Recently I had the pleasure to be on a call with Nik Sekhran, Chief of Profession, Sustainable Development Bureau for Policy and Program Support at the United Nations. Nik talked about how, in 2015, more than 190 world leaders committed to 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) to help eliminate extreme poverty, combat inequality and injustice, and mitigate the impact of climate change. The SDGs represent an expansion and enhancement to the eight Millennium Development Goals the United Nations established in 1990.
These are the 17 Sustainable Development Goals:
Goal 1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere
Goal 2. End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture
Goal 3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all, at all ages
Goal 4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education, and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
Goal 5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
Goal 6. Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all
Goal 7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
Goal 8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent work for all
Goal 9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization, and foster innovation
Goal 10. Reduce inequality within and among countries
Goal 11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
Goal 12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
Goal 13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
Goal 14. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development
Goal 15. Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss
Goal 16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all, and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
Goal 17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development
This video talks about the transition from the 8 MDGs to the 17 SDGs:
I’m pleased to have been working over the past two years on several projects here at Deloittewhere we are helping to address some of these challenges.
Last year, in collaboration with the World Economic Forum‘s New Vision for Agriculture (NVA) initiative, we published Building Partnerships for Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security: A Guide for Country-led Action. This guide offers recommendations on building and strengthening country partnerships in agriculture, based on best practices and lessons learned from 19 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, where partnerships supported by NVA have benefited 9.6 million farmers to date. We are currently in the second phase of this project with WEF, now called the Food Security and Agriculture initiative. Current activity aims to improve food security, environmental sustainability and economic opportunity through scenario planning of possible futures for global food systems. These scenarios will encourage leaders to envision different future pathways, as well as explore diverse future trends and threats, and will help identify strategic action areas which can respond to those futures.
We’ve also been working with the Consumer Goods Forum on the Health & Wellness Report. This annual publication summarizes the progress being made by CGF member companies in the implementation of three resolutions intended to improve the physical, emotional, spiritual, intellectual, and sustainable well-being of consumers, shoppers, employees, their families, and the communities the industry serves. Those resolutions are to (1) improve access to and availability of products and services; (2) provide accurate and complete product information through responsible marketing; and (3) communicate and educate about healthier diets and lifestyles. By 2015, these efforts had impacted nearly 2 billion people in 5,000 communities, and resulted in the reformulation of over 84,000 products.
The video we created to accompany the 2015 report:
The PDF of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development is available for download. You can follow the UN Sustainable Development effort on Twitter at @SustDev
Originally published on LinkedIn on 13 November 2016.