What Does Sustainability Mean to You?

Even though sustainability sounds like an institutional level topic, the truth is that it is about every individual that takes a random decision or makes an action no matter how small it is.
There are various misconceptions about sustainability. Most of the people tend to think that sustainability is about the environment or that only the governments and big corporations are working towards achieving it. This happens because they don’t understand the concept properly.

Sustainability is a wide concept that encompasses social, economic, and environmental aspects of the activity of individuals, businesses, organizations, civil society, and governments.
The 17 Sustainable Development Goals address challenges that people all over the world face including poverty, lack of access to education, different types of inequality, climate, environmental degradation, peace and justice, and much more.

If you look at each of the Goals, it’s easy to notice that they are connected to each other.

Think about a company in a developing country that has no female workers. (Goal 5: Gender Equality) This can be because of the fact that females in that specific country don’t have access to quality education. (Goal 4: Quality education)
Millions of girls all over the world don’t go to school because:
They live in conflict or war zones (Goal 16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions)
Early marriage is considered a higher priority than education (Goal 5: Gender Equality)
Schools are not safe or they are away from their homes
Poverty and lacking of funds
Lack of sanitation (Goal 6: Clean Water and Sanitation)
Child or domestic labor (Goal 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth, Target 8.7)
They have disabilities and feel discriminated
Natural disasters (Goal 1: No Poverty, Target 1.5)
Pregnancy
Or simply because they’re girls
Each of these issues needs a solution and they are among the SDGs targets.

Therefore, an organization or business cannot say that they are sustainable just because they work on renewable energy projects, but they have no female workers. At the moment when an issue is noticed, it is crucial to tackling it through innovative solutions in order to benefit the entire society.
It is important to highlight that everyone can take a step towards a more sustainable world. This can be achieved not only by making more responsible choices in our daily lives but also by social entrepreneurship. Differently, from traditional entrepreneurs that focus on products and services to sell, social entrepreneurs focus on a cause that will benefit society.

A common misconception about entrepreneurship is that it belongs to a few people.
The Entrepreneurship Campus makes possible that everyone, no matter where they are located has access to entrepreneurial knowledge. Young wannapreneurs and people of all ages who are passionate about making a change in their societies can achieve the mindset that helps them make it possible by taking the free online training.

Image by annca from Pixabay