Call for contributions: SDG 4 and 6

Dear all

For this February the call for contributions will be focused on SDGs 4  and 6.

Call is open since July 30 at 12.00.

Send an article of max 800 words, with indicated Author name, affiliation, mail contact to localisingsdg@gmail.com.

SDG 4: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all

[Click on the image for sdg sheet, target and indicators]

 

Education is a fundamental human right and is indispensable for the achievement of sustainable development. We are only able to empower girls, combat climate change, fight inequality and end extreme poverty if all stakeholders, including business, commit themselves to advancing the education goal. While education needs globally are immense, companies can leverage their resources and core competencies to support governments in delivering on their promise of education for all. Strong leadership by business can help unlock the necessary investments to ensure quality learning opportunities for all children and adults.

The business case to invest in education can range from improving brand leadership to developing the capacity of future employees and building a more diverse employee pipeline. Education can help address the mismatch between skills of the available workforce and job vacancies, which is a key problem in many markets. Business can make long-term strategic investments in education that will lead to a larger, more talented pool of future employees. Investing in education can be a source of innovation and facilitate access to new markets.

Education is often a local issue, which will require businesses to work within local education systems and in communities to determine the best utilization of resources. Business should apply best practices to engage responsibly in education, including promoting sustainable development topics in higher education, and support the public sector’s ability to provide inclusive and equitable quality learning opportunities for all.

SDG 6 : Clean Water and Sanitation

Clean, accessible water for all is an essential part of the world we want to live in. There is sufficient fresh water on the planet to achieve this. But due to bad economics or poor infrastructure, every year millions of people, most of them children, die from diseases associated with inadequate water supply, sanitation and hygiene.

Water scarcity, poor water quality and inadequate sanitation negatively impact food security, livelihood choices and educational opportunities for poor families across the world. Drought afflicts some of the world’s poorest countries, worsening hunger and malnutrition. By 2050, at least one in four people is likely to live in a country affected by chronic or recurring shortages of fresh water.

 

 

 

 

SDG compliance and finance as implementative driver

by Domenico Vito, Phd DEIB Politecnico di Milano

report from the intervention of Roberto Ridolfi, Special Adviser on Strategy and Financing Development FAO, “SDGs as drivers of Finance for Sustainable Development @Politecnico di Milano 04/05/2018

Where it comes the need of SDGs?

This simple question has opened the discussion of Roberto Ridolfi, Special Adviser on Strategy and Financing Development on his intervention “SDGs as drivers of Finance for Sustainable Development”.The Sustainable Development goals has been approved in september 2015 by the United Nations.

In the same year the Addis Abbaba Action Agenda and the COP21 had took place making 2015 as an heavy step toward sustanability at an international level.The SDGs has marked – Prof. Ridolfi explained – a strong paradigm shift from the previous UN develepment goals, The Millennium Development Goals.With the SDGs the vision changes from charity to development. The SDGs represents the “future of humanity” – Ridolfi undelines – and their objective is to push toward long term and inner feeding investment, that foster actions rather economic dependency from international aid. The SDGs have been written by nation, for nations in order to reach civil society, entrepeneurs, NGO ad public actors and involve them in achive peace, prosperity and justice for all.To be effective the SDGs have to be declined to the civil society level: this enclosed in the open problem of the compliance of the SDGs.

How to reach a capillary level?

The structure of SDGs and their difference compared to MDGs is that the push the economic actors to act: the message is that development in the direction of SDGs can be good to attract businesses for the societal common development.

Currently the framework of the SDGs is composed by 17 goals, 117 target and 241 indicators.

Figure 1. Each goal is organized in targets and subtargets monitored by indicators

Indicators are though to be the backbone, for monitoring the progress towards the SDGs at the local, national, regional,and global levels.

A sound indicator framework will turn the SDGs and their targets into a management tool to help countries develop implementation strategies and allocate resources accordingly, as well as a report card to measure progress towards sustainable development and help ensure the accountability of all stakeholders for achieving the SDGs[2]. 

The indicators are universal, sustainable and ambitious in order to reach the goals by 2030.

