Our SDG Story
Part One
Our impact as an organization towards fulfilling the Sustainable Development Goals.
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is a 15-year framework, adopted by all United Nations Member States back in 2015. Across the globe, countries are answering to the call by bringing together expertise across all levels of government, civil society and the private sector.
There’s a reason why, as an environmental network, we put emphasis on the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The SDGs facilitate looking at environmental goals through an intersectional lens which is crucial for positive change to be equitable, effective and permanent.
Yes, it’s important to grow the economy. At the same time, careful consideration must be given to the negative impacts that unbalanced economic growth can have on the environment and people’s health and well being. This is the essence of sustainable development and the SDGs facilitate this exact concept. The goals can be broken down through the pillars of environment, economy and society - outlined below.
Beyond the goals themselves, the SDGs are our best shot at a universal language and measuring system. If we discuss sustainable development using a similar terminology and yardstick for measure, we can find synergies between initiatives and challenges, at home and overseas. It’s also a way to keep track and accountability across sectors and countries.
For the non-profit sector, the SDGs are a way to get organized by getting specific on details. We can look at the intricacies of our organization through a social, economic and environmental lens. In this way, organizations can look beyond direct missions and activities within their sector and towards cross-sectoral effects and those partnerships that lie beneath.
This month, we discussed how RCEN is contributing to specific targets in recent years. With a careful eye, we combed through target by target, piecing together our SDG story.
The story begins by looking at our organization through a birds-eye-view. As an environmental organization, we naturally would have an effect on the biosphere goals. Specifically, our issues based caucuses (Biodiversity, Environmental Planning & Assessment and Health) plus our general operations, should influence Goal 17 Partnership for the Goals, Goal 12 Responsible Production, Goal 15 Life on Land, Goal 14 Life Under Water and Goal 13 Climate Action.
When you dig deeper into the layer of targets, we realized that we’ve had direct influence on targets in several other sectors and this was quite exciting. For example, our Environment and Assessment Agency is working on a consultation involving Gender Based Analysis (GBA+) in Impact Assessment. This means, we are contributing to Goal 5, targets 5.5 and 5.c.
By going through all 169 targets, our influence has the potential to expand across sectors. All these areas have potential for collaborations.
We then carve our way into the next layer - spillover effects. Spillover effects are indirect effects on other targets and require analyzing underlying direct and indirect drivers through governance, institutions, societal changes, and different preferences and values.
Written by Ana Giovanetti, SDG Projects Coordinator
