All systems and societies naturally develop. However, In
this day and age, development is moving at breakneck speeds, thanks to
advancement in technology. The only problem is that not everyone considers the
downsides that come along with unbalanced economic growth including impacts on
people’s well-being and environment. It’s about time people start to change
their perspective on unbalanced economic development by viewing the world in a
completely different way. What would help people achieve that is setting
sustainable development goals.
Sustainable development is the practice of using
guidelines for environmentally responsible and energy savings to create new
development projects and to maintain and retrofit older projects. It can
include using green materials in new construction, designing projects that
can harvest their own energy to reduce load on a power grid, or that incorporate
green space in order to counterbalance the green space removed to build the
onsite facilities. There is a heavy emphasis on making sure that what is built
can be maintained and repaired in a way that minimizes the degradation of the
original development so that the lifespan of a facility is longer than normal.
Sustainable development involves satisfying the needs
of the present population without endangering the capability of future
population to satisfy its own needs. It’s about improving the well being of
everyone wherever they are and achieving this milestone collectively.
Sustainable development also digs deeper. This means we want companies to
expand, people to have the best jobs, everyone to afford nutritious foods
wherever they live, quality and affordable education for everyone, freedom of
speech without violence, and our economies to grow exponentially. We want
to develop innovative technologies while keeping the environment safe.
Sustainable development is not just about the environment.
Its focus is much broader than that. Its all about meeting the diverse needs of
people in different communities, social cohesion, creating equal opportunity to
ensure a strong and healthy society. Sustainable development also focuses on
finding better ways of doing things without affecting quality of our life.
There are 3 components of sustainable development – economic
growth, environmental stewardship, and social inclusion. Countries are
recognizing the importance of conserving natural resources, people are switching
to cycling instead of driving that will improve their health, farmers are
practicing climate smart agriculture and industries are realizing as to how
much they can save through energy efficiency.
Understanding sustainable development and its goals is the
first step to learning what we can do to make it happen. There are many
initiatives already in place, but still many roadblocks to sustainable
development that have to be overcome.
Goals of
Sustainable Development
There are three primary goals
of sustainable development:
·
To minimize the depletion of natural
resources when creating new developments.
·
To create development that can be maintained and
sustained without causing further harm to the environment.
·
To provide methods for retrofitting existing
developments to make them into environmentally friendly facilities
and projects.
Global organizations such as United Nations, NGOS, aid
organizations and even governments are increasingly sponsoring efforts to
ensure sustainable development goals are realized for every individual across
the board. Some other most important sustainable development goals set by these
bodies include:
Eradication of poverty across the world
These organizations primarily
focus on the least developed and low-income countries where poverty is rife.
They aim to eradicate poverty across the board by expanding social protection
programs like school feeding, cash transfers, targeted food assistance, social
insurance and labor market programs such as skill training, old age pensions,
wage subsidies, unemployment insurance, disability pensions and so on.
Promotion of good health and well being
This sustainable development
goal seeks to ensure good health and well-being for all at each stage of life.
The goal takes into account all the main health priorities such as maternal and
child health, reproductive health, environmental, communicable and non-communicable
diseases, universal health coverage, and access to quality, safe, effective,
and affordable vaccines and medicines. It also advocates for enhanced health
financing, increased research and development, strengthening the capacity of
every country engaged in health risk prevention and management.
Provision of quality education for all
These bodies have realized
that the level of child school dropout is at an all time high. This gap must be
closed to ensure sustainable future development even as international community’s
work to ensure quality and equity in the education sector. In a nutshell, this
goal seeks to ensure equitable and inclusive quality education and promotion of
long life learning opportunities.
Achieving gender equality
In the past few decades,
gender equality and women empowerment have been agendas for most governments
for long-term sustainable development. Access to education for girls has since
improved, the percentage of child marriage has plummeted, and huge leaps have
been taken in the domain of sexual and reproductive health and rights such as
dramatic reduction in maternal health. Although there is still a long way to go
to reach this milestone, organizations are using every ounce of their energy
and throwing in resources to ensure the dream is realized.