Figure 2. Different Levels of SDG monitoring

 

In such a framework SDGs became a strong tecnical matter where measurement and monitoring of the impact of SDGs has a strong role. Indicators can monitor also actions indeed investments and policies, In the SDG discourse, finance has great importance to reach the compliance: finance leverages project. actions and policies that can traduce SDGs on the ground. 

However investments on SDGs are nowaday not still so attractive, as they are long term rewarding and thus not so profitable in a short run.

Financial incentives and finance engineer actions are needed in to mainstream SDGs in the economy: one example is blending the investment with public finance.

Usually mutual funds are classified by their investment style, meaning growth or value, but they are also classified by their market capitalization, also known as “market cap,” which is the size of a business or corporation equal to the share price times the number of outstanding shares. Mutual funds are generally categorized as large-cap, mid-cap, or small-cap. Next comes the growth, value or blend descriptor.

For example a large blend fund would be one that primarily invests in a blend of growth and value stocks that are large in by capitalization (or simply “large-cap stocks”).  A blend fund is a type of equity mutual fund that includes a mix of value and growth stocks. These funds offer investors diversification among value and growth investments in a single portfolio. Finance strategies need to be coupled to certification procedures.

SDG compliance can be induced if it is convenient in terms of image, brend and reputation, Certified label as ISO should drive this process. This mechanism has been worked as instance for child labour exploitation with big companies.  The concet will be: bad reputation given by the unreception of SDGs reflects on loss of markets. Indeed economic actors are encouraged to follow SDG compliance.Beside finance, also access to information and measurement methodology are crucial for the implementation of the SDG. For, example – Roberto explains – FAO is custodian of some incators.  Custodians in the SDGs framework are responsible to monitor and upgrade the indicators: they manage the “science behind the indicators”.

Every 4 month indeed the United Nations Statistical Commission updates and refine the set of indicators.

Figure 3. Indicators as part of a Statistical Structure

 

To Achieve SDGs is necessary to have them compliant at the all scales, and big data and statistic has a strong role. On this vision indicators, became part of a statistical infrastructure (Fig.3) for monitor SDGs progress.

However not always data for indicators are available,and furthermore there is not yet full consensus on indicators measurement methodologies.

By the type of methology and the availability of measurement data, SDG indicators can be distinguished in three categories

	Data	Methodology
Category 1	Data available	Methodology Agreed
Category 2	Data not available	No Methodology Agreed
Category 3	Data not available	No Methodology Agreed

In conclusion, SDG compliance is for prosperity, and their are a real action on reality. Indicators reduce the complexity of reality in a measurable way, and SDG compliance can be facilitated by tools for the actor, that helps their management and monitoring

References:

1. https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/index.php?page=view&type=400&nr=2013&menu=35

2. https://www.gim-international.com/content/article/the-sdgs-indicator-framework-2?output=pdf

3. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/blendfund.asp#ixzz5G2SkFqUZ

4. http://www.fao.org/3/a-i6919e.pdf

 

SDG11 – Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable

by Sara Ganassali, PhD Candidate. Department ABC, Politecnico di Milano, Italy

Our cities are growing and about 54% of world’s population live in urban settlements, and it has been estimated that 5 billion people will live in cities until 2030. We are attending to a rapid global urbanization that causes big challenges, in which are included:

• • the increase of pollution substances in air, water and soil;
  • the growth of slum dwellers, in the poorest world’s countries, and the born of unplanned urban sprawl in the big metropolitan area
  • the increase of inadequate basic services and infrastructure management, linked to the uncontrolled growth of urban settlements

Moreover, all these factors are making cities more vulnerable to disasters and people more vulnerable in risk situations.
The United Nations (UN) develop global indicators with shared general agreements and targets, which have to be reached until the 2030. The Nations have committed themselves to provide new plans to reached the targets considering to ensury: access for all to adequate, safe and affordable housing, transport systems, natural and cultural heritage (combining public and private funding), with a reduction of death linked to pollution, inefficient medical assistance and natural disasters.

Better urban planning and management are needed to make the urban spaces more, inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. We can analyses the four adjectives used in the SDG’s title to define the ideal human settlements and try to understand what they mean.

