Trends in sustainable development

The Johannesburg Plan of Implementation refers to sustainable consumption and production (SCP), along with poverty eradication and conservation of the natural resource base, as essential precondition for sustainable development. The idea of sustainable development contains within it the completion of three transitions: demographic, development, and decoupling. This publication reviews progress towards achieving these interlinked challenges in sustainable development, focusing first on broad trends in resource use, then turning to drivers of resource depletion and environmental degradation, and finally examining the major initiatives of governments, business and civil society to shift towards sustainable consumption and production patterns.