Promoting Zero-Waste Initiatives to Advance the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

Requests the Secretary-General to set up an advisory board of eminent persons, based on voluntary contributions, selected on the basis of their knowledge, experience and expertise and with due regard to gender balance and equitable geographic representation, in consultation with Member States, for a period of three years, to promote local and national zero-waste initiatives through, inter alia, the dissemination of best practices and success stories, based on the work of, and without duplication with, relevant existing regional and global platforms, the United Nations Environment Programme and the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), within their respective mandates;

Recommends the continuation of the discussion on zero-waste initiatives within the relevant United Nations entities, on the basis of verified data on sustainable and environmentally sound waste management, among other considerations, within their work on sustainable consumption and production;

Encourages Member States, organizations of the United Nations system and other international and regional organizations to implement zero-waste initiatives at all levels, so as to promote environmentally sound management of waste and sustainable development;

Requests the Secretary-General to invite the United Nations Environment Programme to include, within existing resources, in the next iteration of the Global Waste Management Outlook, a dedicated section on zero-waste initiatives, including on activities and experiences of such initiatives;

Requests the President of the General Assembly, through voluntary contributions and without duplication of effort, including activities organized by the 10-Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns, to convene a one-day high-level meeting, in collaboration with the United Nations Environment Programme and UN-Habitat, in New York, in 2023, during the seventy-seventh session of the General Assembly, to promote sustainable consumption and production patterns, including innovative projects and programmes such as local and national zero-waste initiatives to foster the environmentally sound management of waste in support of the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,¹² the Paris Agreement, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the New Urban Agenda and the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal;

Invites all Member States, organizations of the United Nations system, other international and regional organizations and other relevant stakeholders, including civil society, the private sector and academia, to observe the International Day of Zero Waste, in an appropriate manner, through activities aimed at raising awareness of national, subnational, regional and local zero-waste initiatives and their contribution to achieving sustainable development;

Invites the United Nations Environment Programme and UN-Habitat, mindful of the provisions contained in the annex to Economic and Social Council resolution 1980/67 of 25 July 1980, to facilitate the observance of the International Day of Zero Waste;

Invites all relevant stakeholders to contribute to and support the implementation of the International Day;

Requests the Secretary-General to bring the present resolution to the attention of all Member States, the organizations of the United Nations system and other relevant stakeholders, for appropriate observance;

Requests the Secretary-General to inform Member States about the implementation of the present resolution, through the report to be submitted to the General Assembly at its eightieth session under the sub-item entitled “Towards the achievement of sustainable development: implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including through sustainable consumption and production, building on Agenda 21” of the item entitled “Sustainable development”.