When a city is inclusive? It is inclusive when the urban dwellers have equal rights, especially the disadvantaged groups. The inclusive city shall ensure a collective well-being and adequate standard of living to its inhabitants, achieving a direct democratic participation of society in urban planning. The equal management of city brings to a new collective urban property, characterized by shared goods and accessible spaces for all, by sex, age, disabilities and cultural context. Maybe, we still need cultural, social and political processes able to create the basis of these urban rights and guarantee the promotion of equal urban policies.

When a city is safe? It is safe when the urban spaces are accessible for all, thanks to an efficient transport system and the existence of multifunctional activities. The lack of security can be caused by poverty, an inhospitable urban context, inaccessible public spaces, different cultural groups perceived by other citizens as potentially dangerous, etc. More efforts in urban planning and management can solve those problems, providing inclusive green and public spaces and promoting inclusive education and training.

When a city is resilient? Cities and urban dwellers are resilient when they are heterogeneous organized systems able to survive and evolve under conditions of stress and danger. Local governments shall adopt the risk reduction strategies, in order to integrate and implementing the holistic disaster management at all levels. Furthermore, the resilience concept shall be included in buildings, whose design requires more technical and sustainable principles, such as houses with flexible constructive solutions, which can change adapting to different conditions in the long- or short-term.

When a city is sustainable? It is sustainable when the urban planning reached environmental targets planned to reduce the environmental impacts caused by man activities and lifestyle. The urban settlements actively contributes to emissions production at worldwide level and the UN Member States need to take into account the different levels of national development, in order to stimulate new and inclusive green areas with biodiversity, public and sustainable transports, resource efficiency policies, resource-efficient buildings, renewable energy consumption, waste management and water preservation.

The cities represent the hub of human progress in science, economy, technology and health and their protection shall be our priority. But remember: the targets described above do not affect only specific stakeholders, because we are the main city’s actors. We need to know which kind of problems afflict our city and our country and we have the duty to ask more sustainable development challenges.

M’illumino di meno

LocalisingSDG supports “M’illumino di meno” the initiative from Caterpillar, promoted also by Politecnico di Milano

M’illumino di meno

 

Call for contributions: SDG 7 and 10

Dear all

For this February the call for contributions will be focused on SDGs 7 and 10.

Call is open since March 1st at 12.00.

Send an article of max 800 words, with indicated Author name, affiliation, mail contact to localisingsdg@gmail.com.

SDG 7: Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all

[Click on the image for sdg sheet, target and indicators]

Modern society depends on reliable and affordable energy services to function smoothly and to develop equitably. A well-established energy system supports all sectors from medicine and education to agriculture, infrastructure, communications and high-technology. Intensive development patterns have historically relied on inexpensive and energy-dense fossil fuels, which also happen to be the primary source of greenhouse gas emissions contributing to climate change. However, new, clean technologies are available that can reorient development along a more sustainable trajectory.

Business can accelerate the transition to an affordable, reliable and sustainable energy system by investing in renewable energy resources, prioritizing energy efficient practices, and adopting clean energy technologies and infrastructure. Also, with investment in R&D, businesses can innovate and pioneer new technologies that change the status quo of the global energy system, becoming the center of climate change solutions.

SDG 10: Reduce inequality within and among countries

Modern society depends on reliable and affordable energy services to function smoothly and to develop equitably. A well-established energy system supports all sectors from medicine and education to agriculture, infrastructure, communications and high-technology. Intensive development patterns have historically relied on inexpensive and energy-dense fossil fuels, which also happen to be the primary source of greenhouse gas emissions contributing to climate change. However, new, clean technologies are available that can reorient development along a more sustainable trajectory.

Inequalities in income and wealth are severe and have been widening globally. The richest 1% of the world’s population now control up to 40% of global assets, while the poorest half owns just one per cent. Income equality between countries is higher than that within a large majority of countries, such that individual incomes are still largely associated with a person’s citizenship and location. Wide and often mutually reinforcing disparities are also evident within countries, including disparity in terms of: rural/urban disparities, household wealth, gender, ethnic minorities and indigenous people, migrant status, and disability.

