One Planet Living at Rio+20

Rio+20 Earth Summit

BioRegional is working with partners from business, social enterprise and local and national governments to take One Planet Living to the Rio+20 Conference taking place in June 2012.

Many people find one planet living an easy way to understand sustainability. Rio+20 is the perfect opportunity to let it “float up” and be used more widely. We are offering it as a banner for the world to get behind where we can herald real life stories of sustainability and offer scale-able solutions and tools to help everyone to act.

All countries need to make a plan to achieve one planet living within the limits and timeframe that the science and morality tells us is necessary. And the Rio+20 process gives us the opportunity to stimulate this sort of national one planet living uptake.

We are looking for as many people, communities, organisations and governments as possible to support the delivery of a positive outcome from Rio+20 that would re-set the world on a trajectory towards one planet living.

Globally, we want to achieve one planet living by 2030, and this campaign will contribute to that through the following simple aims:

1. That the Rio+20 treaty and policies include solutions to overcome the barriers to one planet living.

2. That during the Rio+20 process 40 countries from both the global south and north commit to producing plans to enable their citizens to achieve one planet living by 2030.

How will we achieve our aims? 

• By convening a high level dialogue to draw out global solutions to barriers to one planet living and submit them in time for consideration in the “zero draft” of the treaty.
   
• By developing prototype national one planet plans with progressive countries and locally-based organisations from both the global south and north.
   
• By enabling others to achieve one planet living by offering tools and advice, building on BioRegional’s existing toolkit which has been used in more than 50 countries.
   
• By launching a public campaign using real life one planet living case studies, as inspiration for people to make their own personal one planet living commitments and to let decision makers know what they are expecting from them.

Join us at the start of our journey

Download the One Planet Living prospectus PDF (english)
Download the One Planet Living prospectus PDF (portuguese)

Updated 26.01.2012

Vote for our courses!

A series of sustainability capacity building courses is being held at Rio+20. Called SD-Learning, the courses will provide participants with practical knowledge and hands-on training from experts around the world.

BioRegional has submitted proposals to run two courses:

• Sustainable cities and One Planet Living – vote here!
• One Planet Living Framework for Sustainable Consumption and Production – vote here!

One of the courses in the programme will be chosen by public vote, so you have a chance to help us make sure that One Planet Living features in the programme.

Click on the links above, enter your email address on each page, and vote for One Planet Living!

Support our proposal

Our Proposal for Rio+20 UN Conference - we need your support

The United Nations (UN) Rio+20 Conference taking place in June 2012, will be the most important sustainability event in 20 years. It is a rare opportunity for people around the world to have a conversation about sustainability, which could lead to renewed commitment and action for that better world we all want to see.

For the past two years BioRegional has been working within the UN to try to ensure that the Rio+20 outcomes include solutions to help the world achieve one planet living. As part of this process, on 1st November 2011 BioRegional, with the Partners in our One Planet Initiative, submitted a Proposal for one planet living at Rio+20 to the UN.

Our Proposal has been considered, along with many others, as content for the zero draft negotiating document. The first draft of the negotiating text has now been published (Jan 11th 2012) and we have mixed views on it. By supporting our Proposal you will help us to show the UN that improvements can be made.

It would be great for us to be able to tell the UN that you support our Proposal by clicking the button above right, for ease of reading here is a summary:
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Summary of our Proposal (or view the full version)
The concepts and approaches of one planet living could be adopted or adapted as an effective way to achieve the objectives of Rio+20, which include renewing commitment to sustainability and a Green Economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication.

Our specific Proposals for this are that the UN works with civil society (that’s all of us!) to:

1.    Vision - Present a clear, simple, ambitious and positive vision of a better world which politicians and citizens can get behind, feel pride in and are motivated to achieve. We propose and offer “one planet living” as that vision, that is - a world in which we live happy, healthy lives within our fair share of the World’s resources, wherever we live, and leave space for wildlife and wilderness.

2.    Roadmap to achieve the vision - Based on our experience of using the one planet living approach and framework, which includes co-creating action plans using the ten principles of one planet living, we propose that at Rio+20 nations commit to creating and implementing Roadmaps and Action Plans to achieve the Vision supported by a set of simple Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s). We are suggesting that some nations prototype the plans ahead of Rio+20 to help others understand what is involved. The general idea of Roadmaps and SDG’s has already picked up a lot of support. We propose that Plans are developed in a co-creation process with civil society and that they are needed at the appropriate levels: global, national, regional and local.

3.    Support and guidance - From Intergovernmental Panels on Resources such as IPCC and IPBES offering science based advice, Solutions Bank of peer reviewed solutions measured against the SDG’s and education and training based on implementing the Vision and SDG’s.

4.    Remove barriers to sustainability - We have also made some specific sectoral proposals to address the barriers which we find are stopping us from implementing one planet living when we are working on it on the ground. These include Proposals on implementing renewable energy, human settlement, circular economies, biodiversity and natural capital, economic and monetary policies and institutional frameworks.
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Signatories

BioRegional submitted the Proposal on behalf of the following organisations who are all implementing one planet living through their businesses or in sustainable communities:

Asani LLC – real estate and green construction www.asanillc.com (USA)

B&Q plc - home improvement and garden retailer www.diy.com (UK) 

BioRegional Development Group (UK) & BioRegional organisations and offices in Australia, Kenya, Mexico, North America and South Africa - social enterprise www.bioregional.com

BioRegional Quintain Ltd - property developer www.bioregional-quintain.com (UK)

China Merchants Property Development Ltd - property developer www.cmpd.cn (China)

Codding Enterprises - real estate, construction and energy www.codding.com (USA)

Cundall Engineering Services www.cundall.com (International)

Imbera Ltd - refrigeration supplier www.alpunto.mx (Mexico)

Kingfisher plc - home improvement retailer www.kingfisher.com (International)

London Borough of Sutton - local authority www.sutton.gov.uk (UK)

Pelicano - property developer www.pelicano.pt (Portugal)

A.G. Spanos - real estate http://agspanos.com (USA)

Stedone Homes - real estate and construction www.stedonehomes.co.za (South Africa)

Windmill Development Group - real estate & green construction www.build-green.com (Canada)


This Proposal is also supported by:

BNIM Design www.bnim.com (USA)

Centre for Environment & Development http://centreforenvironmentdevelopment.blogspot.com (Sri Lanka)

Centre on Sustainable Consumption and Production (CSCP) www.scp-centre.org (Germany)

Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios - architects www.fcbstudios.com (UK)

Foster & Partners - architects www.fosterandpartners.com (UK & International)

GGLO LLC - architecture, interior design, landscape architecture, planning and urban design www.gglo.com (USA)

Global Footprint Network www.footprintnetwork.org (International)

Kema - engineering services www.kemabrasil.com (Brasil)

Mithun - architects, interior designers, landscape architects, urban designers and planners http://mithun.com (USA)

One Earth http://oneearthweb.org (Canada)

Professor Mohan Munasinghe, MIND www.mohanmunasinghe.com (Sri Lanka)

Population and Sustainability Network www.populationandsustainability.org (International)

World Society for the Protection of Animals www.wspa.org.uk (International Federation)

Updated 26.01.2012