Provision of clean water and sanitation
Water and sanitation are on
top of the chart regarding sustainable development. They are critical to the
survival of humans and the planet. This goal aims to address aspects relating
to sanitation, hygiene, drinking water and the quality and sustainability of
water resources across the globe.
Building up strong infrastructure, supporting inclusive and sustainable
industrialization and incubating innovation
This goal takes into account
three aspects of sustainable development: industrialization, infrastructure,
and innovation. Infrastructure is vital because it offers the basic framework
necessary to smooth running of enterprise and society at large.
Industrialization drives up economic development, yield job opportunities,
hence, reducing levels of poverty. Innovation enhances technological abilities
of industrial sectors and triggers the development of innovative skills.
Enabling Access to affordable and clean energy
Energy is the most critical
resource to achieving most of the sustainable development goals. Energy plays a
vital role in mitigating poverty through advancements in industrialization,
education, water supply and health and fighting climate change. This
sustainable development goal focuses on developing and expanding renewable
energy resources such as sun, wind, hydropower, liquid and solid biofuels,
biogas and geothermal. These renewable sources of energy don’t emit greenhouse
gasses to the atmosphere and so are ideal for the environment and human health.
There are other sustainable development goals set by these
bodies including decent jobs and economic growth, sustainable cities and
communities, conservation of sea, ocean and marine resources, combating climate
change, sustainable consumption and production patterns and much more.
How can
we make it Happen?
To make sustainable
development the norm, we have to change the vision of the cultures of each
country. To change the vision of the culture two things have to occur.
·
The culture must value a global benefit more
than a local one.
·
A responsibility towards providing and
sustaining resources for the future must be of more value than profit in the
present must be developed.
Both of these are very hard to do because it requires an
element of self-sacrifice be adopted by the present society. The value of the
future is something that is not held in high esteem when it comes to creating a
profit, or to living with convenience. The general self-focus of each
generation is understandable, but as history has shown in other areas – it can
be expanded to include a sense of responsibility towards futures unknown that
will allow for different choices to me made in the present.
What Prevents Sustainable Development From
Happening?
There are two major issues
that prevent sustainable development from happening. The first is that for many
aspects of development, using sustainable methods and materials is expensive.
While the long-term cost of sustainability does prove to be less expensive that
traditional development, the creation of a sustainable project may be far more
expensive in the first phase. The second major issue is that there is not a
generally accepted need for sustainable development. This is an education issue
that may take many years to resolve.
Contractors and investors cannot see the importance of
sustainable projects when they cost more to initiate. When the goal is to make
money in the short term, it can be very difficult to generate the long-term
vision that is required to understand the importance of sustainability. Towards
this end, there are more government regulations and incentive programs that
have been put into place to make sustainable development a more attractive
option for program and project managers.
Importance of Sustainable Development
Sustainable development is a hard topic to nail down because
it consists of a wide range of things. Due to the technicality and complexity
of this topic, it’s best to check out its importance holistically to be able to
grasp it easily. Population is the main factor driving up sustainable
development campaigns. So, the importance of sustainable development can be
viewed from this perspective:
1. Provides essential human needs
The explosion of population
means people will have to scramble for the limited life essentials like food,
shelter, and water. Adequate provision of these basic needs almost entirely
hinges on infrastructure capable of sustaining them for a long time. If
governments insist on utilizing fossil fuel based sources of energy instead of
renewable and sustainable options, the cost and environmental effects of
supplying these basic needs would become a tall order.
2. Agricultural requirement
Growing population means
agriculture must catch up. Finding ways to feed more than 3 billion people can
be staggering. If same unsustainable cultivation, planting, irrigation,
spraying, and harvesting techniques are utilized in the future, they might
prove to be financially burdening considering fossil fuel resources are
projected to run out. Sustainable development focuses on sustainable
agricultural methods such as effective seeding techniques and crop rotation to
promote high yields while maintaining the integrity of the soil, which produces
food for a large population.
3. Manage climate change
Climate change can be
mitigated by sustainable development practices. Sustainable development
practices seek to reduce the use of fossil-based sources of fuel like oil,
natural gas, and coal. Fossil fuel sources of energy are unsustainable since
they will deplete in the future and are responsible for the emission of
greenhouse gasses.
