Gwen White, Author at Sustainability Within Reach

CDP, Cities, Cities and sustainability reporting, Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), ISO 37120, Sustainability

Resilient Cities Conference 2018 #2

May 29, 2018May 29, 2018 Gwen White

It was my pleasure to make this presentation on how the City of Bloomington, Indiana tracks its progress on resilience and sustainability during the session entitled Measuring urban resilience and evaluating impacts at the Resilient Cities Conference 2018.

Measuring urban resilience and evaluating impacts

I represented the City of Bloomington at the Resilient Cities Conference 2018 in Bonn, Germany in my role as Chair of the City of Bloomington Commission on Sustainability. The commission has as part of its mission to measure, monitor, and report on the community’s progress toward sustainability.

See my slide presentation and comments below.

This slide represents a list of reporting frameworks that all cities could use to report on their sustainability progress.

The city prepared its first Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Sustainability Report in 2012. You can access Bloomington’s full GRI report here.

Bloomington was involved in the STAR Community Index Leading Indicators Program.

You can read about how Bloomington reduced its GHG emissions in its latest GHG inventory here.

As the City of Bloomington considers its long range plan for land use and development, it completed its 2018 Comprehensive Plan. The plan is a set of goals, policies, maps, illustrations, and implementation strategies that state how the City of Bloomington should address development: physically, socially, and economically.

The city is engaged currently in preparing a Sustainability Action Plan, which will address transportation, energy, food, and the built environment.

In an earlier blog post, I discussed how ISO 37120 Sustainable development of communities — Indicators for city services and quality of life would be useful to a city.

As we look at our next steps in reporting, there are numerous things to do to monitor the city’s progress. The metrics set out in the Comprehensive Plan and the Sustainability Action Plan will provide information about how well the city is adhering to its plans. In addition, other standardized reporting frameworks can be used to monitor Bloomington’s progress in its sustainable development.

To help understand all of our metrics, I recommend that a summary of all the reports be prepared to get a picture of what the city is doing. A summary report should be written each year to determine our strengths, weaknesses, and progress. This report could be presented to the City Council and Mayor as part of a formal annual reporting by the Commission on Sustainability.

Cities, Cities and sustainability reporting, Sustainability

Resilient Cities Conference 2018

May 15, 2018May 15, 2018 Gwen White

I just returned from the Resilient Cities Conference 2018 where I was invited to make two presentations. I represented the City of Bloomington, Indiana in my role as Chair of the City of Bloomington Commission on Sustainability. This conference is held annually in Bonn, Germany.

Started in 2010, the Resilient Cities Conference was conceived as a way to connect local government leaders and climate change adaptation experts. The goal was to create discussion about adaptation challenges facing urban environments and to encourage partnerships that could benefit cities.

What is a resilient city?

“A ‘Resilient City’ is prepared to absorb and recover from any shock or stress while maintaining its essential functions, structures, and identity as well as adapting and thriving in the face of continual change. Building resilience requires identifying and assessing hazard risks, reducing vulnerability and exposure, and lastly, increasing resistance, adaptive capacity, and emergency preparedness.”

The Resilient Cities Conference 2018 featured speakers from all over the globe, which included Australia, North, Central, and South America, Europe, Africa, Pacific Islands, and Asia. I was one of three U.S. city/state representatives. The program was packed with sessions about challenges and strategies for cities as they adapt to climate change.

The First Plenary set the tone for the need for action with speakers from the UN, ICLEI, City of Bonn, and experts on climate adaptation. Ashok Sridharan, the Mayor of Bonn, welcomed us all.

Ashok Sridharan, Mayor, City of Bonn, Germany

Speakers and attendees at first Plenary Session

Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)

I was invited to the Mayors Lunch.

At the Mayors Lunch, we were given Rubik’s cubes to symbolize how one’s perception of progress can be deceptive. In trying to solving the puzzle, although progress may be occurring, things often look much worse before they look better.

In addition, I was invited to the Talanoa Dialogue and Dinner.

“This year’s conference has been confirmed as a Talanoa Dialogue. Talanoa is a traditional word used in Fiji to describe an inclusive and transparent dialogue and decision-making process. The Talanoa Dialogue was launched by the COP23 Presidency of Fiji and is designed to take stock of and strengthen national climate plans known as Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs. In order to keep global temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius, greater ambition and more effective implementation involving all levels of government is critical.”

