SDG 16: Peace, justice and strong institutions

One of the things that a lot of people don't realize is how wasteful and socially unethical fast fashion is. According to the World Watch Institute it takes approximately 2,700 liters of water just to make one cotton t-shirt, correlating to an amount of drinking water that accommodates one person for 900 days. The cotton industry itself is responsible for 24% of the world's insecticide use and 11% of its pesticides. Not only this, it takes on average 10,000 liters of water to produce just one kilogram of cotton. So it is our responsibility to quit fast fashion and support more sustainable and ethical brands. The likes of Adidas, Nike, Uniqlo, Rip Curl, H&M, Cotton On, Primark, Wish and Urban Outfitters (plus many many more) are associated with at least one of the following disastrous social and environmental impacts: 1. The use of toxic chemicals 2. The severe contamination of water used for washing and drinking 3. The failure to care about animal rights - use of animal products for clothing (leather, fur etc.) 4. The use of child and forced labor 5. The violation of labor rights 6. Poor working conditions and unfair wages - prioritizing profits over individual wellbeing's 7. The authorization of unsafe factories 8. Failure to protect the environment and all natural resources The overproduction and overconsumption of cheap disposable clothing is due to the ever present clothing trends present throughout social media, magazines and online articles. Unfortunately a large sum of people succumb to cheap, new and trendy clothing, and therefore ultimately support the conditions in which these fashion brands uphold. Therefore, as consumers we have the opportunity to care more about the environment, how our clothes are made and the people who made them. We can do this by: 1. Buying less - asking ourselves if we really need this new piece of clothing. 2. Buying higher-quality clothing 3. Buying from ethical and sustainable brands - eg. Patagonia, Kathmandu, Pact, NICO, Etiko 4. Avoiding fashion trends 5. Buying secondhand 6. Re-using, repurposing and up-cycling

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.

Looking after the environment is something that should bring people of all beliefs together. At a governmental level, this is of course never the case. However, at a local and communal level, we can work together to depoliticise environmentalism. Institutionalising sustainable practices is one way we can ensure individual responsibility. By breaking down what seems like a big goal into bite-sized, actionable, specific, and time-bound steps, we can collectively engage in protecting our environment. I want to work with, educate, and be educated by others as to the best means to achieve this goal.

Having adopted sustainable habits throughout the past couple of years and becoming more aware of the carbon footprint of my everyday activities, my next step is to speak up and use my voice to influence systemic change. I have often had moments of intention to advocate for climate action and more sustainable government policy, but have always been uncertain of where to start. While the right to physically gather to protest has been put on hold during the pandemic, I know there are other ways we can use our voices to influence change. Carbon emissions have been reduced slightly due to travel bans this year, however, this is a temporary change. [1] It is well reported that effective pandemic recovery must include strong climate action from our governments at all levels. [2] So I plan to use my voice and unite with others to influence meaningful change on sustainable development issues. [1] https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/04/1061082 [2] https://blogs.worldbank.org/climatechange/how-countries-climate-ambitions-can-support-sustainable-recovery-covid-19-coronavirus Photo: Tiff Ng, sourced from Canva

Political or individual polarisation is a major factor in reducing the flexibility and responsivity of groups/companies/governments. This reduces the pace of progress and can halt action completely in many points of contention. Promoting regular conversion and collaboration across natural group of people can increase the diversity of views and reduce polarisation (particularly extreme polarisations). I aim to personally listen to those who I do not agree with and to find people who I would not normally talk to, while encouraging others to do the same.

To become more sustainable, I believe it is crucial to understand the land one lives on and its history, and in Australia First Nations undoubtedly know it best. First Nations' communities voices have been condemned and silenced for decades and I believe it is time for everyone to listen and learn. There is so much more that we can learn from First Nations about history, land, language, culture, flora, and fauna, etc. To achieve this step, I will begin to read more books published by First Nation authors, attend presentations/workshops lead by First Nations and continue to show curiosity towards their knowledge and stories.

Five

The concept "sustainability" often motivates discussion of outcome manipulation, eg: "reduced food waste". Such outcomes are typically envisioned and sought after using unsustainable procedures. For a complex system (eg: a business, a person) to be sustainable it must maintain itself indefinitely, not just produce sustainable outcomes. “Sustainability” is therefore a state, not an endpoint. To maintain sustainability, the structure of a system must be comprised of self-stabilising internal mechanisms. For example, your computer is an unsustainable system since it cannot repair itself. Your eyes are sustainable systems since they can recover from superficial injury without intervention. In seeking to determine the preconditions for a sustainable global civilisation, I realised that my way of approaching the topic of sustainability was itself unsustainable. Since that realisation, I have been studying psychology. I seek to approach sustainability from the ground up. How is my way of thinking about sustainability itself sustainable? How can self-stabilising psychological techniques be applied to larger scale outcome-oriented sustainability endeavours? I then developed a psychological technique for practicing sustainability. Each day I list my sustainable activities and my unsustainable activities, with the added condition that each day must include more sustainability than the last. This technique gives my pursuit of sustainable outcomes viability, integrity, depth, reflectivity, originality, and versatility. My psychological and systems-oriented approach to sustainability could be applied to individuals, relationships, groups, businesses, organisations, and societies and could refine our collective pursuit of a sustainable world.