4. Financial stability
Sustainable development
practices have the ability to create more financially sustainable economies
across the globe. Developing countries that can’t access fossil fuels can
leverage renewable forms of energy to power their economies. From the
development of renewable energy technologies, these countries can create
sustainable jobs as opposed to finite jobs based on fossil fuel technologies.
5. Sustain
Biodiversity
Unsustainable development and
overconsumption practices greatly impact biodiversity. Life ecosystem is
designed in such a way that species depend on one another for survival. For
instance, plants produce oxygen that humans need for respiration. Humans exhale
carbon dioxide that plants need for growth and production. Unsustainable
development practices like emission of greenhouse gasses in the
atmosphere kill many plant species resulting in reduction of atmospheric
oxygen. This is not good for humans. Sustainable development practices
encourage the use of renewable energy resources, and organic farming
practices that do not emit any greenhouse gas to the atmosphere.
Examples of Sustainable Development
Wind Energy
Wind energy is energy
harnessed from the motion of wind using wind turbine or windmills. Wind energy
is renewable, which means it’s never ending and can be used to substitute
energy at the grid. This makes it a good sustainable development practice.
Solar Energy
This is energy harnessed from
the sun using solar panels. It’s advantageous since it’s absolutely free and
its supply is infinite. These factors make it beneficial to consumers and good
for Mother Nature because it doesn’t contribute to emission of greenhouse
gasses.
Green Space
Green spaces are locations
where plants and animals are left to flourish. Parks also fall into the
category of green spaces. Green spaces provide people remarkable opportunity to
take pleasure in outdoor recreation, more so in big cities, where resting space
is hard to come by. Green spaces also help regulate climate and quality of air,
insulates rivers and streams from polluted runoff and lowers energy usage by
dealing with the warming impacts of paved surfaces.
Crop Rotation
Crop rotation is the practice
of planting different crops in the same farm to enhance soil fertility and
assist control diseases and insects. Crop rotation is beneficial in many ways;
most importantly, it’s chemical free. This means using this farming practice
maintains integrity of your soil, making it a sustainable development practice.
In the long run, there will be no debate about sustainable
development. Sustainable development has proven to be cleaner, potentially more
efficient, and is the only way to grow our economies without impacting human
health and environment. Due to world governments putting more emphasis on
sustainable development, more people today are moving towards renewable
sources of energy like solar, wind, hydropower and geothermal.
As more people join this bandwagon, a lot more of the
resources will be required, and this will mean faster depletion of resources.
With time sustainable development will not be an option for individuals wanting
to live a healthy life and lifestyle choices.
Understanding
regulations and incentives
There is a very real necessity
for a change to the regulations and incentives that govern development in order
to make sustainable development the better option to choose. It isn’t really
possible to mandate sustainable development because it could hinder projects
that are necessary for the common good by making them unaffordable to create.
However, by using various tax credits and incentive programs
assigned to different levels of sustainability in a development program, more
of a project can meet the requirements of sustainability. This is a measure
towards creating the choice of whole sustainable development, but it also
allows for the reality of the cost of implementation while delivering options
that won’t impede progress.
Furthermore, Economic, social and environmental problems are
coming together and causing countries to underperform in creating prosperity
for their citizens. To resolve these interconnected challenges means recognizing
that they are complex and multidimensional. And they demand a better
understanding by governments, business and civil society of the contexts and
systems in which they interact.
Finally, In Africa alone, achieving the SDGs can unlock $1.1
trillion of market opportunities and generate up to 85 million jobs by
2030. The private sector operating across Africa is at the forefront of
delivering the 2030 Agenda. At all scales, from multinational to
microenterprise, businesses will be interacting with the issues that the SDGs
set out to build this new type of prosperity. #NoPoverty #ZeroHunger
#GenderEquality #QualityEducation #GoodHealthandWellBeing #ReducedInquality
#SustainableCommunities #ClimateAction #CleanEnergy #DecentWork
#WildlifeConservation #Environment #PeaceBuilding #Partnership
#WaterandSanitation #SDGS
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