Sustainable North Florida
Discussions with the people building a sustainable future in North Florida
Sustainable North Florida
Sustainable Development Goals with Dr. Jeff Chamberlain
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No poverty. Zero hunger. Gender equality. Clean water and sanitation. These are just a few of the United Nation's 17 sustainable development goals - also known as SDGs.
The SDGs are a blueprint for a more resilient, peaceful, and inclusive feature. Together, they set out a framework to tackle the world's most pressing social, economic and environmental challenges. But they're not just words on paper -they're used to guide actions in academia, government, non-profits and even private businesses.
Climate First Bank is a great local example. If you check out their website, you'll see that their business currently focuses on four of the SDGs:
#7: Affordable and Clean Energy
#11: Sustainable Cities and Communities
#13: Climate Action
#17: Partnerships for the Goals
Today, we're learning how the SDGs came to be with Dr. Jeff Chamberlain. Dr. Chamberlain leads an honors course at UNF, where he teaches his students how to put the SDGs into practice.
RESOURCES:
List of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
2023 SDG Progress Report
CONTACTS:
Dr. Chamberlain's LinkedIn Profile:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-chamberlain-unf/
Understanding Sustainable Development Goals
Speaker 1Welcome to Sustainable North Florida . I'm your host , Lorianne Santamaria .
Speaker 2We all have a part to play , and so we may subscribe to one of these goals more than another of these goals , but they're designed so that they're interlinking . They're designed , in fact , so that if you work on one , you affect others .
Speaker 1These are just a few of the United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goals , also known as SDGs . The SDGs are a blueprint for a more resilient , peaceful and inclusive future . Together , they set out a framework to tackle the world's most pressing social , economic and environmental challenges . But they're not just words on paper . They're used to guide actions in academia , government , nonprofits and even private businesses . Climate First Bank is a great local example . If you check out their website , you'll see that their business currently focuses on four of the SDGs Number seven affordable and clean energy . Number 11 , sustainable cities and communities . Number 13 , climate action and , finally , number 17 , which is partnerships for the goals . Today we're learning how the SDGs came to be with Dr Jeff Chamberlain . Dr Chamberlain leads an honors course at UNF where he teaches his students how to put the SDGs into practice . Here's my conversation with Jeff Dr Chamberlain . Welcome to Sustainable North Florida . Glad to have you on the show today .
Speaker 2Thank you very much . It's a pleasure to be here .
Speaker 1Thank you . So we've asked you here today to discuss the Sustainable Development Goals , or the SDGs , but first I'd like to start with your personal background . Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you became interested in sustainability ?
Speaker 2Sure . So I'm an unlikely candidate for advocating sustainability because I'm a historian of 18th century Tudor Stewart in 18th century England , so a long time before they were concerned about sustainability or climate change or anything like that . In fact , they were more worried in the Elizabethan days of global cooling than they were global warming . So my interest didn't come because of my academic background . My interest came because I started hearing more and more within the academic circles that I was in about issues around the world about climate change happening . And I can remember vividly when I first started teaching back in the early 1990s , asking a chemistry professor friend of mine , you know , was this global warming thing real ? What did he think about this ? And at that time , back then , he said well , you know , about 95% of university science professors really believe there's something going on . We don't know exactly what , we believe it was human cause and that therefore there's an issue .
Speaker 2That certainly swayed me to pay closer attention to the environment . And then I went to another university , grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids , michigan , that was already way ahead in terms of sustainability . They already had a sustainability officer , in fact , when I went there in 2007 and I learned even more there , they were building sustainable buildings . They had determined to reduce their carbon footprint . At that particular point in time we moved into a building that had green roof , rain gardens , all sorts of things , where I learned very practically how to have sustainability in your environment and your built environment , and I just paid more and more attention as I was going along there . So it was kind of an organic development in that time that I became very concerned about issues of sustainability .
Speaker 1When did that concern move you to start getting more involved in a professional capacity and sustainability ?
Speaker 2We had a professor of innovation that worked for us and she had become convinced that one way to make a major difference in the world was to focus a program and she was talking about the Honors Program at Grand Valley . Focus a program around universal sustainable development . So thinking more broadly than just the local environment , the region , the state , even the country , and thinking globally . So that really got me thinking and that was really about the time that I became aware of the UN Sustainable Development Goals .
Speaker 1So what timeframe was this ? What year was that ?
Speaker 2So that would have been about 2015, . Right about as they were being passed .
Speaker 1So that is a great segue . Can you tell us a little bit more about the Sustainable Development Goals ? Maybe let's start with the history .
Speaker 2Yeah , absolutely . And this is a part in which history does have a part to play in my understanding overall , because in fact , the real background , the historical background to the UN SDGs , the UN Sustainable Development Goals , is in fact the Enlightenment , the very movement that gave birth to the United States of America , because it was about human rights ultimately . And so the Enlightenment brought out the idea that there were in fact inalienable rights . Does that sound familiar ? Yes , rights that everybody deserved , everybody should have , and that was really slow to develop in the United States because , as we know , not everybody had those rights or were granted those rights by the government . But the idea was there , the seed was clearly planted in the Enlightenment period , and it's really when you get up to the 20th century that those things develop into much fuller form .
