The Nitrogen Fix: From Nitrogen Cycle Pollution to Nitrogen Circular Economy

The UNEP 2014 Year Book highlighted the importance of excess reactive nitrogen in the environment.1 Its conclusions are alarming. This is not just because of the magnitude and complexity of nitrogen pollution, but also because so little progress has been made in reducing it.

Few of the solutions identified have been scaled up, while the world continues to pump out nitrogen pollution that contributes significantly to declines in air quality, deterioration of terrestrial and aquatic environments, exacerbation of climate change, and depletion of the ozone layer.2-10.

These impacts hinder progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals as they affect human health, resource management, livelihoods and economies. Yet there are signs of hope.

The past four years have seen a transformation in approaches to managing nitrogen pollution. These include new thinking for both consumption and production in order to seriously address the nitrogen problem