What Does Campus Compost Have To Do With The UN Sustainable Development Goals?
By Ishani Dasgupta
I am sure that at some point, you have heard the term Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) or perhaps seen the recognizable image below:
Look familiar? These goals were launched in 2016 by the United Nations so that all countries can take part and work to achieve these missions by 2030. The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon described the SDGs as a “shared vision of humanity and a social contract between the world’s leaders and the people” (United Nations, n.d.).
This shared vision is composed of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (shown above) which were built off of 8 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs sought to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality and empower women, reduce child maternal health, combat HIV/AIDS and other diseases, ensure environmental sustainability, and develop a global partnership for development, all by 2015 (United Nations, n.d.).
However, the MDGs came with mixed participation rates, with different countries inputting varying levels and qualities of infrastructure to achieve the goals. The most substantial criticism they faced was that marginalized groups (such as the poor or those disadvantaged by their sex, age, disability, ethnicity, or location) did not receive any considerable help or change in policy to better their livelihoods (United Nations, n.d.).
This is why in 2016, the SDGs were released with a few noticeable changes; these changes included having more goals on a larger variety of issues, ranging from gender equality to freeing oceans and land from pollution. The updates will hopefully allow those that are marginalized to benefit equally (United Nations, n.d.).
However, and perhaps most crucial to the aspect of zero waste, there is also an assumption posed by these goals that all nations, regardless of their degree of development, should participate in the implementation of these goals, including responsible consumption and production and zero hunger. This is further solidified when the UN states “everyone has a stake and everyone has a contribution to make. Reviews of progress will need to be undertaken regularly in each country, involving civil society, business and representatives of various interest groups” (United Nations, n.d.).
You might be wondering: what do these two goals (responsible consumption and production and zero hunger) have to do with Campus Compost’s advocacy for zero waste? Let’s discuss this one goal at a time!
SDG 2: Zero Hunger
Food insecurity affects over 815 million people globally and over 2 billion people are expected to be undernourished by 2050 (United Nations, n.d.). In this crisis situation, one may ask: what can be done to solve global hunger and (as the UN so greatly concedes) to bring the rate of starvation to zero?
One of the sub goals of this issue is to “ensure sustainable food productions systems” (United Nations, n.d.). Proper food management and zero waste have a lot to do with this.
For example, in developed nations such as Canada, community gardens can be set up in low-income neighbourhoods. This ensures that fresh food is available during the spring and summer seasons and may reduce the cost of groceries for an average household. In fact, the Waterloo region has a list of community gardens and if you are interested in finding local fresh food, you can find a link to their website at the bottom of this article.
Local fresh food decreases our use of transportation and packaging overall and therefore provides us a sustainable lifestyle. This ‘food bank’ is also all natural and can be used for compost needs when the disposed of and be re purposed for the garden itself!
SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production
The UN cites several “plans of implementation” that cover the basis of what ‘reduced consumption and production’ means. This includes the definition provided by the Oslo Symposium in 1994 that defines reducing production and consumption as, but not limited to, “minimizing the use of natural resources and toxic materials as well as the emissions of waste and pollutants over the life cycle of the service of product…” (Oslo Roundtable on Sustainable Production and Consumption., n.d).
This could include looking into more sustainable packaging such as recyclable bottles, reusable containers, or compostable paper products. This way, the product shipping process could adopt a system of shipping flat so that material used for packaging can be easily disposed of (Szporer, 2018) and/or collecting used bottles and containers in order to bring them back to producers to reuse (thus creating a circular economy).
This idea of a circular economy is also touched on when the Oslo Symposium mentions the life cycle of a product. This could indicate a variety of actions taken by businesses or consumer choices. One example is the “buy in” technique where companies encourage their employees to generate ideas for better packaging or get a buy-in from the public so that money might be generated to build on such ideas. Another option is for businesses to choose the right materials that are renewable, compostable, or have the lowest environmental footprint. Subsequently, employees could also put emphasis on the quality of a product rather than the quantity; companies could then be less inclined to spend the lowest amount of money they can making the greatest amount of product, but rather focus on making a product out of the best material in order to make the most profit (Szporer, 2018).
Lastly, the waste aspect of consumption and production is mentioned in the Oslo Symposium. The packaging of a product plays a big role in this aspect of an item’s life cycle. If the packaging is recyclable, it can be repurposed and better yet, if it is compostable (hint hint), it can be used for fertilizing community gardens or local farmland or can just generally be disposed of more efficiently.
What Now?
Now that you have learned about the UN Sustainable Development Goals and their relation to zero waste and compost, we bet you are wondering what you can do with all this information.
This information may be super important in the near future (HINT HINT). Be sure to keep tabs on our Facebook and Instagram for future events and come to our meetings on Tuesdays at 5:30 p.m. in EV3–4408 to stay updated on everything else Campus Compost has to offer!
Local Gardens Where You Live: http://community-gardens.ca/
References
Oslo Roundtable on Sustainable Production and Consumption. “ THE IMPERATIVE OF SUSTAINABLE PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION.” IISD Reporting Services, enb.iisd.org/consume/oslo004.html.
Szporer, Ryan. “A Beginner’s Guide to Sustainable Packaging.” GlobalVision Blog, 17 Aug. 2018, www.globalvisioninc.com/blog/guide-to-sustainable-packaging/.
United Nations. “Sustainable Development Goals Launch in 2016.” United Nations, United Nations, www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2015/12/sustainable-development-g.
United Nations. “Goal 2: Zero Hunger — United Nations Sustainable Development.” United Nations. United Nations, www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/hunger/.
