Although sustainable development has had different interpretations over the years, most countries agree that it promotes prosperity and economic opportunity, greater social well-being and protection of the environment. It is also commonly understood that the realisation of these benefits can only be achieved through holistic international co-operation. The United Nations (UN) has been working to define goals for such global co-operation in solving problems of an economic, social, cultural or humanitarian nature since its formation in 1945.
On 25 September 2015, the UN General Assembly adopted resolution 70/1, outlined in a document entitled ‘Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’ (Citation2016). This document presents the agenda for post-2015 development, progressing from the 8 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set in 2000. The 2030 Agenda encompasses 17 broad and interrelated Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as depicted in Figure 1. Unlike the MDGs, the SDG framework does not distinguish between ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ nations – the goals apply to all countries, and more significantly, there are over 230 indicators on which general agreement has been reached to focus on the root causes of problems and to support attainment of various goals (Sustainable Development Goal Indicators Citation2016).
Laying these new industrial foundations based on the use of both the existing and emerging technologies will be a major engineering challenge. The social and societal dimension of SDGs demand a deeper understanding of the specific needs of people, consumers and general users of engineering solutions, and where possible the adoption of a user-centric approach to innovation and development. A fundamental SDG challenge will be to engineer the infrastructure for universal access to green sources of energy, clean water, sanitation and public services in a manner that is well planned, managed and maintained to satisfy basic needs for all. Furthermore, engineering solutions to urban infrastructure will be central to determining the quality of life for a rapidly growing urban population and the health of the planet as a whole. The specific goals related to elimination o
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2018 Informa uK limited, trading as taylor & francis group 2 EDITORIAL Figure 1. united nations Sustainable Development goals (2016). (9) technologies as well as the most efficient management and valorisation processes for food waste across the entire supply chain. The emerging and rapidly growing field of healthcare engineering offers several exciting, expansive and multi-criteria challenges combining the potential of some of the most advanced engineering and technological breakthroughs with their complex ethical, social and societal considerations.
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(10) In tackling climate change, the goal will be to decouple growth from its environmental footprint and seek engineering solutions that help redesign the entire value chain. This is not about accepting and prioritising strategies to make business resilient to climate change, but rather enacting radical change to eliminate such scenarios. This entails engineering the movement away from linear consumption and production patterns and developing proactive approaches to reducing waste. The long-term challenge lies in the translation of scientific discoveries in circular use of resources into practical solutions. (11) Open data infrastructures are an engineering opportunity to create public web-based freely accessible data to share knowledge and support innovation. Such effective, efficient and equitable data infrastructure will generate value for this and succeeding generations.
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(12) The above-mentioned engineering challenges highlight an urgent need for a significant increase in engineering capabilities and capacity in every region of the world through direct engagement with younger generations, and in particular women who are significantly underrepresented in a majority of engineering disciplines. In addition, these challenges clearly necessitate the inclusion of the underlying principles of sustainable development at the heart of engineering education. We encourage our potential authors to explore the UN SDG framework themes and to discuss the potential impacts of their research in support of these goals, and look forward to your submissions.
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