Peace, justice and strong institutions

INSTITUTIONS .. SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS

by Yahya Shaker Politecnico di Milano, Italy

There is a paradox in the discourse about peace, justice and strong institutions—and what do we exactly mean by institutions? We’re probably thinking in a direct and spontaneous way about “Formal Institutions”, Governmental Entities, for instance. But, what about informal institutions?
Institutions are “stable, valued, recurring patterns of behavior”. The term “institution” is generally adopted to both informal institutions as customs—behavior patterns important to a certain society that, through time, become communally recognized customary law. At the heart of this social formulation resurgence, some particular formal institutions are being created by entities such as governments and public bodies which should have been formed based on informal ones in a democratic society.

Informal institutions have played a core role in the development of human societies, until the moment when some individuals started to gain more social, political, and economic power that stands sometime on “demagogue,” and started to shape formally recognized institutions based on biased morals; the beginning of a long-lasting era of a power-based relationship between the ruler and the ruled—In other words, between who had the power to form norms, laws and rules and who has to conform to these formal rules. Informal institutional communities have been socially based on Customary laws which can be generally defined as the traditional law of indigenous people, generally oral, sometimes narrative or based on established performative practice, including local language, architectural styles, customs, ornaments, music, food and dances, rather than in written codes or principles. Starting from this definition, it can be clear that the law needs to be place-based and specific to certain community with a dynamic change custom and in a way, should be adaptable not only to traditional patterns but as well for future paradigmatic shifts in the needs and behaviors as the actions of the members of any community is always influenced by the social, political, economic and cultural backgrounds of this society. In Another reading by Stefano Moroni in his paper on the (Planning, liberty and the rule of law,2007) where tackled some fundamental factors for understanding the rule of law and dragged the importance on that laws satisfy not only the traditional requirements, but also impartiality and stability. That, he tried to explain that the law should apply equally to all through producing abstract and general rules long term rules that covers general situations and actions.

Looking for Contributors

 We want you!!

Locasing SDG@polimi is calling for contributors and writers!!!

Localing SDG@polimi is an initiative starting for SDG_0 lab in order to decline the Sustainable Development Goals on the Polimi campus.

We want to create a community of students (Bachelors, Masters and PhD)  professors at Polimi, that can talk write and decline SDGs in their daily Polimi life.

Let’s Join us!! 

Get Involved!

We want to make events, debates, to initiative make SDGs happen at PoliMI!!

Send Us a brief description of in 30 rows of your experience and skills  and a brief text of 30 rows on your thoughs on and why are you interested in SDGs. 

For more info write us at localisingsdgs@gmail.com

Name(obbligatorio)

Surname(obbligatorio)

E-mail

Department

Faculty

Your Experiences and Skills

Your Ideas and Thoughs on SDGs

Invia

Δ

 

Climathon 2017

Oct 28th- It has been ended the Milan edition of Climathon, the 24-hour hackathon for students, researchers and entrepreneurs on climate change organized at Politecnico di Milano, was completed on Saturday 28 October by the Innovation Hub in Lomazzo, ComoNExT, in collaboration with the Chamber of Commerce. Climathon, organized by Climate -KIC, the largest European mitigation and adaptation climate change partnership, was held simultaneously in 111 cities in 44 countries around the world. In Italy, he is a helper in 17 cities, each devoted to a different specific theme but always focused on the defense of the Earth ecosystem. The theme chosen for Milan was energy, which was divided into three areas of action: Open data and energy, From smart building to learning building and Supporting citizens in improving energy efficiency. Groups of students, researchers and entrepreneurs have come to play to develop new ideas and solutions on the subject.

At the end of hackathon, the winning projects were selected by a technical jury formed by:

Gabriele Migliavacca – InnovHub

·       Paola Carrara – CNR IREA

·       Claudio Del Pero – PoliMi

·       Eugenio Morello – PoliMi

·       Stefano Soliano – ComoNExT

·       Lucia De Strasser – Fondazione ENI Enrico Mattei

The 65 student students, all aged between 20 and 24, males and females, were divided into working groups and could develop their ideas. The first place was awarded the SaveMi Group with the UseLess project. The project focuses on encouraging the population to adopt functional energy saving behaviors, including through the adoption of smart meters and feedback on the behavior already in the bill that the user receives.

