One of the authors of the goals set by the United Nations to improve life around the world has praised De Montfort University Leicester’s (DMU) efforts to meet the targets.
Ambassador Macharia Kamau was a co-designer of the Sustainable Development Goals, the UN’s framework of global aims to tackle global issues like poverty, equality and justice.
And he gave a personal acknowledgement of the work DMU is doing to help further the goals during a talk to students and staff at the university.
On the day DMU published its annual sustainability report, showing how the institution is lowering its carbon output and adopting more ecologically-sound principles and technologies, Ambassador Kamau joined DMU live to deliver a keynote speech about the goals and why the framework is so important.
He also took part in a question and answer session giving staff and students the opportunity to find out more.
Ambassador Kamau opened his speech by congratulating the university, he said: "I truly appreciate this invitation from DMU and to recognize the wonderful and incredible work that your institution is doing.
“I would like to start by congratulating the university, I am really chuffed that DMU is an SDG Hub.
“ I take the SDGs very personally, as you can imagine I spent three and a half years of my life working on these goals and putting together the framework to make sure these goals were going to be adopted by all and become part of our lived experience globally.”
DMU was chosen by the UN to be a global hub for SDG 16, which aims to promote peace, justice and strong institutions. As part of the work of being a hub, the university has engaged hundreds of other institutions across the world to share ways they are working to support the SDGs.
Interim Vice Chancellor, Andy Collop said at the start of the event: “We are very honoured to be a hub and we take this responsibility very seriously, we have a considerable amount of activities going on in the university to underpin our work and to progress all 17 of the SDGs through our research and teaching.
“Sustainability is at the heart of what we do at DMU and our campus offers many opportunities to allow us to make more sustainable choices.
“This ranges from the products we buy, the services we contract, what we teach and how we teach right through to how we manage our campus.”
The event also saw the publication of DMU’s latest annual sustainability report. The study highlights the work going on across the university to reduce its environmental impact.
Highlights of the report include, DMU has halved its energy-related carbon emissions one year ahead of target and has also been ranked in the top 50 universities in the world for sustainability in the Times Higher Education rankings.
Karl Letten DMU’s Sustainability Manager added: ''It was fascinating to hear from Ambassador Kamau about the Sustainable Development Goals and how they were created and agreed. To have the Ambassador's insight about the UN and the SDGs made the event very special indeed.
“It was great to see so many DMU students and staff at the event and to see the level of interest and depth of knowledge of the issue reflected in the questions during the Q&A session.
“The Ambassador highlighted the need to make the SDGs a lived experience and that is what we hope to achieve through our forthcoming sustainability strategy.”
Posted on Friday 30 October 2020