The Earth Charter Initiative again came together in a participatory effort to produce a set of recommendations for the Rio+20 Compilation Document. This document will be the framework document that will be debated by states’ parties at next year’s Earth Summit in Rio, also known as Rio+20. The EC Initiative was joined by several hundred other NGOs, tens of intergovernmental bodies and UN agencies, as well as around 40 national governments, which also submitted recommendations to the Compilation Document.
The EC Initiative’s submission calls for a renewed political commitment to urgent sustainable development challenges. The recommendations by the EC Initiative are as follows:
1. Express responsibility to future generations by implementing the precautionary principle and establishing Ombudspersons for Future Generations at global, national and local levels.
2. Create a green economy based on strong sustainability and adopt alternative economic indicators to GDP that include social well-being and ecological integrity.
3. Acknowledge the fundamental importance of shared ethical and spiritual values in making the transition to a sustainable way of life.
4. Adopt a sustainable development goal focused on sustainable production and consumption.
5. Ensure that proposals for a new institutional framework for sustainable development, and related global governance reforms, include a mandate of trusteeship for global common goods on behalf all peoples, the greater community of life, and future generations.
6. Ensure that all have access to quality education for sustainable ways of living.
7. Make Climate Justice a guiding principle in efforts to address global climate change, ensuring that the benefits and burdens associated with climate change are distributed equitably, with special concern for the rights of the poor, indigenous peoples, and other vulnerable peoples.
8. Provide supportive mechanisms for a Just Transition – ensuring the right to sustainable development.
The recommendation document delves more deeply into the background thinking on each of these recommendations. It can be read and downloaded from the UNCSD submissions Web site and in this link.
In addition, the following countries and organizations made recommendations referring to the use of the Earth Charter:
Member States:
- Center for Environmental and Sustainability Education, Florida Gulf Coast University
- Centre for Environment Education
- Civil Chamber of the Russian Federation
- CoNGO Committee on Sustainable Development, NY
- Edmund Rice International
- Global Research Forum on Sustainable Production and Consumption (GRF-SPC)
- Global Universities Partnership for Environment and Sustainability (GUPES)
- Green Cross International
- Grupo de Trabajo Intersectorial de Educación Ambiental (GTIEA)
- Italian National Council of Economy and Labour (CNEL)
- Interfaith Consortium for Ecological Civilization
- International Association for the Advancement of Innovative Approaches to Global Challenges (IAAI)
- International Environment Forum
- International Institute of Monetary Transformation (IIMT)
- International Presentation Association of Sisters
- Jacob Soetendorp Institute for Human Values
- People and Ecosystems Program – World Resources Institute
- Soka Gakkai International
- Stakeholder Forum for a Sustainable Future
- Thamesbank
- The Natural Step
- United Methodist Church – General Board of Church and Society
- Wild Law UK
- World Educators for Sustainable Societies
United Nations and IGOs: