2020年将难以忘记. It will be ingrained in our memories as the year of the pandemic and the year the fight for racial justice in the United States reached a tipping point. Those events may well overshadow any other memory or achievement from this year, and for good reason. 在我们的世界改变之前, 科罗拉多大学 started 2020 off with a spectacular achievement: as of January 1, 2020, CC reached its long-standing milestone of carbon neutrality - only the eighth institution to achieve this massive feat. 的 national news stage took note briefly as our sm所有 liberal arts institution at the base of Pikes Peak joined the ranks of leading sustainable institutions. 然而，从那时起，我们的世界发生了变化，人们很容易想知道: Where does 可持续性 fit in a world where COVID-19 and racial injustices underly 所有 other efforts?

的 answer is a message that's become familiar in the Office of 可持续性 as we work with students, 教师, 整个学院的工作人员: 这是 所有 可持续性. 在我们的可持续101培训中, we refer heavily to the most accepted definition of 可持续性: "meeting current needs without compromising future generations' ability to meet their needs" Over the past decades, that definition has most often been interpreted to apply to our use of environmental resources, 但这些资源只能满足某些需求. Understanding broader human needs is a deeper dive and I refer to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs - a model that is understood by most who have taken a psychology class in high school - to illustrate those broader human needs that include intangible and self-defined needs. 简单地说, 可持续性 aims to provide the opportunity for 所有 of us to meet 所有 of those needs now and into the future.

听起来不错, but this is a critical moment and many of us are just trying to survive 正确的 now, 正确的? 我同意——我们都在努力生存，并最终茁壮成长. 的 联合国可持续发展目标 (SDGs) have been developed through decades of negotiations and input from over 190 countries and set forth the primary focuses if we are to thrive - that is, if we are to get to a place where we're broadly meeting needs in a way that can continue into the future. 的se SDGs have outlined 17 primary areas that lead to a more sustainable world. 有些人对此感到惊讶, 这些包括环境目标, they include far more goals pertaining to equity: income equality; equitable access to food; gender equality; racial equality; access to healthcare, 和更多的.

Those of us who work as 可持续性 professionals have taken on a large role: to help make connections between those SDGs and keep those connections in view as we work towards progress. None of these goals exists in isolation; they're 所有 inherently impacted by one another. I've often used this (hopefully) easy to understand example to help illustrate this, beginning with one of our most commonly recognized 可持续性 efforts: CC's work towards carbon neutrality (Goal #13) can help mitigate climate impacts on our ecosystems (Goal #15). Some of those least desirable impacts disproportionately affect people who cannot afford to move away from them. One example is that of heat islands: people who live in urban areas are often subject to higher temperatures due to the surrounding urban landscape and the lack of services that a fully functioning ecosystem would provide. Reducing global temperatures would have impacts that help reduce those inequalities (Goal #10) and may also reduce their electric bill as they don't need to run their air conditioners as often. 这意味着他们可能有更多的收入来满足其他需求, possibly on healthy foods (Goal #2) or on education (Goal #4) - each of which has additional impacts on other goals. 这是一个相对简单的例子, 但开始显示所有这些努力之间的许多联系.

左:联合国可持续发展目标(SDGS)
右图:可持续发展目标相互关联的一个例子

 在CC, there are endless ways that we're impacting these goals and many students, 教师, 做研究的员工, many offices working explicitly in one of these areas that directly impact many more of these goals, many examples of efforts that help lead to a more sustainable world as envisioned by the SDGs. 在这一年里, we'll focus on some of these efforts happening across the campus - efforts that wouldn't necessarily be thought of as 可持续性 without the context given above. Our aim is to show that most of us are doing 可持续性 work already and by helping to see connections to other goals, we can be better informed about 所有 of the many ways CC is aspiring to make our world more sustainable.

This is 所有 the more important during the current pandemic: our own individual decisions and actions and those that CC makes impact 所有 of us in different but profound ways. If we make those decisions without the spectrum of their impacts in full consideration, we may address one impact but inadvertently cause harm in another area. 毫无疑问，这是一段艰难而艰难的时期. But it has become ever more apparent that our decisions impact our health and wellness, 我们的财务状况, 我们所有的生计, 以及我们的学生接受教育的机会. 可持续性 couldn't be more relevant or critical than it is at this moment. I look forward to bringing examples of 可持续性 efforts across CC through these blockly communications this year.

By Ian Johnson

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