Talanoa Dialogue and Dinner at Town Hall, Bonn

Great conversations occurred between the sessions.

Gwen White and Anthony Socci, Sr. Lead on International Resilience and Adaptation Policy at U. S. Environmental Protection Agency

Monika Zimmermann, Deputy Secretary General, ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability and Sunandan Tiwari, Senior Program Manager, Global Projects, ICLEI World Secretariat, Bonn, Germany

Steve Gawler, Regional Director, ICLEI Oceania, Melbourne, Australia, Geoffrey Rutledge, Deputy Director-General, Sustainability and the Built Environment, Australian Capital Territory Government, Canberra, Australia, Stephanie Ziersch, Director, Communities and Climate Change, Sustainability Victoria, Melbourne, Australia, and Gwen White

It was a great conference that I hope to attend in the future. In my next posts, I will talk about my two presentations at the Resilient Cities Conference 2018.

SDGs, Sustainability, Sustainable Development Goals

SDG Recap of all the SDGs

April 16, 2018 Gwen White

This post, SDG Recap, is a summary of all the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that are in my previous posts on the SDGs.

United Nations Sustainable Development Goals — SDG Recap of all the goals is part of SWR’s support for the SDGs.

The Sustainable Development Goals contain 17 goals and 169 targets. At this point, an SDG Recap seems in order. There is a great deal to remember and consider as individuals, companies, NGOs, and governments ponder how they fit together. It is important to remember that they affect individuals that make up societies. It is easier to remember these goals if you think of how an individual can be affected.

This story is about Roberta who is concerned about being in Poverty. If she lives in poverty, then she will likely experience Hunger. Longterm periods of hunger will have an adverse effect on her Good Health and Well-being. Roberta needs her good health to pursue Quality Education. But without Gender Equality in work and education, she might remain in poverty where Clean Water and Sanitation are limited. If Roberta has access to education, she needs Affordable and Renewable Energy to be able to cook her food and complete her school work.

Once she has completed her education, she will have more opportunities to obtain Decent Work and contribute to Economic Growth. With equal access to quality education, Roberta could become an engineer who works in Industry, contributes to Innovation, and builds Infrastructure. As part of a diverse workforce, she can participate in a society that has Reduced Inequalities.

Roberta will want to live in Sustainable Cities and Communities that reinforce a high quality of life where people engage in Responsible Consumption and Production. Sustainable cities take Climate Action seriously by protecting Life Below Water and Life on Land. Roberta’s personal goals to have a good life are supported in places, institutions and companies that promote Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions and where Partnerships for the Sustainable Development Goals are plentiful.

The Sustainable Development Goals provide governments, NGOs, companies, and individuals with the opportunity to work toward a better world for all. In my previous posts, I gave numerous examples of how companies are already supporting the SDGs. They have found many opportunities to do good things for the world and prosper at the same time.

SWR is powered by the sun!

SDGs, Sustainability, Sustainability Reporting, Sustainable Development Goals

SDG 17 Partnerships for the Goals

April 2, 2018 Gwen White

SDG 17 Partnerships for the Goals is part of my series on the SDGs.

Finance

Strengthen domestic resource mobilization, including through international support to developing countries, to improve domestic capacity for tax and other revenue collection
Developed countries to implement fully their official development assistance commitments, including the commitment by many developed countries to achieve the target of 0.7 per cent of ODA/GNI to developing countries and 0.15 to 0.20 per cent of ODA/GNI to least developed countries ODA providers are encouraged to consider setting a target to provide at least 0.20 per cent of ODA/GNI to least developed countries
Mobilize additional financial resources for developing countries from multiple sources
Assist developing countries in attaining long-term debt sustainability through coordinated policies aimed at fostering debt financing, debt relief and debt restructuring, as appropriate, and address the external debt of highly indebted poor countries to reduce debt distress
Adopt and implement investment promotion regimes for least developed countries

