Why do we want to transform markets?
Transforming markets contribute substantially to WWF’s overall goal of ensuring that by 2020, humanity’s global footprint stabilizes at levels that are sustainable.
© WWF-Canon / Michel GUNTHER
Irrigation of a strawberry field in Spain - an example of the subsidy programme undermining southern markets, and negatively impacting the environment
Growing markets. Limited resources
The growth of our global economy is rapidly consuming our planet´s resources.
Extraction, production and consumption of natural resources - without any limits and faster than they can be replenished - are creating serious consequences for the earth, its biodiversity and the people who depend on it.Millions of hectares of high biodiversity lands have been and are continuing to be converted to produce agricultural goods ranging from livestock to bio-fuels.
As our oceans are emptied of fish, forests shrink, degraded by unsustainable logging practices and rising greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the environmental and social cost of further growth is intensifying.
With forecasts predicting that the human population will grow to around 9 billion and per capita consumption is likely to double over the next 50 years, an incredible challenge lies ahead of us.
Sourcing of Commodities
Increasing pressure on our planet´s natural resources is not just linked to rising global demand for food, fibre and fuel, but also to where and how industries and their global supply chains “source” commodities.Places of immense biodiversity value are vulnerable to the “footprint” exerted by commodity production and consumption of basic commodities that are both renewable (such as timber, crops, livestock and fish) and non-renewable (such as minerals, oil and gas).
For example, the Heart of Borneo is under threat from palm oil and pulp and timber operations. Between 1990 and 2005, Indonesia and Malaysia increased the area of palm oil by nearly 5 million hectares, half of which replaced natural forest.
