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United Nations (UN) Sustainability: About: UN Sustainability

Explore our comprehensive subject guide dedicated to the United Nations' sustainability mission and goals. This resource provides valuable insights, essential information, and tools to support your understanding and research on global sustainability effor

What is Sustainability?

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

This Agenda is a plan of action for people, the planet, and prosperity. It also seeks to strengthen universal peace in greater freedom. We recognize that eradicating poverty in all its forms and dimensions, including extreme poverty, is the greatest global challenge and an indispensable requirement for sustainable development.

Dictionary.com. (n.d.). Sustainability. In Dictionary.com. Retrieved September 13, 2024, from https://www.dictionary.com/browse/sustainability

UN Sustainability Mission

  • We are determined to end poverty and hunger, in all their forms and dimensions, and to ensure that all human beings can fulfil their potential in dignity and equality and in a healthy environment.
  • 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.
  • We are determined to ensure that all human beings can enjoy prosperous and fulfilling lives and that economic, social and technological progress occurs in harmony with nature.
  • We are determined to foster peaceful, just and inclusive societies which are free from fear and violence. There can be no sustainable development without peace and no peace without sustainable development.
  • We are determined to mobilize the means required to implement this Agenda through a revitalised Global Partnership for Sustainable Development, based on a spirit of strengthened global solidarity, focussed in particular on the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable and with the participation of all countries, all stakeholders and all people.

United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. (n.d.). Transforming our world: The 2030 agenda for sustainable development. Sustainable Development. https://sdgs.un.org/2030agenda

UN Sustainability Goals

United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. (n.d.). The 17 goals. United Nations. https://sdgs.un.org/goals

Quotes

“We don’t have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world.” - Howard Zinn

American historian, playwright, philosopher, socialist thinker and World War II veteran, Howard Zinn’s quote is another one we like as it inspires us in everyday life. Whether it be on the farm, in our homes, with friends and family or simply being a good citizen - big changes don’t always need big action.

“Plans to protect air and water, wilderness and wildlife are in fact plans to protect man.” - Stewart Udall

This quote from a former congressman for Arizona can help shed light on the true need to protect the planet, for without a healthy ecosystem we truly cannot survive.

“A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.” - Franklin D. Roosevelt

Leading the American people through the Great Depression and serving during World War II, FDR had a lifelong interest in the environment and conservation. During his presidency he increased the National Parks and National Forests schemes, helping grow annual visitors from a little over 3 million to nearly 15.5 million in 1939.

Jersey Girl Organics. (n.d.). 20 insightful and inspiring quotes about sustainability. Jersey Girl Organics. https://www.jerseygirlorganics.co.nz/post/20-insightful-and-inspiring-quotes-about-sustainability

Fun Facts about United Nations and Sustainability

Fun Facts!

  1. 25% of the bottled water you buy is really municipal tap water, so you might as well pass on the plastic bottle.
  2. Agriculture uses up 70% of our global freshwater. It goes up to 90% in fast-developing countries
  3. The US makes up only 5% of the world population, but it throws away enough plastic bottles in a week to encircle the Earth 5 times
  4. On average, ONE supermarket goes through 60,500,000 paper bags per year! Bring a reusable bag instead!
  5. A modern glass bottle takes 4000 years or more to decompose.
  6. The average college student produces 640 pounds of solid waste each year, including 500 disposable cups and 320 pounds of paper.
  7. In the last 170 years, we added 2.4 trillion tons of Carbon Dioxide into our atmosphere. Half of this was added in the last 35 to 50 years.
  8. Transportation and housing make up about 60% of the carbon footprint of US households. This is due to the fuels used for transportation and to heat, cool and power our homes.

Georgetown University. (n.d.). 50 facts for 50 years. Georgetown University Sustainability. https://sustainability.georgetown.edu/50-facts-for-50-years/

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