Association of Southeast Asian Nations

The ASEAN State of the Environment Report (SOER) is a regular flagship publication of the ASEAN Senior Officials on Environment (ASOEN) which is periodically published every 3-5 years. The SOERs present a comprehensive review of the state and trends of the environment, the pressures on it and the drivers of those pressures, and the national and...

• The ASEAN region is one of the most biodiverse in the world on land, in freshwater and in the ocean. • Drivers that underlie pressures on biodiversity in AMS include economic incentives that promote consumption and, hence, land-use change. These drivers are challenges to achieving SDGs 14 and 15 on conserving marine and terrestrial biodiversity...

▪ Environmental education (EE) and education for sustainable development (ESD) are needed to develop individuals’ and communities’ capacities through transformative education to build sustainable environments, economies, and societies through reconfiguring the relationship between people, the environment, the economy, and society. ▪ AMS face...

● Many environmental responses tackle the impacts that appear at the end of a long chain of logic, such as premature deaths from air pollution, but they rarely address the underlying “drivers” of change. ● In the ASEAN region, these drivers include economic strategies that are geared towards creating an ASEAN economic community, continued...

• As ASEAN increasingly transitions away from its agrarian traditions and becomes a core part of the global supply chain, improved environmental management of chemicals and waste is imperative. • Manufacturing is now a major contributor to AMS' gross domestic product (GDP) and exports but too many outdated factories in some developing ASEAN...

• In ASEAN’s organizational structure, environmental cooperation is under the ASCC. • Environmental cooperation within ASEAN is overseen by AMME, managed by ASOEN, and implemented through seven Working Groups under the ASOEN, supported by the ASEAN Secretariat. • ASEAN conducts international cooperation on the environment at all levels, from the...

As the nature of environmental issues is constantly changing, the development of the Sixth ASEAN State of the Environment Report (SOER6) is pivotal to equipping the ASEAN Member States (AMS) with up-to-date information on the status and trends of the region’s environment. SOER6 has several new elements. It assesses the progress and contribution...

▪ Remarkable progress has been made to improve access to safe and clean drinking water over the last 20 years; however, water degradation caused by poor sanitation and hygiene services, low water-use efficiency for agriculture, and lack of appropriate domestic wastewater treatment systems are still common challenges observed in many ASEAN Member...

• The drivers of resource consumption are population growth and economic development, leading to unsustainable consumption and production in the ASEAN region. • Increased consumption will lead to higher material extraction and processing. The current model of resource consumption has a linear flow (production→consumption→waste) and will lead to...

• Climate change is already causing serious negative impacts in the region. In the future, extreme weather and sea level rise will cause mounting economic costs in terms of damage to health, infrastructure, and food security. • ASEAN Member States (AMS) have a variety of policies and responses to climate change adaptation and disaster risk...