Sand is the world’s most extracted and traded natural resource other than water, and the main ingredient in concrete, asphalt, and glass. The United Nations Environment Programme describes the overuse of sand as "one of the major sustainability challenges of the 21st century". In this Voices conversation, Annabel Short of IHRB’s Built Environment Programme talks with Kiran Pereira of Sand Stories, an organisation dedicated to exploring the human and environmental impacts of sand extraction. Kiran shares why and how industry, governments, and investors need to pay urgent attention to the impacts of sand mining – an overlooked non-renewable resource.
For more information, see www.sandstories.org and UNEP’s report “Sand and Sustainability: Finding new solutions for environmental governance of global sand resources”