SDGs: how YOU too can make an impact

Hello everyone! Welcome to the second (first, for me) post of The Curve.

When the quarantine started in Portugal, country where I am living right now, I decided to make profit of the many empty hours. So, I started an interesting course on the Agenda 2030, promoted by ASVIS – Alleanza Italiana per lo Sviluppo Sostenibile - Italian organization focused on Sustainable Development. 

Here the link, if you want to check it out https://asvis.it/.

First of all, a brief recap for who is not too familiar with the topic: the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 25^th September 2015. It describes 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) taking into account all dimensions of human life and aspects of well-being. It deals with education, poverty, hunger, gender equality, climate actions, inequalities, to mention just a few. They can be considered as the outcome that followed the 8 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adopted by UN in the 2000s.

On the one hand, the MDGs helped to increase the economic and political support given from developed countries to developing ones, leading to relevant initiatives against hunger and poverty, mostly. As the 2015 Millennium Development Goals Report states (here's the link to the full report https://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/2015_MDG_Report/pdf/MDG%202015%20rev%20%28July%201%29.pdf), even if some progress has been achieved, it has been achieved unevenly, leaving many people behind. For example, when it comes to goal 7 "ensuring environmental sustainability", 1.9 billion people have gained access to piped drinking water since 1990s but at the same time an estimated 5.2 million hectares of forest were lost in 2010. 

On the other hand, the SDGs don’t focus merely on economic growth but give relevant attention to sustainability, being more ambitious and aiming at specific targets, involving especially the most vulnerable ones. 

A very crucial point is that the strength of the Agenda 2030 lies in an integrated vision of the meaning of sustainability: not only environmental, but also social, economic, institutional. The discussion is centered on the 5 Ps: People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace and Partnership. The SDGs are universal but each country needs to develop its own strategy to make sure the goals will be achieved.

Even if it looks like a recent idea, it was already in 1987, when “Sustainable Development” appeared for the first time: the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) published the Brundtland report, also known as “Our Common Future” describing the concept as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. 

All right, by this time, you might think that it’s just a lot of theory, so what about practice? So far, many improvements have been made following the Agenda 2030 but the truth is, starting from where we arrived in 2020, it looks like it will take way more than 10 years to achieve all the 17 goals.

Anyhow, since I don’t like just to sit and watch, I started to look for what I can do. What can we, common citizens do to help achieve, or at least getting closer to, the goals before 2030? Fortunately, we are not alone in this challenge. 

The UN has developed a very fun app called SDGs in Action (available on App Store and Google Play): by simply downloading it, you can learn more about the goals as well as create or participate to events related to sustainable actions. 

Here’s the link https://sdgsinaction.com/ .

You can be kept up to date thanks to the latest news about sustainable development: what is happening around the world? You can hear about the latest trend, wherever in the world, and start to follow it in your country, spreading the word.

For example, you can join a project in the cosmetic industry, converting wasted cosmetics into new art material for environmental education, in an effort to recycle and upcycle what would just be thrown away. Or you can join the initiative of planting different kinds of flowers to attract bees and other insects (what best than to take care of your garden or the plants on your balcony during COVID-19?).

And if you don’t want to join any event, at least, you can see what others are doing to live more sustainably and take inspirations from their actions! Even during this time, when everyone is bound at home, we need to remember that we can be active agents of sustainability. 

I can tell you many things that you can do from staying at your place, which will not represent any big change for you but an enormous change for the planet and living beings: for example, while doing your shopping online, always choose local options. Now more than ever, the economy is facing a very tough moment so it is important to invest in your national small businesses. At the same time, you’ll help reduce pollution from transports driving far distances. 

SDGs require cooperation among world leaders and their governments, as well as organizations. It seems difficult to think that you can do something as well: but you actually can! The sooner, the better! 

Martina Forbicini

So, which actions are you taking to live more sustainably? Have you tried or are you willing to try the SDGs in action App? 

Let us know in the comments!