Eliminating Hazardous Chemicals from Fashion and Construction Value Chains

Name: Eliminating Hazardous Chemicals from Fashion and Construction Value Chains
Start: 2024-05-30
End: 2024-05-30
Location: Switzerland

30 May 2024

Geneva, Switzerland

Overview

Why Fashion and Construction?

When: 30 May 2024, 14:00 - 16:00 CET

Where: Online and in person at the UNEP - Maison Internationale de l’Environnement Room 3, Chemin des Anémones 11-13, CH-1219 Châtelaine-Geneva

Online Registration: Click here

Onsite Registration: Click here

This webinar is organized as a hybrid Side Event of the World Circular Economy Forum (WCEF) 2024, hosted jointly by UNEP and the Circular Innovation Lab in Geneva and online. The webinar will delve into cross-cutting and policy issues within the construction and fashion value chains while introducing the Global Coordination Project of the Global Environment Facility’s (GEF) funded Integrated Program (IP) on Eliminating Hazardous Chemicals from Supply Chains.

A high-level panel discussion will explore key challenges and opportunities, shedding light on the importance of finance for research and development of safer alternatives and supporting implementation of sustainable practices. The panel will consist of speakers from the Secretariat of the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions (BRS), United Nations Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the Better Cotton Initiative and the Graduate Institute.

Fashion and construction are among the top three economic sectors that contribute to pollution, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, land degradation, water pollution and threats to biodiversity. The continued presence of hazardous chemicals in products is a barrier to circular economy initiatives as those products cannot be recycled and are therefore incompatible with a circular economy model. The pollution and resource scarcity implications of the fashion and construction global value chains are less clearly understood than their climate and nature impacts limiting action and investment to address those impacts.

The Supply Chains IP aims to address environmental degradation and focuses on transforming these supply chains to be green, achieve zero pollution and zero waste, integrate nature-based solutions, and become carbon neutral. The IP is being implemented through a Global Coordination Project and 8 country projects in, Cambodia, Trinidad & Tobago, Pakistan, Ecuador, Peru, Mongolia, Costa Rica, India. This is taking place through strong inter-agency cooperation between UNEP, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and Food and Agriculture Organization on the United Nations (FAO)

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