Goal 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
Responsible Consumption and Production focuses on changing how we produce and use goods to protect the planet. It involves doing more with less; reducing waste, recycling materials, and cutting down on food waste. This goal encourages businesses to be eco-friendly and helps people make choices that minimize their footprint on the environment.
Goal 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
Responsible Consumption and Production focuses on changing how we produce and use goods to protect the planet. It involves doing more with less; reducing waste, recycling materials, and cutting down on food waste. This goal encourages businesses to be eco-friendly and helps people make choices that minimize their footprint on the environment.
Introduction to Goal 12
A curriculum designed for Goal 12 that inspires the values and competencies behind this mission for grades 5-12.
Featured Lesson: Art
Dreamscapes of Sustainable Use: Making Surreal Art
Dive into Goal 12 through the lens of art. This lesson provides hands-on activities and creative exploration designed to bring the concepts to life for students.
Lessons
Art Exploration
Explore Goal 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns through art.
Dreamscapes of Sustainable Use: Making Surreal Art
Explore Goal 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns through art.
Conscious Voice: Slam Poetry for a Sustainable World
Explore Goal 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns through creative writing.
Embodying a Sustainable World: A Dance & Movement Exploration
Explore Goal 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns through dance/movement.
Absurdist Drama For Responsible Consumption
Explore Goal 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns through drama.
ART EXPLORATION
Explore Goal 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns through music.
Concious Voice: Slam Poetry for a Sustainable World
Explore Goal 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns through creative writing.
The Sound of Sustainability: Creating a Circular Rhythm Piece
Explore Goal 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns through music.
These learning objectives are organized into five categories that together form a comprehensive approach to understanding and engaging with this goal.
Knowledge
- •
Identify and define sustainable consumption as being smart about what we buy and use, and sustainable production as making things in a way that is good for the planet.
(Cr1.1.MS, Cn10.1.MS) - •
Recognize the importance of the "3 Rs" (reduce, reuse, recycle) and how they can help address challenges like waste and pollution.
(Cn10.1.MS, Cn11.1.MS) - •
Understand that our choices about what we use and throw away have an impact on the environment and that resources are limited.
(Cn10.1.MS, Cn11.1.MS)
Discourse
- •
Explore and describe how messages and ideas about consumption and waste are expressed through various art forms (visual art, creative writing, dance, drama, music) by reflecting on visuals, words, movement, sounds, and stories.
(Re7.1.MS, Re8.1.MS) - •
Participate in respectful discussions about consumption habits and waste challenges, and how creativity can lead to sustainable solutions.
(Re9.1.MS, Cn11.1.MS) - •
Communicate their own thoughts, feelings, and ideas about Global Goal 12: Responsible Consumption and Production through creative expression in various artistic mediums.
(Cr3.1.MS)
Attitudes
- •
Develop a sense of personal responsibility for their own consumption habits, from what they buy to what they throw away.
(Re8.1.MS, Cn10.1.MS) - •
Appreciate the creative potential of old materials, fostering a positive attitude towards reusing and repurposing items that would otherwise be considered trash.
(Cn11.1.MS) - •
Cultivate a sense of optimism and initiative towards finding and implementing creative solutions for waste and pollution in their schools and communities.
(Re9.1.MS)
Capacity
- •
Develop critical thinking skills by observing and discussing how different artistic elements can represent challenges, processes, and solutions related to consumption and production.
(Re9.1.MS, Cn10.1.MS) - •
Practice collaboration and communication skills through engaging in group art projects, shared writing activities, and coordinated movement, drama, or musical performances to tell stories about sustainability.
(Cr2.1.MS, Pr5.1.MS) - •
Develop creative expression skills through purposeful experimentation with diverse artistic mediums (visual art, creative writing, dance, drama, music) to communicate their understandings and feelings about Responsible Consumption and Production.
(Cr3.1.MS)
Action
- •
Identify simple and age-appropriate actions they can take to reduce, reuse, and recycle in their daily lives, schools, and homes.
(Pr6.1.MS, Cn11.1.MS) - •
Participate in collaborative artistic projects that creatively express messages of hope and support for sustainable lifestyles.
(Cr3.1.MS, Pr6.1.MS) - •
Reflect on their personal role in contributing to a world with sustainable consumption and production, fostering a sense of responsible global citizenship.
(Re9.1.MS, Cn11.1.MS)
Empowering youth to become active agents of change in the pursuit of ensuring sustainable consumption and production patterns. Recognizing that even small, consistent actions, sparked by their creative explorations, can contribute to a larger global impact.
