SiD and the SDGs

SiD & The UN sustainable development goals The United Nations published its list of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015, as part of its 2030 agenda. We introduce these here, as they come back throughout the book in various forms. When the SDGs were released, we were thrilled to see that they emphasize a holistic approach to sustainability with 17 global challenges to achieve a sustainable society. See the diagram on the right for the full SDG list. The list shows, as SiD argues, that sustainability is a challenge that goes beyond mere energy and material concerns. The SDGs are powerful for communicating and reporting this, and tools to support them are under development around the world. SiD is used to analyze SDG impacts, organize and process to develop solutions for them, and as a reporting framework for the SDGs. Or, in reverse, the SDG’s can be used as a goal framework to guide a SiD development process. The SDG’s are also a helpful reporting framework, to communicate the impacts of your projects. The SDGs do not (yet) have clear corresponding goals, does not show interrelations between the SDG areas, or provide any form of a working framework to achieve improvement. Also, the SDGs do not by themselves stimulate a systemic approach. While systemic in their origins as a whole, each SDG goal is in itself object oriented. This means that for now, the SGSs are most useful as a set of object oriented areas of concern, as a sub-goal set, or final reporting framework of impacts only. This is useful for policy and goal setting, and reflecting on targets, but not as a framework for systemic improvement. A working framework for the SDGs In order to actually work towards improvement on the SDGs, we need a working framework. This is where SiD comes in. SiD can explore the SDGs given a certain challenge, map their impacts, and detect interrelations on a systems level. Beyond that, SiD can show the system dynamics behind them, and their network of interrelations. From this, powerful systemic solutions can be found that positively affect multiple SDG areas at once. In the process, SiD guides you to find and plan activities to make a lasting long term impact on the SDGs, and beyond, towards resilient, harmonious and autonomous societies. See page 74 for a diagram showing how the SDGs can be mapped onto the SiD framework. SDG impact scans For determining the impact of organizations on the SDGs, and help reporting and impact improvement, Except started development on custom built SiD SDG scans. These include custom indicator sets for specific industries, and data collection tools. This is an ongoing effort, as well as SDG impact scans for cities and sectors such as agriculture. There’s still a long road to walk to achieve this. The next years will see effort of parties around the globe to start working on new tools that help to achieve positive results on the SDGs. Keep an eye out, they may be valuable for SiD processes and other integrated sustainable developments. With that short introduction to the SDGs, let’s end the overview of SiD with an example of a happy alien colony, demonstrating a use of SiD’s theory. SiD Methods SiD Theory SiD Processes SiD Tools