Are you familiar with the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals? They were created in 2015 when the United Nations Member States came together to create a blueprint for peace and prosperity for all people and the planet.
It was a call for all countries to do something toward these goals. And it also recognizes that everything is related. We can’t tackle climate change without ending poverty, reducing inequality, and increasing health and education. And vice versa: we can’t focus on those things without making big changes in how we treat our oceans, our land, and other species.
I think that the UN.org website is a tremendous resource. Lining our personal actions up to these goals gives us a great roadmap for making a difference. I’ve highlighted my favorite parts of the website below.
LISTEN TO THE EPISODE:
2 Simple Ideas to Get Started:
1. DOWNLOAD THE ACTNOW APP: from UN.org, this app gives you daily ideas to align behavior and decisions with the UN sustainable development goals
2. READ THE PDF’S: These will give you more background into why the goal was chosen and what we can do to help on that specific goal. (Links in each goal below)
The 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals:
- End poverty in all its forms everywhere
- End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
- Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
- Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
- Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
- Ensure access to water and sanitation for all
- Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy
- Promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth, employment and decent work for all
- Build resilient infrastructure, promote sustainable industrialization and foster innovation
- Reduce inequality within and among countries
- Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
- Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
- Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
- Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources
- Sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation, halt biodiversity loss
- Promote just, peaceful and inclusive societies
- Revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development
UN Sustainable Development Goals for Kids:
The UN.org website has a section called Climate Action Superheroes with adorable “missions” for kids to do to help. They are pdf downloads that you can go through with the children in your life.
Lobbying the government where we live:
I don’t know much about this, but I would really like to learn more. One resource that I found that seems REALLY good is Citizens Climate Lobby. Check out their website to get started on lobbying the government in alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Podcast Transcript:
This episode was transcribed with ai technology from otter.ai. Please excuse any typos or incorrect language.
Brandy Montague 0:00
Welcome to episode number 37 of the For Animals For Earth Podcast, titled, The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, how can they work for us.
Brandy Montague 0:13
Hi there, this is Brandy and you’re listening to the For Animals For Earth podcast. This is a space where we inspire each other, to take small steps every day to live a more conscious life helping the animals and the planet, while we do it. I’m so glad that you’re here, let’s all take a deep breath, and let’s get started.
Brandy Montague 0:38
So the topic for today that I wanted to talk with you about is the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and I’m curious if you are familiar with these goals and how familiar you are with them and how much you’ve seen them in your life. There are 17 of them, and they came out in 2015, when the United Nations member states got together and they created what they call a blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, and I like to throw animals in there as well. So I like to think of it as a blueprint for everything peace and prosperity for everything.
Brandy Montague 1:26
It was a call for all countries to do something within these goals to make a difference, and I just think they were very brilliantly designed because they were made in a way that they can really be approached from so many different places of where one is starting, and whether one be a country or a company or a business or even us as individual people.
Brandy Montague 1:55
So the reason I was curious if you’ve seen the UN sustainable development goals or not is because I’ve, I’ve seen them, you know, over the past five years, either presented as the goals are presented by corporations, you know saying what they’re doing to address the goals. By the way, if you’re not familiar with them. The goals are all things to accomplish by 2030 so basically they were created in 2015 with the goal of reaching them by 2030, and I had not seen as much conversation about addressing them on an individual level, like how we personalize them in our lives. But I was looking more into the website, you know, hear in kind of 2021, and realizing that it’s just really an incredible resource, there’s a ton of information. I’m not going to try to recreate that information for you here I’m putting a link in the show notes in the description so that you can go and peruse and look around for yourself.
Brandy Montague 3:02
But there is just really so much there. So I thought I would tell you a couple of my favorite things, just to get you started if it interests you. So today what I’m going to do is I’m going to quickly tell you what the 17 UN sustainable development goals are, I’m going to do them three at a time so that it is maybe a little bit easier to absorb because you know it’s a lot. And then, what my favorite resources are that they have on their website that you might want to try too. And then five, they share similar ideas on their website as well, and so I’m going to tell you my five favorite so if you don’t have time to dig into what these goals are or anything like that I’m going to tell you five ideas that you could start doing in your life now, that would be contributing toward the UN Sustainable Development Goals. So I hope that sounds good.
Brandy Montague 3:52
Let’s start with what the 17 UN sustainable development goals are. Number one is no poverty. So again we’re thinking about these, these are goals to accomplish by 2030 for the entire world. Okay, number one, no poverty. Number two. Zero Hunger. And number three is good health and well being.
Brandy Montague 4:23
Number four is quality education. Number five, gender equality. And number six, clean water and sanitation.
Brandy Montague 4:36
Seven is affordable and clean energy. Eight is decent work and economic growth, and nine is industry innovation and infrastructure.
Brandy Montague 4:51
10 is reduced inequalities. 11 is sustainable cities and communities. And 12 is responsible consumption and production.
Brandy Montague 5:04
Number 13 Climate Action 14 Life below Water and 15 life on land.
Brandy Montague 5:14
Number 16 is peace, justice, and strong institutions and number 17 is partnerships for the goals.
