Sustainable Sanitation and Climate Policy

This perspective article examines the interactions between sanitation and climate change, highlighting the sector's role as a source of greenhouse gas emissions and the need for planning frameworks to integrate climate considerations into sanitation policy and programming.

• Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals for universal access to adequate and equitable sanitation requires expanding services to 2.3 billion people who lack basic sanitation and adapting current systems to climate-driven challenges like water scarcity and flooding.
• The sanitation and wastewater sector contributes significantly to greenhouse gas emissions, primarily through the breakdown of organic matter and the high energy requirements of conventional treatment processes.
• Sanitation services can mitigate negative climate impacts and support climate response through the recovery of energy, plant nutrients, and water.

APA

Stockholm Environment Institute (2020). Sustainable Sanitation and Climate Policy. https://www.sei.org/publications/sustainable-sanitation-climate-policy/

Chicago

Stockholm Environment Institute. Sustainable Sanitation and Climate Policy. 2020. https://www.sei.org/publications/sustainable-sanitation-climate-policy/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Stockholm Environment Institute |title=Sustainable Sanitation and Climate Policy |date=26 May 2020 |url=https://www.sei.org/publications/sustainable-sanitation-climate-policy/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{stockholmenvironmentinstitute2020sustainable, author = {{Stockholm Environment Institute}}, title = {{Sustainable Sanitation and Climate Policy}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2020}, month = may, url = {https://www.sei.org/publications/sustainable-sanitation-climate-policy/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }