Sand and Sustainability: 10 Strategic Recommendations to Avert a Crisis Report

Sand plays a strategic role in delivering ecosystem services, vital infrastructure for economic development, providing livelihoods within communities and maintaining biodiversity. It is linked to all 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) either directly or indirectly. Despite the strategic importance of sand, its extraction, sourcing, use, and management remain largely ungoverned in many regions of the world, leading to numerous environmental and social consequences that have been largely overlooked.

At UNEA 4, the first “Sand and sustainability finding new solutions for environmental governance” (UNEP 2019) raised the awareness on this issue, which was until recently overlooked and started to gather solutions.This report is built with recommendations from the world experts on this topic, canvas via interviews, experts round table and direct contribution of more than 20 lead authors.