Challenge #16 – Take Action Towards the Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, 193 Member States of the UN committed to 17 Sustainable Development Goals with an ambitious plan to eradicate poverty and hunger, in all their forms and dimensions around the world by 2030.  These SDGs are urgent, interlinked targets for our economies, societies, and our biosphere that give us a global roadmap with pathways to a sustainable and just world.  Each goal has specific indicators (169 targets in total) to help us measure our progress and achievements addressing poverty, hunger, health, education, climate change, environment, gender equality, clean water, clean energy, decent work, cities, oceans, governance, and more:

The SDGs have also been adopted by thousands of civil society movements and businesses–everyone, and every sector can play a role in achieving better! 

We hope our IDEA challenge focussed on the SDGs will organize collective action around the coworking movement’s core values of community, accessibility, openness, collaboration, and sustainability. 

For May’s IDEA challenge, we want you to take 3 specific steps towards the SDGs by acting locally and connecting globally.  We also want to hear from change leaders with examples of coworking communities helping people and our planet thrive!

What can you do to help achieve the goals? 

• Contact your local government and see what their plans are around attaining the Sustainable Development Goals and see if you would be able to help meet their targets. 

Every country, and many cities and regions, have plans to ensure that their region is attaining the goals. Find out what your local government is up to. 

• Learn about the Sustainable Development Goals with members of your local coworking space: 

This is a great way to engage with the people and organisations and helps them think about the impact they could have through their businesses, and what impact you can have together. 

• Create Inclusive Coworking spaces 

You can help achieve many goals at the same time through inclusive coworking spaces. By giving access to a range of people you can help to eliminate poverty (Goal 1), provide decent work and economic growth (Goal 8) and innovation (Goal 9) by keeping your coworking space inclusive.  

5 Ps: People, Planet, Partnerships, Prosperity and Peace

A recent article from Future of Good argued that the slogan used as part of the SDGs, ‘Leave no one behind’ is colonial in its language by ranking countries with high socioeconomic standing as the standard to attain. We believe the coworking movement’s spirit of doing over saying, collaboration over competition, and community over agenda makes the SDGs our ultimate challenge. Every coworking community meets and overcomes local challenges, identifies best practices, and learns to meet the diverse needs of its members.  So, for the final part of our IDEA challenge we ask that you reflect on actions you can take towards the SDGs and share your coworking success stories at the IDEA conversation at the end of the month.

During the month of May, we invite you to learn more about the Sustainable Development Goals, and share the ideas you have about small or large actions that coworking spaces and alliances can take in their own community to work towards these goals. Use the shared Google Doc to make suggestions and share your ideas throughout the month and we will review and share the crowdsourced list during the Coworking IDEA Conversation on May 25th.

Raïsa Mirza has been supporting the Sustainable Development Goals through her work as a socially engaged behavioural designer, photographer and systems change catalyst since their ratification by the United Nations in 2015. 

She currently works as an Assistant Director with the Communities Building Youth Futures Community Innovation Fund at the Tamarack Institute, an organisation that has been supporting community-led change to end poverty in Canada for over 20 years. She is also the founder and principal consultant at WabiSabiJetty, a strategic innovation, research & design firm dedicated to social change based in Newfoundland & Labrador.