To follow on equal merit:

Smith Group – GreenME Project – GreenMe is an app to monitor and compare CO2 emissions from homes by integrating smart meter data. The user gives feedback on his behavior and suggestions to improve it.

Group M.URB.MET – Urban Metabolism Network – The project focuses on a platform that, among other functions, wants to connect residences to foreign students of universities, encouraging behavioral monitoring of students’ energy consumption.

SDGs_lab @ POLIMI – FALL 2017

On September 28th, the SDGs_lab@POLIMI – FALL 2017 has taken place

Here the program:  1709_SDGlab_Programma evento

After the first part as introduction of the 5Ps of Sustainable Development – People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace and Partnerships – and examples of applications of the SDGs at different scales, the working sessions on different topics through the World Cafe modality,  has offered the possibility for student, professors and university staff to elaborate how  to tackle different challenges related to the SDGs on campus.

Cluster1# SDG11 – Sustainable Buildings

During the SDGs_Lab # 2 \ World Cafe Clusters at the Cluster 1: SDG11 19th Sustainable Built Environment Conference (SBE19), Professor Daniotti first presented the event to the Politecnico in 2019 and subsequently collected the student’s views on their possible involvement in this conference that wants to open up to the entire polytechnic community. We have discussed whether participation in a scientific conference could be interesting and attractive to our students and possibly in what ways. We hypothesized workshops, think tanks, short talks on the TED talks model, theses exhibits, collateral events and thesis prizes. The theme of prestige has seemed important, though the most point of interest for students is to get in touch with industry experts in view of their future professional, for example having the opportunity to present their work and skills acquired, or activate internships at large professional studios. We then discussed the definition of the borders of the Mediterranean area as a reference basin for the conference, also thanks to the presence of many international students present at the table: is this a purely geographical and / or climatic matter? and even while within a Mediterranean geographical area, how do you distinguish between the different capacities, including economic, social and cultural, to address sustainability?

Cluster 2# SDG 13 – Mapping Health, Wellbeing & Sport on Campus

Human beings are at the centre of concerns for Sustainable Development (SD): its goals cannot be achieved when there is a high prevalence of debilitating and preventable – especially noncommunicable, chronic – diseases.

A healthy and productive life in harmony with SD goals can be reached by balancing Lifestyle, through a primordial prevention based on the promotion of healthy behaviors and eventually the reduction of risk factors.

 

 

Prevention is mainly based on the perfect interplay between a healthy diet, physical activity, stop smoking and substance abuse, and stress management; its global promotion should clearly start from an individual level, passing through effective intervention models at a community/university level.A pilot project has already started, from a collaboration between Unimi and Polimi, for Mapping & Managing Students’ Health: the first step will be the assessment of campus students’ lifestyle, through the compilation of an anonymous web questionnaire, in order to plan target educational programs and possible future interventions.

 

 

Questo slideshow richiede JavaScript.

Cluster 3# SDG9 & SDG11 Sustainable mobility initiatives

During the SDGs_Lab # 2 \ World Cafe Clusters at Cluster 2: SDG9 & SDG11 \ Sustainable mobility initiatives, the Politecnico is doing what it is doing to encourage a more sustainable mobility of its population.
Telling the projects and initiatives that the university is pursuing through collaborations with the City of Milan, with external companies and with other universities that are part of the RUS – Network of Universities for Sustainable Development; and highlighting how the theme of mobility is a cross-topic to all the other clusters present in the day.

Cluster 4# SDG13 & SDG11 \ Pre-Climathon organization

During the table the Climathon initiative has been presented, with the experiences of the previous participants and the collection of ideas for the new edition. The topic of Climathon 2017 has been exposed and discussed with the participant in order to add new ideas and proposal for the organization.

.

 

Localizing SDG – Co-Change Ideas Area

After the event of the past July, we inaugurate Localizing SDG – Co-Change Ideas Area.

Here some of the presentation of the groups of YouthInAction4SDGs

We encourage students and professors to comment, share and give ideas  and suggestions on the presentations  we had  in our event on the comment space below.

1. Yo- Craft: di Luca Macrì

//e.issuu.com/embed.html#31032452/52965358

 

 

1. Cooperazione: di Darlain Elieme

//e.issuu.com/embed.html#31032452/53106026