Big Things, Small Things and Sustainable Development Goals

On Tuesday (29 November) I attended a session on SDG incorporation into teaching.

At the beginning of the session the presenter spoke about assumptions, and one of it was "We want the same things (when it comes to sustainability)". We (the audience( shared some thoughts on this: what same things do we want: e.g. a better world, peace, future for our children (and so on).

The session was an awareness session, to start thinking about aligning our teaching to at least one of the SDGs. This can be embedded either in the curriculum, activity, tutorial or assignments. There are in total 17 SDGs and if we click on each SDG in the master website, the resolutions and objectives are set out.

We then got into groups to brainstorm the intersection between "environment", "social" and "economic" goals. These then were drilled down to the 17 SDGs, to achieve the intersection of environmental, social and economical (i.e. "sustainability").

Source: Sustainable Development - What is there to know and why should we care? SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND THE SDGS 2030 AGENDA

Overall, it was a rather fun session. I had already incorporated SDG in some modules (Employment Law & IP, Ethics and Legal Issues) but for Business Law and Company Law the connection may not be too obvious. 

Anyways, when we ended I thought about the first assumption, and if we actually do want the same things. It is unfortunate that this workshop happened just days after the new PM was announced, because from Malaysia's political debacle it really showed that we DO NOT want the same things! In terms of SDGs perhaps the proposition is akin to 'an offer we cannot refuse' because no way we can treat Earth badly and hope to achieve some fruitful rewards. 

My own take on this: we don't really want the same things in the details. But I would agree that we want the same "bigger" things like world peace and harmony, and a sustainable earth. How do we get there, this is where we sometimes need to 'fight it out' (?).

Another good example is Wills + Kate vs Harry + Meg. Both champion environmental green causes yet how they reach it is completely different, and I do not imagine them working together for anything anytime soon, hence proving my point: we may want the same big things but the little details are devilishly hard to agree to.