Linking the SDGs  with the

New Urban Agenda

NUA Principals

14. To achieve our vision, we resolve to adopt a New Urban Agenda guided by the following interlinked principles:

• (c) Ensure environmental sustainability by promoting clean energy and sustainable use of land and resources in urban development, by protecting ecosystems and biodiversity, including adopting healthy lifestyles in harmony with nature, by promoting sustainable consumption and production patterns, by building urban resilience, by reducing disaster risks and by mitigating and adapting to climate change.
  

NUA Vision

13. We envisage cities and human settlements that

• (h) Protect, conserve, restore and promote their ecosystems, water, natural habitats and biodiversity, minimize their environmental impact and change to sustainable consumption and production patterns.
  

SDG15: Life on Land

NUA Commitment
63. We recognize that cities and human settlements face unprecedented threats from unsustainable consumption and production patterns, loss of biodiversity, pressure on ecosystems, pollution, natural and human-made disasters, and climate change and its related risks, undermining the efforts to end poverty in all its forms and dimensions and to achieve sustainable development. Given cities’ demographic trends and their central role in the global economy, in the mitigation and adaptation efforts related to climate change, and in the use of resources and ecosystems, the way they are planned, financed, developed, built, governed and managed has a direct impact on sustainability and resilience well beyond urban boundaries.

67. We commit ourselves to promoting the creation and maintenance of well-connected and well-distributed networks of open, multipurpose, safe, inclusive, accessible, green and quality public spaces, to improving the resilience of cities to disasters and climate change, including floods, drought risks and heatwaves, to improving food security and nutrition, physical and mental health, and household and ambient air quality, to reducing noise and promoting attractive and liveable cities, human settlements and urban landscapes and to prioritizing the conservation of endemic species.

68. We commit ourselves to giving particular consideration to urban deltas, coastal areas and other environmentally sensitive areas, highlighting their importance as ecosystems’ providers of significant resources for transport, food security, economic prosperity, ecosystem services and resilience. We commit ourselves to integrating appropriate measures into sustainable urban and territorial planning and development.

69. We commit ourselves to preserving and promoting the ecological and social function of land, including coastal areas that support cities and human settlements, and to fostering ecosystem-based solutions to ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns, so that the ecosystem’s regenerative capacity is not exceeded. We also commit ourselves to promoting sustainable land use, combining urban extensions with adequate densities and compactness to prevent and contain urban sprawl, as well as preventing unnecessary land-use change and the loss of productive land and fragile and important ecosystems.

71. We commit ourselves to strengthening the sustainable management of resources, including land, water (oceans, seas and fresh water), energy, materials, forests and food, with particular attention to the environmentally sound management and minimization of all waste, hazardous chemicals, including air and short-lived climate pollutants, greenhouse gases and noise, and in a way that considers urban-rural linkages, functional supply and value chains vis-à-vis environmental impact and sustainability and that strives to transition to a circular economy while facilitating ecosystem conservation, regeneration, restoration and resilience in the face of new and emerging challenges.