In 2015, 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were globally agreed to replace the Millennium Development Goals. These SDGs, with their 169 targets, are known as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and they reflect the three dimensions of sustainability.
The United Nations Resolution announcing the Goals declares that:
We are determined to protect the planet from degradation, including through sustainable consumption and production, sustainably managing its natural resources and taking urgent action on climate change, so that it can support the needs of the present and future generations.
All of the SDGs have some relation to the environment. This is more obvious in the case of, for example, SDGs 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy), 13 (Climate Action), 14 (Life below Water) and 15 (Life on Land). However, the targets for many of the other goals also mention environmental concerns, illustrating the inseparable and interdependent nature of the three dimensions.
SDG1: End Poverty in all its forms everywhere
Target 5: By 2030, build the resilience of the poor and those in vulnerable situations and reduce their exposure and vulnerability to climate-related extreme events and other economic, social and environmental shocks and disasters
SDG 2: End hunger, achieve food security…
Target 4: By 2030, ensure sustainable food production systems and implement resilient agricultural practices that increase productivity and production, that help maintain ecosystems, that strengthen capacity for adaptation to climate change, extreme weather, drought, flooding and other disasters, and that progressively improve land and soil quality
The Council of Europe is contributing to the implementation of the SDGs with most of its activities and co-operating with UN to support and monitor their realisation in the member states.3
Look at the list of SDGs. How many of these are connected to the environment?
What can children do?
Designing with children
This is a website which aims to inspire design practitioners and build dialogue among people interested in exploring how children’s cultures, capacities and imagination may have an impact upon the design profession, design process and ultimately the built environment. Initiatives from across the world illustrate how adults and children can co-operate to build better places to live, study, and play. For example, in Ljubljana, Slovenia, the renewal of the nursery’s playground Gubčeva was fully initiated by children’s parents, with all children from the nursery actively involved in the process. Teachers became the main actors in the work with children, and they helped to gather the ideas developed by the children. ‘Building workshops’ were organised as lively social events, with whole families joining in to spend an active day out while helping their nursery get a better new look. See examples of projects involving children
In 2019, Greta Thunberg was named Person of the Year by Time magazine for inspiring a global movement against climate change. #FridaysForFuture began in August 2018, when she sat in front of the Swedish parliament every school day for three weeks to protest because of her government’s lack of action on the climate crisis.4 Since then, millions of children, young people and supporting adults around the world have joined her and protested to put pressure on decision makers to live up to their international commitments (e.g. the Paris Agreement) and take appropriate steps within a short period of time in accordance with the most reliable scientific findings. In September 2019, Ms Thunberg, together with another 15 young people from different countries, submitted a complaint to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child claiming that several states had allegedly violated their rights to life, health and culture by causing and perpetuating the climate crisis. A series of events proved that children are eager and able to exercise their right to participation, freedom of assembly and association, educate each other and adults about crucial issues like the climate crises, and that they appreciate the support provided by teachers, principals and parents.
How environmentally aware are the children you work with? Do they know about some of the greatest threats to life on planet Earth? Is Fridays for Future known among the children you work with? What do they think about it?
Look at the list of SDGs. How many of these are connected to the environment?