In this episode of About Sustainability, we talked to Heinz Schandl, who joined us from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), which is an Australian Government agency responsible for scientific research. He is an expert on natural resource use, and international resource flows. Among other things, Heinz explained about resource efficiency, the socioeconomic drivers of resource use, and about the possibilities of decoupling economic development and human well-being from resource use.

He also explained how resource use is measured through what we call the material footprint, and why it is important to capture the international dimension of that footprint.

We also learned about progress in indicators and data availability so that the international linkages between resource extraction and final consumption can be tracked and managed.

All these items are important for measuring progress across several SDGs including SDG 8 on decent work and economic growth, and SDG 12 on sustainable consumption and production.

"About Sustainability..." is a podcast brought to you by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), an environmental policy think-tank based in Hayama, Japan. IGES experts are concerned with environmental and sustainability challenges. Everything shared on the podcast will be off-the-cuff discussion, and any viewpoints expressed are those held by the speaker at the time of recording. They are not necessarily official IGES positions.

In this episode Alice and Andre talked to Simon about the United Nations Environment Assembly, also known as UNEA, which is the decision-making body of the United Nations Environment Programme. UNEA takes place in Nairobi every second year and it is always preceded by the so-called OECPR, which stands for the Open-ended Committee of Permanent Representatives. This committee functions as the working level meeting that prepares decisions and resolutions for official approval by UNEA. This year, UNEA-6 took place in late February and I joined some of the preparations for that meeting, so in this episode we discuss some of the things that took place during the OECPR and UNEA to draw attention to those processes of international environmental governance that influence the agenda of domestic environmental policy making. Join us and listen.

"About Sustainability..." is a podcast brought to you by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), an environmental policy think-tank based in Hayama, Japan. IGES experts are concerned with environmental and sustainability challenges. Everything shared on the podcast will be off-the-cuff discussion, and any viewpoints expressed are those held by the speaker at the time of recording. They are not necessarily official IGES positions.

On this episode of About Sustainability…, Andre, Alice and Simon celebrate the contribution of an IGES legend, Mr Hideyuki Mori. Mori-san has been a leader at IGES for most of the institute’s history, following diverse experience at other institutions including the United Nations Environment Programme and Asian Development Bank. He retired last year and we wanted to speak to him about his career including his long tenure at IGES. In this discussion we also reminisce about long-time colleague Peter King, who appeared on the podcast last year, but unexpectedly passed away a few months ago. Mori-san and Peter were friends, and played a key role in steering IGES’ course as in international institute.

This episode will probably be of particular interest to IGES staff members or prospective IGES staff, but there should be something for anyone who is interested in careers in the environment.

"About Sustainability..." is a podcast brought to you by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), an environmental policy think-tank based in Hayama, Japan. IGES experts are concerned with environmental and sustainability challenges. Everything shared on the podcast will be off-the-cuff discussion, and any viewpoints expressed are those held by the speaker at the time of recording. They are not necessarily official IGES positions.