rio - kn

Sustainability: 'the quality of causing little or no damage and therefore able to continue for a long time.'

When I was growing up, beyond the year 2000 was the realm of flying cars and imagination stretching technology. As a child, our future eclipsed the past as the greatest time to date. Yet as science progressed and developed a data-driven prediction of the future, we came to realise that our generation’s direction came at a cost. Slowly, that cost amplified on our radar, we noticed interconnections and knock-on effects. Animals that had been in existence for millions of years became extinct, rainforests were levelled and chlorine releasing CFCs literally digested our atmosphere. The next generations reality is very different. When looking forward to 2100 and beyond the very real, data derived prediction is that Earth may not be habitable at all.

Landing with a bump into the Heathrow and the cold, damp funk of Brexit Britain, I cast my mind over the week’s events, to the people I have met and the brief glimpse I had into their lives. Whilst writing this, I was compelled to think back to 100 days prior, the same amount of time that past from when Habyarimana's plane was shot down to when the RPF declared victory. The 19th of October. It was my brother’s birthday. A lump appears in my throat, and my tear ducts fill. I have just spent three days in Rwanda with men and women who over the same 100-day period lost their brothers, their sisters, their mums, dads, aunties and cousins. People who will never share the joy of a birthday celebration with these loved ones again.

This edie insight report, produced in collaboration with Ditto Sustainability, provides clear, practical steps that can be taken by sustainability and CSR professionals to embed the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) within their organisation’s business strategy.

You can download our report from edie below...