NEWS

  • Featured Project: Eliminating Mercury Skin Lightening Product
    Inorganic mercury is a common ingredient found in skin lightening products (SLPs). SLPs come in different forms, including creams and soaps. BRI is collaborating with the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Health Organization to help eliminate the use of all skin lightening products. Learn more here.
  • Upcoming Event: Minamata Convention on Mercury (COP-6)
    The sixth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Minamata Convention on Mercury (COP-6) will take place in Geneva, Switzerland, from 3 to 7 November 2025.

Advancing the Minamata Convention

The World Environment Situation Room (WESR)
WESR provides an online platform allowing access to the most current environmental data, information, and knowledge to support decision making, policy, and action at the global, regional, national, and local levels for sustainable development and national planning needs. BRI’s Global Biota Mercury Synthesis database will be featured on this platform when it launches!
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Global Mercury Partnership
The UN Environment Programme’s Global Mercury Partnership (GMP) has identified eight priorities for action, or partnership areas, and established an advisory group for each. BRI is a co-chair for the Mercury Air Transport & Fate Research partnership area. BRI hosts an internal page for partnership members to find reports, upcoming events, and other information here.

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Regional Mercury Monitoring Networks
Laboratory networks for mercury and other contaminant analyses in regional hubs throughout the world, especially in mercury hotspots, will provide important information for the assessment of risk, both to humans and wildlife, in these environments.

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Mercury Initial Assessments and Mercury Inventories
BRI worked with more than 40 countries to develop a standardized, comprehensive national inventory identifying and quantifying sources of mercury releases. To help guide countries through the MIA process, UNEP created a Toolkit for Identification and Quantification of Mercury Releases.

Advancing the Convention on Biological Diversity

The UN’s development of the Global Biodiversity Framework creates a distinct area of overlap between the Minamata Convention on Mercury and the Convention on Biological Diversity.

Impacts of Mercury on Biodiversity
BRI’s work on the impacts of mercury on biodiversity provides a platform for collaboration between the two Conventions.

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