CONTRIBUTOR Hagan-Brown, Environmental Engineer specialising in water pollution control, en sustainability as well as managing systems that affects health and safety issues, quality and nature.
Change in biosphere integrity, novel diseases, aerosol loading in atmosphere, ocean acidification, ozone layer depletion, wildfires, and economic instability have been some of the few issues tearing the world apart in current years. With COVID-19 disrupting several sectors, poverty rate is also expected to rise. The increasing rate of these global issues are by somewhat an evident of the failure of countries, organizations and individuals to properly cooperate is solving these issues.
Global partnership significance
One country’s issues in some means do affect another. For instance, the refugee crisis situation, water and air pollution, floods, epidemic such as COVID-19 affects one country and another and yet, organizations, individuals and countries do not take partnership seriously. Partnership is paramount to problem solving and development making it a limiting factor to sustainable development. According to Liebig's law of the minimum, growth is controlled not by the total amount of resources available, but by the scarcest resource. This makes it clear no matter the amount of human, natural and financial capital, partnership is needed for sustainable development.
Stronger partnerships will contribute to environmental protection and sustainable development by mobilizing resources, sharing knowledge, promoting the creation and transfer of environmentally sound technologies, and building capacity.
Even though COVID-19 the global pandemic still lurks around, global partnership between organizations, countries and media houses has led to the effective implementation of measures promoting epidemic prevention and control besides sustainable development. The Chinese government sent medical experts, protective suits, face masks to over 100 countries and partnered with International organizations in the fight with COVID-19 to save humanity. In this peak of partnership, the Foreign minister of the Chinese government, Zhao Lijin said, ‘’viruses respect no border, race or religion, and the coronavirus is the common enemy of humanity’’ making it clear partnership is important.
Sustainable development demands the active participation of all individual efforts to achieve the greatest outcomes.
The 17 Sustainable development goals (SDGs) are to be attained to promote a comfortable living for every individual and organism on this planet taking into account financial and environmental factors. Within these goals, the seventeenth one, ‘Partnership for goals’ binds all the other ones together making it a key inclusion that will see to the successful achievement of all the other individual goals. This partnership for goals is divided into 5 components: finance, capacity building, systematic issues, technology and trade.
Zero Waste Shanghai’s cooperation towards sustainable development
The systematic issues component, multi stakeholder partnerships, make mention of enhancing global partnership for sustainable development in ways that will mobilise and share expertise to support achievement of the SDGs. Similarly, Zero Waste Shanghai with a vision to work towards a circular economy is highly devoted in contributing to a sustainable future and continuous environmental improvements. With such vision at hand, contributing to a global positive change is through meaningful partnerships. Zero Waste Shanghai holds seminars and talks on sustainability, circular economy, waste handling and also partners with organisations, media houses to solve global issues.
Zero Waste Shanghai with a vision to work towards a circular economy is highly devoted in contributing to a sustainable future and continuous environmental improvements.
Moreover, interactive workshops which educate and promote resource management, minimization of waste and encouraging ‘socio-economical environmentally’ friendly lifestyle has always been included in its activities.
Sustainable development demands the active participation of all individual efforts to achieve the greatest outcomes. Daniel Shechtman, an Isreali chemist who was awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in chemistry once stressed how human cooperation is fundamental to sustainable development. He made it known people are the main resource of sustainable development. An Economist, Theodore Schultz published ‘Investment in Human capital’ in an article called American Economic Review in 1961. He said Human Capital (the productive capacity of an individual) investment open up opportunities which increases output.
With such a notion, Zero Waste Shanghai believes in the investment in human capital as a resource of sustainable development. Its training and team building programme, Get One, Give One (Go-Go) is designed to engage companies in a sustainable mindset through masterclasses, talks, team building and fun experiences.
Besides Go-Go, its P.A.C.E programme is a toolbox that helps businesses to create its own sustainability strategy. A strategy which could be directed towards the use of energy which corresponds to the responsible consumption and production per the SDG 12, climate change action and so on.
This programme provides a stepwise pattern to transform business to be a ‘champion’ in sustainability. The unique addition to this programme is the ability to use challenges as opportunities to dive deeper into the true meaning of sustainability: the ability to sustain people, profits and the planet.
Furthermore, they also welcome companies willing to use their support as part of its social, corporate communication to raise awareness of global and local issues.
Alongside, welcoming eco-conscious organizations who are willing to share their products and services in the quest of saving the planet and promoting the lives of people has been part of their activities.
In a nutshell, why should all the global and local problems arise because of lack of partnership? Why should natural, manufactured, human and financial capital be wasted because of poor partnership?
To save the people, the planet, as well as to make profits in the mission to move to a sustainable future, partnerships should be the shoulders on which knowledge sharing, capacity building and mobilization of resources need to be rested upon to strengthen the resilience of the planet and a progressive journey of sustainability.