Compassion and the Sustainable Development Goals

Compassion and the Sustainable Development Goals

Overview

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set out a blueprint for a flourishing world with the wellbeing of people and the planet at its heart. Under each goal is an abyss of suffering and distress.  With less than six years left and living with the backlash of a pandemic, we are caught in the eye of the storm of the triple crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution, and a triple societal crisis of extreme inequalities in health, wealth and education; increased mental illness with rising global anxiety and distress; and unprecedented levels of conflict nationally, institutionally, communally, and personally.  We have much of the science to respond to these threats to the survival of our communities and our planet, we know the urgency, but something is missing that is holding systems, services, and people back. The weakest link in our journey to 2030 is not technical capability or finances, or even the impact of multiple intersecting crises, but our ability to care for each other, and to collaborate and coordinate sustained action to care for the other.  The least ‘visible’ SDG (Goal 17) is the final umbrella goal designated the ‘means of implementation’ through partnership.

In this talk, Liz Grant looks at how compassion moves partnership from being transactional to relational, and how the design principles of compassion can change the way that we design and deliver care for all together. Reconnecting with this relational human element is critical to achieving a timely arc of change at a global scale, and critical to sustaining the fierce determination and human flourishing required to achieve such profound ambitions.

We will consider the architecture needed to support the development of courageous partnerships and compassionate systems to fuel the change required to meet our 2030 commitments.

  • SRI 21
    11 sessions
  • June 7, 2024
    Garrison, New York
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Speakers

Liz Grant

Liz Grant is one of the Assistant Principals ( Presidents) of the University of Edinburgh with a remit for global health, Professor of Global Health and Development, Director of the Global Compassion Initiative and the Compassion Lab at the University’s Edinburgh Futures Institute. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE), and the UK Royal Society of Arts. She is Deputy Dean International for the Royal College of Physicians in Edinburgh (RCPE).