The Tunisian Sustainable Consumption and Production National Action Plan (SCP-NAP) was developed under the coordination of the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development under the EU-funded SwitchMed programme, with advisory services and technical support from the United Nations Environment Programme. The Plan is part of Tunisia’s efforts to achieve Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals. The SCPNAP (SDG12.1) addresses two priority sectors Tourism and agri-food and was developed in Tunisia through nationally owned multistakeholder processes. Switch to Circular Economy: Under SwitchMed II, a short document "How Tunisia is switching to a Circular Economy" was prepared to present an overview on how the country is implementing activities/policies/programs on SCP and Circular Economy. In this document you will see 10 success stories inspired by the work of SwitchMed in the Tunisian Republic. They show how what began in workshops developed into plans that created a ripple that flowed out around the country. This short publication shows that opportunities for countries from sustainable consumption and production are rich and varied. The Switch to SCP is off and running. SwitchMed is proud to have supported Tunisia in its work to build a society where people and planet thrive and prosper together Tunisia has already developed integrated plans and a regulatory framework that have SCP at their core. For some time now, it has been building on these, expanding its waste reduction plan, establishing a circular economy, and further developing its work on sustainable water managements and energy solutions. It is clear that SCP is no longer just something discussed in meeting rooms. Now it is happening on the ground, across business and industry, in cities and regions, reducing pollution, improving the air we breathe, and promoting better use of nature’s gifts through resource-efficient and low-carbon consumption and production practices.
Financial institutions are reshaping how sustainable construction is funded as risk models now factor in the whole life carbon of assets. Developers able to verify low embodied carbon in materials through lifecycle assessment and whole life carbon assessment processes are securing preferential financing.
Cities adopting sustainable urban development frameworks that integrate climate resilience with low carbon design attract long-term investment by quantifying the life cycle cost and carbon footprint of construction projects. The result is that sustainable building design has become a measure of asset stability rather than corporate virtue.
At the policy level, moves such as the EU’s recalibration of emissions targets signal that environmental sustainability in construction is being aligned with industrial competitiveness. The UN’s exclusion of outdated carbon credits compels the sector to deliver verifiable decarbonisation rather than rely on offsets, reinforcing the need for circular economy principles and carbon neutral construction strategies.
Built environment exemplars highlight transformation in practice. The regeneration of Crystal Palace Park demonstrates how eco-design for buildings and green infrastructure can embed circular construction strategies and end-of-life reuse in construction, turning heritage restoration into a practical model for reducing the carbon footprint of construction. In regions like Hawaii and Phoenix, climate-driven damages reveal the financial consequences of neglecting energy-efficient buildings and whole life carbon risk.
Across the industry, sustainable building practices and the application of BREEAM and BREEAM v7 standards are guiding measurable progress toward net zero whole life carbon and net zero carbon buildings. Developers are integrating sustainable material specification, renewable building materials, and low embodied carbon materials within designs that support life cycle thinking in construction. The emerging benchmark for resilience now fuses resource efficiency in construction with the circular economy in construction, marking a tangible shift in how the sector measures value, risk and environmental impact of construction.
This transformation positions sustainable design at the centre of global real estate, where low carbon building technologies and green construction methods define competitiveness and where decarbonising the built environment is both an obligation and an economic imperative.
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