: SDG 6.3.2 – Progress on Ambient Water Quality with a special focus on Health SDG 6.5.1 – Progress on the Implementation of Integrated Water Resources Management with special focus on Climate Change SDG 6.6.1 – Progress on Water-related Ecosystems with a special focus on Biodiversity A key underlying message from these reports is that existing efforts to protect and restore water-related ecosystems must be urgently scaled up and accelerated. Progress Reports can also be found on UN-Water's SDG 6 Progress Reports page
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layersDaily Sustainability Digest

Published about 9 hours ago



Sustainable construction is entering a stricter commercial and accountability phase. SDCL Efficiency’s planned wind-down shows that retrofit and energy-efficient buildings are vulnerable when investor confidence weakens, even though they remain central to net zero carbon buildings and to decarbonising the built environment. The message is blunt: environmental sustainability in construction must prove life cycle cost, building lifecycle performance and durable returns, rather than rely on green construction narratives. Developers and asset owners face greater pressure to embed sustainable building design, low carbon design and lifecycle assessment across existing estates and new low carbon building projects.

The Considerate Constructors’ Scheme has revised its checklist and scoring model for the UK and Ireland, pushing procurement and site management towards measurable sustainable building practices. Stronger scrutiny should sharpen whole life carbon assessment, embodied carbon control and the management of embodied carbon in materials, low carbon construction materials and resource efficiency in construction. Homes England’s debt facility with Richborough confirms that housing delivery still dominates public policy. Faster build-out without equal focus on whole life carbon, circular economy in construction, life cycle thinking in construction and the carbon footprint of construction risks locking in avoidable emissions. For teams aligning projects with BREEAM and BREEAM v7, the direction is clear: eco-design for buildings, sustainable material specification, environmental product declarations (EPDs) and net zero whole life carbon are becoming core tests of sustainable design.

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