Speaker 2Out of World War II , those ideas of human rights came bubbling right back up again . We had started to see it in the United States in terms of the Great Depression and the efforts of Franklin Delano Roosevelt to bring about as much safety and security for people of all classes , of all backgrounds , and so those things that happened in the New Deal , in essence . So Franklin Roosevelt and the British Premier Churchill had gotten together and they started pulling in others as well that stated , basically universal human rights . Those were then brought together in an organization called the United Nations , which did , in fact , finally take root , and so we now have the United Nations , nearly a hundred years later , and there's , I know , a lot of discussion about the effectiveness of the United Nations , but some of the things that they have , at least advocated have been building on this whole growth of understanding of human rights , and so they had convened various kinds of tribunals , they convened conferences to discuss human rights , and some of the most pivotal or the most pivotal , I should say was the Universal Declaration of Human Rights , which is still kind of the cornerstone of human rights today . And what's absolutely amazing about that is that the vast majority of nations in the world signed on to that document stating that individual humans around the world had human rights .
Speaker 2Now you can debate the context in which those take place , but for the first time , nations around the world were agreeing . They were basically making a common statement on what humans , what every human , deserved . Now there were a couple of projects of the United Nations before the UN Sustainable Development Goals , which came about in 2015 . Notably , the Millennium Development Goals . Millennium Development Goals were well-intentioned desire to raise up developing countries so that they would be competitive in the modern world , and they had some success . They were not as successful , of course , as they had hoped , but those gave way , in 2015 , to the UN Sustainable Development Goals , which now , finally , was not talking just about developing countries , but it was talking about goals that every country should work on to create a more just and sustainable world .
Speaker 1You mentioned that if you go by black and white , were they successful ? For many of the goals that were listed , the answer would be no . But if you look at where we were globally from near 2000 to 2015 , which is the time frame that those millennium development goals covered , we actually did make a lot of progress , and you and I had talked about this before . The rate of poverty has gone down , hiv infections have gone down , so I think it's kind of hard to look at them in a yes or no . Were they successful ? I think we've moved the needle a lot of those measures .
Speaker 2Yeah , sure , absolutely .
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
Speaker 2So the sustainable development goals are intended to basically cover all aspects of human life on earth not just human life , in fact , but the environment that protects life around the whole world . So it starts with zero poverty . The goal is to get to the point where there's no poverty left around the world . So it's a very , again , high minded goal , one that almost everybody can sign on to . Zero hunger we don't want people dying of hunger , we don't want malnutrition around the world Again , something that most people would sign on to .
Speaker 2Getting there , yes , question in terms of the best ways of getting there , but no question , they're lofty , high minded goals . Good health and well being for people around the world , quality education I mean , these are just the first four of these then getting into gender equality , and then economics affordable , clean energy , decent work and economic growth , industry , innovation and infrastructure , the environments we live in , sustainable cities and communities , climate action , life below water , life on land , and peace , justice and strong institutions . So they're very high minded because they basically cover just about every aspect of civilization on earth in order to provide a world in which people can live at peace and live in harmony , live decent lives , with food meaning in their lives , economically , etc .
Speaker 1So the goals themselves , as you're describing them , really seem to be something that people can universally subscribe to , but how are they used in the real world ?
Speaker 2Right . So each of the goals has very , very specific targets underneath of them , and so there's a whole bunch of them . In fact , of the 17 goals , there are roughly 10 targets for each of the goals and then key points underneath each of those as well . So no one organization , no one government , no one institution can actually address all of them . There's just no way , and the idea and this is actually the 17th goal is to find partnerships for the goals . So the idea is not for every person , every government , every organization to be working on every single one of them , but for partnerships to be formed that , in fact , would link up , because they're all designed to be sustainable .
Speaker 2We need an earth that will not fade away , not be destroyed , needs to sustain , it needs to keep going on . And how do we do that ? Well , we all have a piece to play . We all have a part to play , and so we may subscribe to one of these goals more than another of these goals , I certainly have one that I think is pivotal to the others , but they're designed so that they're interlinking . They're not designed to be independent actions , but they're designed , in fact , so that if you work on one , you affect others , and so , ultimately , if we all work on one or two or three , choose the ones we want , then in fact we will be joining up . Even if we don't necessarily have a visible partner , we will be participating in the worldwide goals of making a more sustainable world .
Speaker 1Okay , so the intent isn't that you know me as a person or even as an organization . I should be trying to do all of these 17 different things plus their sub targets , right , it's ? What is it that I'm working on ? What are the few that I can make an impact on ? And then it gives guidance as far as how I can work on those . Dr Chamberlain , we'll get into this in a little bit , but you do teach your honor students about the sustainable development goals , but my guess is that it probably is the first time that a lot of them are hearing about it . I've talked before about how people in other countries are actually more familiar with the sustainable development goals . Can you talk a little bit about that ?
