19 June 2012: The UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD, or Rio+20) Secretariat has reported on the latest submissions of voluntary commitments, which it is compiling in an online compendium on the Rio+20 website. As of 18 June, a total of 377 voluntary commitments have been registered.

Commitments by the UN and other IGOs and by major groups and civil society have continued to increase, rising to 22 and 331 commitments, respectively, while the number of government commitments remains at 24. The private sector, via the UN Global Compact, has made 86 of these new commitments. Examples include: two commitments by Nike, Inc. to slash water use and reject toxins; three commitments by The Procter and Gamble company on sustainability goals for both products and operations; six commitments by GDF Suez to increase renewable energy in the energy mix, implement biodiversity plans, promote gender equity, and mainstream sustainable development criteria in all business development projects; and a $10 billion food security commitment by DuPont on R&D and new product development to enhance nutrition and food and agriculture sustainability, boost food availability and shelf life, and reduce waste.

The Latin American Initiative for Sustainable Transportation (ILATS) announced its commitment to promote sustainable transport through four areas: empowering people, promoting technical development; learning by example; and advocating for sustainable cities. Its empowering people component, for example, aims to develop and promote a more complex understanding of the linkages among environmental conditions, transportation choices and urban form to empower local people to advocate for improved life quality and mobility solutions.

Additional new commitments include the first commitments to the Bonn Challenge, a global commitment to restore 150 million hectares of lost forests and degraded land by 2020. These commitments total 18 million hectares and were announced by the US Department of Agriculture (15 million hectares), the Government of Rwanda (two million hectares) and the Brazilian Mata Atlantic Restoration Pact (one million hectares).

Commitment registration can be done at www.uncsd2012.org/commit. Username/password can be received by emailing uncsd2012@un.org. [Rio+20 Webpage on Voluntary Commitments]