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This report provides an overview of the current state of circularity in the electronics value chain in Africa, identifies key areas of concern, provides appropriate recommendations, and proposes priority actions to improve circularity of the sector.The recommendations focus on the individual life cycle stages of the electronics value chain, as well as on aspects that cut across the value chain. The transition towards a more circular electronics sector in Africa would require a holistic, coordinated approach bridging five key areas

A GEF-funded (Global Environment Facility) project on “Global best practices on emerging chemical policy issues of concern under SAICM” was launched in 2019, targeting Sri Lanka amongst other countries. The activities under the project include a focus on tracking and controlling chemicals along the value chains of the building and construction sector. To that end, a team from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) have been working with stakeholders in Sri Lanka on identifying chemicals of concern in the construction material

Chemicals of concern (CoCs) contained in everyday products can have harmful impacts on human health and the environment. While chemical-related impacts can often occur during a product’s use or end-of-life, decisions influencing product ingredients are taken further upstream of the value chain. Action to address CoCs in products thus need to consider the entire value chain and impactful interventions need to be made at upstream stages to protect human health and the environment from chemical pollution. UNEP is working on

This is the summary of the UNEP report on Chemicals of Concern in the Building and Construction Sector.The report aims at providing an overview of the challenge that chemicals of concern pose in the context of products relevant for the building and construction sector. It outlines the relevance and linkages of chemicals of concern with regards to a building life cycle and highlights existing gaps, challenges and opportunities regarding the imperative of increasing circularity in the building and construction sector.The

Technological development has made electrical and electronic equipment (EEE1) essential parts of contemporary life and indispensable products in today’s societies. Information technology (IT) combined with the technological advances in recent decades, has resulted in EEE having a great influence on the daily life of consumers in aspects such as health, safety, knowledge, comfort information, among others. The global consumption of electronics is growing 2.5 million metric tons per year (Forti, Baldé, Kuehr, & Bel, 2020), because technology increases the living

This document has been developed within the framework of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) project ID: 9771 on Global Best Practices on Emerging Chemical Policy Issues of Concern under the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM). This project is funded by the GEF, implemented by UNEP and executed by the SAICM Secretariat.Under the project, UNEP is partnering with Universidad El Bosque to develop a Regional Electronics Study and Circularity Roadmap in the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) Region

WHO launched the first comprehensive publication on e-waste, entitled ‘Children and digital dumpsites: e-waste exposure and child health’. The soaring global popularity of electronic and electrical devices, from computers to cell phones to heavy appliances, combined with ineffective waste management and disposal, is triggering a crisis of e-waste health risks to which millions of children, as well as women of childbearing age, are exposed.Informal processing of e-waste through open burning, heating and acid leaching (using cyanide salt, nitric acid or

This UNEP report aims at providing an overview of the challenge that chemicals of concern pose in the context of products relevant for the building and construction sector. It outlines the relevance and linkages of chemicals of concern with regards to a building life cycle and highlights existing gaps, challenges and opportunities regarding the imperative of increasing circularity in the building and construction sector.