3 UN Sustainable Development Goals
In 2015 the United Nations (UN) introduced 17 wide ranging globally agreed objectives – Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), aimed at ending poverty, protecting the planet and ensuring prosperity for all. The aim is to achieve these targets by 2030. See Video 3 below.
Transcript: Video 2 UN SDGs. (This video has no narration.)
The video details the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. It begins with the following words appearing on the screen: ‘The world’s best plan’. This sentence is then completed with the words ‘to end poverty’. Those words then disappear and are replaced by ‘to reduce inequalities’. These words then also disappear and are replaced by ‘to tackle climate change’. This sentence is then replaced by the heading ‘The sustainable development goals’ and a collection of tiles listing each of these goals.
Each goal is then introduced individually on the screen, accompanied with an image illustrating the theme of the goal, in the following order:
17 – Partnerships for the goals (depicted by five interlocking circles)
12 – Responsible consumption and production (depicted by an arrow looped into a figure of eight)
8 – Decent work and economic growth (depicted by a bar chart with an arrow trending upwards)
3 – Good health and wellbeing (depicted by a pulse line and heart)
14 – Life below water (depicted by a fish swimming in water)
6 – Clean water and sanitation (depicted by water in a glass)
13 – Climate action (depicted by an eye with the iris and pupil coloured like the surface of the Earth)
15 – Life on land (depicted by a tree and three birds flying above it)
16 – Peace, justice and strong institutions (depicted by a dove with an olive branch and gavel)
7 – Affordable and clean energy (depicted by a power button styled to look like the Sun)
5 – Gender equality (depicted by the male and female gender symbols combined into a single shape)
4 – Quality education (depicted by a book and pencil)
2 – Zero hunger (depicted by a bowl with steam rising from it)
9 – Industry, innovation and infrastructure (depicted by four boxes stacked upon each other)
10 – Reduced inequalities (depicted by an equals sign with arrows pointing in every compass direction)
11 – Sustainable cities and communities (depicted by four buildings of varying heights)
1 – No poverty (depicted by people of different ages holding hands)
The video then ends with an image of a smartphone and the following text appearing on screen: ‘Learn more about the Sustainable Development Goals: un.org/sustainabledevelopment. Download the app: sdgsinaction.com. Follow us: @GlobalGoalsUN on Facebook and Twitter. #GlobalGoals’.
The circular economy approach you saw in Section 2 is in line with the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12, ‘Responsible consumption and production’.
And in the next two sections you’ll be looking at two further UN goals that are of particular relevance to chemists:
- SDG 2, ‘Zero hunger’, and
- SDG 7, ‘Affordable and clean energy’.