Taking Action Beyond the Classroom
Here are ways your students can extend their learning and apply their understanding of Global Goal 12 in their wider community and beyond.
Become Sunstainability Storytellers: Choose a favorite piece created in the lessons, and share with family, friends, or local community groups (like a neighborhood association or community group). This allows them to use their art to tell a powerful story about why being smart with what we use and throw away matters for everyone.
Concrete Action: Aim to share their creative work related to Global Goal 12 with at least three people outside of school.
Waste to Wonder Challenge: Find one item at home that would normally be thrown away (e.g., a plastic bottle, box, old sock, etc.) and turn it into something new and useful. Share a photo of this useful object with family or friends, explaining its new purpose.
Concrete Action: Students transform one piece of waste into a useful object and share their creation.
Consumption Audit and Action Plan: Choose one common item (water bottles, paper towels, food waste) and track how much is used in the household. At the end of a week, use the findings to write a short, persuasive message or create a drawing with a plan to reduce, reuse, or recycle that item more effectively.
Concrete Action: Students track one type of waste at home for a week and create a plan to reduce it.
Research a Sustainability Hero: Research a real person (from history or today) who has worked to reduce waste, invent a sustainable product, or educate others about responsible consumption. This could be a local recycler, an environmental activist, or a sustainable business owner. Write a short paragraph, create a drawing, or prepare a brief presentation about this Sustainability Hero, explaining how their actions connect to Global Goal 12. This helps to see real-world examples of impact and positive change.
Concrete Action: Students research and present one Sustainability Hero to share with family or the class.
Benchmarking Progress
A quick view of the official UN targets for this goal paired with the indicators that track global progress. Use these to connect classroom inquiry with real-world data.
Target 12.1
Implement the 10-Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns, all countries taking action, with developed countries taking the lead, taking into account the development and capabilities of developing countries.
Indicators
- 12.1.1
Number of countries developing, adopting or implementing policy instruments aimed at supporting the shift to sustainable consumption and production.
Target 12.2
By 2030, achieve the sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources.
Indicators
- 12.2.1
Material footprint, material footprint per capita, and material footprint per GDP.
- 12.2.2
Domestic material consumption, domestic material consumption per capita, and domestic material consumption per GDP.
Target 12.3
By 2030, halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses.
Indicators
- 12.3.1
(a) Food loss index and (b) food waste index.
Target 12.4
By 2020, achieve the environmentally sound management of chemicals, and all wastes throughout their life cycle, in accordance with agreed international frameworks, and significantly reduce their release to air, water and soil in order to minimize their adverse impacts on human health and the environment.
Indicators
- 12.4.1
Number of parties to international multilateral environmental agreements on hazardous waste, and other chemicals that meet their commitments and obligations in transmitting information as required by each relevant agreement.
- 12.4.2
(a) Hazardous waste generated per capita; and (b) proportion of hazardous waste treated, by type of treatment.
Target 12.5
By 2030, substantially reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse.
Indicators
- 12.5.1
National recycling rate, tons of material recycled.
Target 12.6
Encourage companies, especially large and transnational companies, to adopt sustainable practices and to integrate sustainability information into their reporting cycle.
Indicators
- 12.6.1
Number of companies publishing sustainability reports.
Target 12.7
Promote public procurement practices that are sustainable, in accordance with national policies and priorities.
Indicators
- 12.7.1
Number of countries implementing sustainable public procurement policies and action plans.
Target 12.8
By 2030, ensure that people everywhere have the relevant information and awareness for sustainable development and lifestyles in harmony with nature.
Indicators
- 12.8.1
Extent to which (i) global citizenship education and (ii) education for sustainable development are mainstreamed in (a) national education policies; (b) curricula; (c) teacher education; and (d) student assessment.
Target 12.a
Support developing countries to strengthen their scientific and technological capacity to move towards more sustainable patterns of consumption and production.
Indicators
- 12.a.1
Installed renewable energy-generating capacity in developing countries (in watts per capita).
Target 12.b
Develop and implement tools to monitor sustainable development impacts for sustainable tourism that creates jobs and promotes local culture and products.
Indicators
- 12.b.1
Implementation of standard accounting tools to monitor the economic and environmental aspects of tourism sustainability.
Target 12.c
Rationalize inefficient fossil-fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption by removing market distortions, in accordance with national circumstances, including by restructuring taxation and phasing out those harmful subsidies, where they exist, to reflect their environmental impacts, taking fully into account the specific needs and conditions of developing countries and minimizing the possible adverse impacts on their development in a manner that protects the poor and the affected communities.
Indicators
- 12.c.1
Amount of fossil-fuel subsidies (production and consumption) per unit of GDP.