Technology

Enhance North-South, South-South and triangular regional and international cooperation on and access to science, technology and innovation and enhance knowledge sharing on mutually agreed terms, including through improved coordination among existing mechanisms, in particular at the United Nations level, and through a global technology facilitation mechanism
Promote the development, transfer, dissemination and diffusion of environmentally sound technologies to developing countries on favourable terms, including on concessional and preferential terms, as mutually agreed
Fully operationalize the technology bank and science, technology and innovation capacity-building mechanism for least developed countries by 2017 and enhance the use of enabling technology, in particular information and communications technology

Capacity building

Enhance international support for implementing effective and targeted capacity-building in developing countries to support national plans to implement all the sustainable development goals, including through North-South, South-South and triangular cooperation

Trade

Promote a universal, rules-based, open, non-discriminatory and equitable multilateral trading system under the World Trade Organization, including through the conclusion of negotiations under its Doha Development Agenda
Significantly increase the exports of developing countries, in particular with a view to doubling the least developed countries’ share of global exports by 2020
Realize timely implementation of duty-free and quota-free market access on a lasting basis for all least developed countries, consistent with World Trade Organization decisions, including by ensuring that preferential rules of origin applicable to imports from least developed countries are transparent and simple, and contribute to facilitating market access

Systemic issues

Policy and institutional coherence

Enhance global macroeconomic stability, including through policy coordination and policy coherence

Enhance policy coherence for sustainable development

Respect each country’s policy space and leadership to establish and implement policies for poverty eradication and sustainable development

Multi-stakeholder partnerships

Enhance the global partnership for sustainable development, complemented by multi-stakeholder partnerships that mobilize and share knowledge, expertise, technology and financial resources, to support the achievement of the sustainable development goals in all countries, in particular developing countries
Encourage and promote effective public, public-private and civil society partnerships, building on the experience and resourcing strategies of partnerships

Data, monitoring and accountability

By 2020, enhance capacity-building support to developing countries, including for least developed countries and small island developing States, to increase significantly the availability of high-quality, timely and reliable data disaggregated by income, gender, age, race, ethnicity, migratory status, disability, geographic location and other characteristics relevant in national contexts
By 2030, build on existing initiatives to develop measurements of progress on sustainable development that complement gross domestic product, and support statistical capacity-building in developing countries

ANZ supports SDG 17 Partnerships for the Goals by describing their employee volunteering participation.

Ericsson provides support for SDG 17 in several ways. One was the launch of a report discussing how business can play a role in achieving the SDGs.

Another example for Ericsson is how the company is involved in humanitarian responses during major disasters.

We have come to the end of the 17 SDGs. My next post will be a recap of all 17.

SDGs, Sustainability, Sustainability Reporting, Sustainable Development Goals

SDG 16 Peace, Justice, Strong Institutions

March 6, 2018 Gwen White

SDG 16 Peace, Justice, Strong Institutions is part of my series on the SDGs.

“The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) define global sustainable development priorities and aspirations for 2030 and seek to mobilize global efforts around a common set of goals and targets. The SDGs call for worldwide action among governments, business and civil society to end poverty and create a life of dignity and opportunity for all, within the boundaries of the planet.”

Here are the goal targets.

Significantly reduce all forms of violence and related death rates everywhere

End abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence against and torture of children

Promote the rule of law at the national and international levels and ensure equal access to justice for all

By 2030, significantly reduce illicit financial and arms flows, strengthen the recovery and return of stolen assets and combat all forms of organized crime

Substantially reduce corruption and bribery in all their forms

Develop effective, accountable and transparent institutions at all levels

Ensure responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making at all levels

Broaden and strengthen the participation of developing countries in the institutions of global governance

By 2030, provide legal identity for all, including birth registration

Ensure public access to information and protect fundamental freedoms, in accordance with national legislation and international agreements

Strengthen relevant national institutions, including through international cooperation, for building capacity at all levels, in particular in developing countries, to prevent violence and combat terrorism and crime

Promote and enforce non-discriminatory laws and policies for sustainable development

Ericsson reports its compliance with SDG 16 Peace, Justice, Strong Institutions by describing its work in registering refugees to reconnect them with missing family members.

Praxair shows that its global human rights policy and standards are supportive of SDG 16.

ANZ uses a third party risk screening tool in monitoring adherence to its Supplier Code of Practice.

SWR supports SDG 16 Peace, Justice, Strong Institutions. All SWR blog posts are created using solar power and are hosted by renewable energy sources!