Speaker 2Yes , I certainly can . As you mentioned , my students , when they come to the University of North Florida , don't always know about the UN SDGs . They may have had environmental force in high school , they might have been involved in a green club , an environmental club , but they don't necessarily know about the SDGs . But when they see them they say oh , yeah , yeah , I recognize this and I think this is really important . Other countries seem to be introducing these at a much younger age . What amazed me ? During the time of COVID , when we started thinking about how we could do more international work while we were sequestered inside , while we were in quarantine , we started checking around with different universities around the world and were really surprised at how much they were already doing . Even high school students , or high school age students , were not only making a difference in these areas , but very much aware of the whole schema of the SDGs . So they're really well known . One of the illustrations here so small island nations , for instance . They're on the forefront of climate change and they're small . They don't have a whole lot of resources , so they have to depend on international organizations to make a difference for them . They just don't have the weight to throw around . So by joining in more avidly into something like the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the organizations that support them . They are able to join in a united effort to make a difference .
Speaker 2When I was at Grand Valley State , I have a colleague who works in Nicaragua and I was astonished . I went down there to see what his work was . He was working with students who were trying to think of what innovations would be valuable for their cultures , for their societies , for their environments and man . So many of them had to do with things such as shortages of water , of the fact that their plants were changing in terms of where they would flourish . The coffee plants would not grow as well at lower levels anymore , so they had to move them up hillsides . But I remember vividly one of the innovations that his students came up with was finding a way to collect water from rooftops and other structures so that they could reuse water rather than trying to pump it out of the ground . And all of that harkened back to the fact that they were looking for solutions for this ever-growing climate change issue that they were facing .
Speaker 2I had found some international organizations and we had connected through webinars not webinars , but we called them actually International Student Exchange , virtual Student Exchange during COVID , so we were connecting with them via Zoom and , oh my goodness , did they ever teach us ? But a vivid example is how in Kenya you know , the United States exports a lot of things that it has too much of , including things such as t-shirts and plastic bags , and the plastic bags in some of the developing countries are polluting in incredible ways . We saw , we saw video of landscapes in in Kenya that were just absolutely covered , littered , you know , just ankle deep in plastic bags , and they determine they had to do something to just get the pollution off of the area was not doing anybody any good , and so they were able to actually pass plastic bands in some of their cities and towns . That reduced that waste , that kept people from giving more extra plastic bags than they needed and made a huge difference in terms of the pollution .
Speaker 1Wow , that's really interesting and that's something that's really controversial here , I mean , at least in some cities .
Speaker 2Yep , it is absolutely .
Speaker 1So it seems that for people that live in regions or places in the world where there is a lack of resources , they might be more familiar with the sustainable development goals just out of necessity , but that doesn't mean that it's not applicable here in the US . So can you give us a few examples of where the SDGs either could be helpful , or maybe could have been helpful , in preventing some issues that we have ?
Speaker 2Yeah , absolutely so . One of my favorite . There's a whole bunch that I like a lot , but there's a student I had in one of my classes who loved to serve . He was not quite sure about all of the SDGs . He was not convinced that climate change was a human made problem , but he was a surfer . He wanted clean oceans . He knew that the life under water SDG was important because he needed to have a clean ecosystem , he needed to make sure that the oceans were in good shape , because he wanted clean water to serve , and it made a difference . Everybody again can find something in the SDGs and they all ultimately contribute to the others being fulfilled .
Speaker 2What his group ultimately ended up doing was advocating that beach cleanups and plastic removed from oceans could be recycled and reused . Not in terms of the ways we often think it's going to be recycled , because we know that plastic is recycled much less than we would hope , and especially things such as plastic bags , but there are ways that they can be made into products which are useful and valuable . They particularly came up with an organization or two that they wanted to sponsor and support because they were doing that kind of work and that would make a significant difference and again , it would contribute to the quality of life of all of us . It would help see life , it would make a difference in impacting waste and , instead of taking these things out of the ocean and putting them in a landfill , they had an alternative use for them .
Speaker 1I think having the 17 SDGs and all of the targets and sub targets definitely can feel overwhelming , but I think one advantage of it , as you just mentioned , is the ability to meet people where they're at . Many of the targets might not resonate with them , but if all you need is just one or two and if you can focus on that , then that makes a difference . Right , exactly Well thank you so much .
Speaker 2I appreciate your time . All right , Lorraine , take care , All right take care .
Speaker 1Thanks for joining us today . You'd like to learn more about the UN's Sustainable Development Goals , including a list of each of the goals , as well as data showing how the world is currently measuring up ? Please check our show notes . If you'd like to get in touch with Dr Chamberlain , you could find him on LinkedIn . And finally , our one good thing for today . It's actually 147 million good things . That's the size of a federal grant awarded to the City of Jacksonville , groundwork Jacksonville and JTA to design and develop the Emerald Trail . It's the largest federal grant in the city's history a really big deal . Groundwork Jacksonville is the city's nonprofit partner in creating the 30-mile Emerald Trail and restoring McCoy's Creek and Hogan's Creek . They're focused on environmental equity , resilience and stewardship by transforming a natural and built environment in low resource and climate vulnerable communities . Congratulations to the entire team working on this program .