Brandy Montague 5:23
So these are the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals that were laid out to reach by 2030, and it’s kind of like they set a blueprint for everyone in the world to work towards trying to make things better. And I think, what I guess what I really love about it, is that it is a method that recognizes that everything is linked. We can’t address climate change if we’re not addressing poverty and inequalities in health and education, but we can’t address those things and ignore the fact that we need to do something about the climate and nature right. So that’s, those are the goals, and I think they can be a really great blueprint for us personally, in our lives as well, and the un.org website gives some great resources for that. So again, there’ll be a link in the description.
Brandy Montague 6:23
The first thing that I find really exciting on their website, is what they call an Act Now campaign and then there’s an Act Now app. And the app is really great you guys. The app is designed to give you like prompts you can do it daily, however you want, you know. I look at it daily, and it gives you a prompt for something that you can do at that moment, to make a difference. And it’s, it’s very simple, very actionable. It really aligns very, very closely with the type of things that we offer from For Animals For Earth so maybe that’s why I love it so much! But it’s a great app. You can download it at the link on their website and if you like that, it would give you a daily thing to do to be kind of more aware of just how you as a citizen, are affecting these things on earth.
Brandy Montague 7:20
There’s also a section for kids, which I think is really cool. The climate action superheroes. So that’s kind of fun. They offer resources to help you teach your kids, which I also just think is really cool.
Brandy Montague 7:36
And a lot of their advice, you know, comes down to lobbying the government and that’s something that I am really looking to learn more about. I haven’t done that in my life, and I know that that is one of the most effective ways to make a difference. It’s just something that, that I’m hoping to learn more about. I do know there’s an organization called the Citizens Climate Lobby, and they have really great resources on their website for how to begin to think about lobbying your government officials wherever you live to try to make change.
Brandy Montague 8:17
So that’s one place to go. If you are someone who’s an expert in lobbying the government and you would be willing to come on the For Animals For Earth podcast and teach us about how we could get involved in something like that as individual people, I would really love to have you on. So please reach out, you can email me at hello@ForAnimalsForEarth.com or you can DM me on Instagram @ForAnimalsForEarth. I would really love to have you on and to learn more from you about how we can do that.
Brandy Montague 8:50
So the last thing that I was going to share with you today is five quick, simple ideas that I found on the UN Sustainable Development Goals website. So if you are not going to do anything else, you can just try to work these five things into your life. The first one is five minute showers, so I, I’m definitely curious if this is something that you already tried to work into your life. But you know taking a five minute shower, rather than a 15 minute shower has very obvious benefits to the world.
Brandy Montague 9:25
Number two, bring your own bag. I live in California so it’s it’s state law here that you bring your own bags when you go shopping and I think that’s absolutely amazing, but here in the United States I’ve noticed even when I go to other states that’s not the case. And, you know, I’m sure it’s not possible, everywhere in the world and for every one, but if it’s possible for you. It really does make a huge difference to use reusable bags when you go shopping, and get rid of using plastic bags, so that’s another idea.
Brandy Montague 10:04
The third one is to refill and reuse. So for all of the things that we use for our household products or even coffee mugs, anything like that refill things and reuse them instead of disposable we all know we’re trying to get away from using disposable items.
Brandy Montague 10:22
The fourth is to turn the lights off so you know, I don’t know I think some of us are really good at this and some of us are not so good at it but it obviously helps to use less energy.
Brandy Montague 10:33
And the last one that I really liked from their website is to drive less. Again I know this is not possible for everybody. But if it’s something that’s possible in your life, you can push yourself a little to walk somewhere, whether it’s to run an errand or just to get. Yeah, I don’t know, to walk instead of drive. That’s the goal. If it works in your life, it’s an awesome way to connect with nature and with people and the community around us as well as help the environment.
Brandy Montague 11:04
So those were the five that I liked. There’s a bunch more on their website and that app is just filled with stuff, so I hope you all will check it out. I hope you will reach out to me if the UN Sustainable Development Goals are something that speak to you. And, yeah and if you can come teach me about lobbying the government that would be fabulous as well! All right, thanks guys. I will see you next episode, bye.
Brandy Montague 11:33
I hope you enjoyed today’s show. Thank you so much for tuning in and listening. A couple of quick announcements before I let you go. The first is that it’s April! I’m not sure if you can believe that. I honestly can’t. But we have a new charity of the month, which is The Humane League Japan. So if you’re up for it, you can jump over and follow them on different social media platforms. On Instagram, they are at HumaneLeagueJapan. Maho Uehara, who is a friend of mine from back in my days in Tokyo. She is an incredible animal activist, and she has done so much amazing work with Humane League. She is going to come on the podcast in a couple of weeks so I can’t wait to have that conversation with her and for you all to join in and listen.
Brandy Montague 12:26
My second announcement for you is… if you feel overwhelmed by the whole idea of going and looking up the UN Sustainable Development Goals, you can just join me for our simple five step conscious lifestyle challenge that we have at For Animals For Earth. Through that I walk you through five days of simple challenges that you can try to see what might work in your life moving forward. So, if you want that you can get that at ForAnimalsForEarth.com/lifestylechallenge.
Brandy Montague 13:00
And the last thing is for today’s show notes, all the links that I talked about, all that good stuff, you can find it at ForAnimalsForEarth.com/podcast/37. Okay, see you next week. Bye.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Save to Pinterest for later:
