SDG 9: Industry, innovation and infrastructure

I went to SKy High Dandenong and kept the map that I got from my visit. I didn't want to throw it away, so I decided to recycle the paper and made a cute envelope from it! I can now put a birthday card for a friend in it.

I propagated this beautiful plant from a friend's garden and made a beautiful pot by recycling an empty liquid soap container. I had lots of fun getting creative and made this! There are a lot of things you can do to reuse empty containers from food or beauty products! Be creative.

I know from personal experience, that as an individual you can sometimes feel powerless in the face of climate change. However, an impact can be made from such a simple decision as buying pre-loved items over brand new fast fashion. Whilst fast fashion saves money the costs are felt in the harm it inflicts upon the environment and sweatshop workers. I am deciding to move towards slow, ethical and sustainable fashion and only buy from op-shops or if necessary from brands selling sustainably produced items.

With the global pandemic, there was a rise in digital innovation and an increase usage of technology. The one group that are affected by this would be the elderly due to the lack of understanding of technology. Learning should not be restricted to a certain age group. I pledge to include elderly in our community and educate them on the basic digital and financial literacy to gain control over their finances and work. I would learn the right way to educate elderly and others on this and hope to one day extend it to all people regardless of age, gender or race. It would be great to see youths and elderly working alongside and helping each other.

I would like to see more pet-friendly public places like restaurants, gardens in China. Every pet would be taking good care of and no more stray animals

My One Step pledge is to adopt impact investing so that my investment approach is done through an ESG/SDG lens. Initially, when I began my investment journey, I invested with only aspirations of maximising monetary gains, setting aside or placing less emphasis on, the social and environmental impacts offrom the business operations. Whilst financial gain is still a key objective of my portfolio actions, it is now imperative to me that I invest in companies which value transparency and have transition plans that are aligned with the SDGs. I do this because I recognise the importance and influence that multinational cooperation’s play in this fight against social injustice and climate change. If we continue to financially support the types of businesses who are not adopting ESG principles and are not aligned to the SDG’s, it only reinforces harmful behaviour which further exacerbates our deteriorating global situation. The investments I make now and into the future will be for positive environmental, social and climate impact enabling me to participate in transitioning to a sustainable future.

In today's world, more and more of us are regularly turning to cheap, readily-available fast fashion, myself included. This is an industry which not only does immense harm to the planet, but also perpetuates global inequalities through sweat-shop like conditions and extremely low pay, deepening the divide between the global north and south, and between rich and poor. My one step is to stop giving in to fast fashion and instead focus on exclusively buying sustainable or second-hand clothing which has a transparent supply chain - or even simply not buying at all. This is also a part of a broader problem within our society; the consumer mindset which pushes us to constantly buy, upgrade and discard without thinking. I would therefore like this first step of stopping fast fashion to be part of a bigger personal movement towards being a more conscious consumer in general. I think that this movement could also successfully be implemented at university, as it is an issue which many students feel guilty about but also feel powerless to do anything substantial about. This is a problem which encompasses so many disciplines - from environmental science, to global studies, psychology and business just to name a few. As a university wide, interdisciplinary initiative, we have a real chance at meaningfully tackling the issue of fast fashion in Melbourne.

Recently I have decided to start riding my bike instead of driving to reduce my individual emission contributions. My main focuses are on the daily activities I do most frequently! This includes riding to my work in Wheelers Hill (roughly 40 mins) and to Monash Campus (roughly 10 mins). I have decided to begin slowly with a transitionary period to ensure this change is sustainable for the long term. I think the reason that really stops people from making long term changes such as these are time and lack of planning. I have decided to go as slow as I need to with the eventual goal that I can intertwine riding for travel into 100% of my plans starting with work, Uni and shopping and eventually all travel by the end of the year!! I’ve been very impressed by google maps ‘bike routes’. It has been really useful for finding alternative safer backstreet route options to main streets which make me incredibly nervous. Who knows maybe one day I will be brave enough but for anyone starting out using their bike for travels I highly recommend google maps. I’m really excited and have loved my bike trips so far! Keen to progress this change further!

Buy products from organisations that send profits to positive projects in 3rd world countries. Particularly those focussing on women's education.

My step towards living sustainably is to save energy while performing all my day to day activities. By doing small steps like putting on a sweater and turning the thermostat down on a cold evening, turning off appliances like bulbs and computers off when they are not in use. Small steps starting at home can help make an impact around oneself. I pledge to take small steps to save energy around me and make other people around me practice the same.