The end of the year is traditionally a time for stocktaking and making resolutions for the coming 12 months. This is often assumed to apply only to individuals making personal commitments. However, when it comes to sustainability many experts have long concluded that while commendable, individual actions do little to move the needle. Real progress on a global scale will only really come from major systemic changes made by governments and corporations.
The implied logic is to simply eliminate the ‘bad’ choices for individual citizens by making the better ones easier and cheaper. Here in the Southeast of the UK, the almost complete lack of cycling infrastructure and persistently crowded roads conspire to make taking your bike instead of the car a hair-raising dice with death. For longer journeys, it is also often significantly cheaper to drive or even fly than to go by train. Even then, many people are hesitating to buy electric cars due to their high price and a persistent lack of reliable charging infrastructure. Clearly, the solution to most of these transport-related problems lies in difficult and costly top-down governmental decisions rather than personal choice.
All right, so if we as individuals are more or less off the hook how are national governments and multinational corporations doing? This time last year saw a period of self-reflection for these large entities in the form of the Global Stocktake. This exercise was set out by the signatories of the Paris Climate Agreement as a periodic means to establish whether they were collectively ‘walking the talk’ or alternatively heading down ‘the road to hell paved with good intentions’. NordSIP’s recent look at the Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) revealed that most nations are still lagging well behind their stated climate goals, with G20 countries particularly guilty. The CCPI currently leaves the three podium places empty as a reminder that the whole class deserves to be on the naughty step.
This year NordSIP also spent time covering the three big international sustainability gatherings that took place in the last quarter: the climate COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, the nature-focused COP16 in Cali, Colombia, and the plastic pollution negotiations at INC-5 in Busan, South Korea. Rather than signalling a dramatic change, these events all smacked of a world unable to shake off its bad habits. For instance, the best thing to come out of INC-5 was a plan to continue talking at a later date, despite the event having been intended as the final round of a two-year negotiation process for a global plastics treaty. The couple of COPs were also disappointingly ineffective, with vested interests effectively sabotaging the process.
If nation states cannot be relied upon to do the right thing in this year-end round of resolution making, perhaps it is ultimately up to us individuals. Maybe the small actions of the many can go some way towards making up for the shortcomings of our national and supranational representatives. If so, what resolutions should we make? Riding your bike and taking public transport wherever possible can be a good place to start, depending on where you live. How about more recycling? Readers of this column will be well aware that recycling is no solution to the plastic pollution crisis. Nevertheless, it does signal to the powers-that-be our desire as individual consumers for a better way to deal with this ubiquitous and harmful material. The list of positive sustainability-related actions is lengthy and confusing, so the Laundromat has decided to ultimately pick one out of the hat: food waste.
Almost 10% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions come from food waste, and in terms of scale it represents 28% of the world’s arable land. Apart from the negative climate impact, the idea that almost 60 million tonnes of food is wasted each year in the EU alone is abhorrent. That equates to a cool 132 kg per inhabitant, or the six well-laden suitcases full of food thrown away while much of the world struggles to feed itself. According to Zero Waste Europe, the food wasted every year could feed 1.26 billion hungry people.
Despite the disappointing lack of progress, the Laundromat will continue to use its little voice to advocate for decisive and effective action from governments, corporations, and the institutional investors that invest in them. Meanwhile, it is going to resolve to waste less food in 2025. This probably means more frequent grocery shopping trips and far better scrutiny of the hidden corners of the larder and fridge, but so be it. According to Eurostat, the worst European countries for food waste are Portugal, Denmark, and Cyprus. So, let’s be more like Hungary, Croatia, and Slovenia who are apparently the best at preventing it. Liquid shrink-wrapped cucumber hiding under the past-its-sell-by-date salad be gone!
