The Planet and the UN SDGs

The United Nations with unanimous support from all member nations proposed an Agenda in 2015 of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with a target completion of 2030.  These SDGs, each have targets and measurable indicators to indicate performance effectiveness against the goals.  The 17 SDGs can be viewed as a framework of goals to address the needs of 5 P’s – People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace and Partnership.

The needs of the Planet can be viewed through the SDGs of SDG 6 – Clean Water and Sanitation (note that this SDG fits in the Planet chapter but could also fit with the needs of People), SDG 12 – Responsible Consumption and Production, SDG 13 – Climate Action, SDG 14 – Life Below Water, and SDG 15 – Life on Land.

Student teams across 7 institutions studied business innovations sourced from the AIM2Flourish platform (in itself, an appreciative inquiry activity that gathered business innovations and created linkages to SDGs). The business innovations were primarily oriented around the SDGs addressing the needs of the Planet as embodied through the SDGs described in this chapter.  After studying the innovations, the student teams created posters and reflected as a team and through individual reflections on their activity of learning about linkages between the SDG and business innovations, their work as cross-cultural teams and personal overall reflections.  In some cases, students wished to remain anonymous and so their individual reflections and names were with-held at their request.