The UN Environment Assembly requested the Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme to:
- Support the development and implementation of marine litter action plans (UN Environment Assembly Resolutions 1/6, 2/11 and 3/7);
- Recommend indicators to harmonize monitoring, reporting and assessment methodologies, taking into account key sources of marine litter, including plastic litter and microplastics, in cooperation with relevant international organizations (UNEA Resolution 4/6 para 2c);
In response to these requests, work is ongoing on the development of recommended indicators for marine litter and plastic pollution. Indicators assist in understanding the state of a focal area. They can provide the basis for setting policy targets, as well as measuring policy effectiveness towards environmental and sustainable development targets by illustrating positive and negative trends.
The use of indicators will be instrumental in developing robust datasets and formulating risk models to better understand and predict the leakage of litter into the marine environment, as well as the impacts of plastics and their associated chemicals on all environmental compartments and across their life cycle. To support risk modelling and the adoption of holistic measures within national action plans, indicators should go beyond impact indicators for state of the environment reporting to include metrics that inform policy drivers for pollution reduction, human health and environmental integrity, as well as socio-economic and financial factors, such as protection of ecosystem services, creation of ‘green jobs’ and environmental stewardship, amongst others.
Additional information on the development of recommended indicators for marine litter and plastic pollution will be made available on this page.
