Having sustainable cities and communities in the world right now is very important for our future. The 11th goal of the UN’s global sustainable development goals list is sustainable cities and communities. The UN wants to ‘make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.’ Previously, we have also written about the UN’s Affordable and Clean Energy goal, which you can read on our blog. However, in this article, we will discuss this goal and focus on the sustainable and environmental elements of the plan, rather than the urbanisation, disaster risk management, sustainable mobility (such as transport systems), and poverty (such as making affordable housing) of the world’s cities. Still, you can read more about it on the UN Sustainable Development Goals website for more information about those topics.
What are The UN Sustainable Development Goals?
Let’s quickly summarise the goals. They come from The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development that the UN established in 2015. The world has adopted 17 sustainable development goals and is trying to stick to accomplishing the development planning. It has brought about a global partnership, beginning with the European Union, that has managed to enhance international cooperation to better our future generations with economic growth and renewable energy to lessen the environmental impacts and energy consumption to give a better quality of life for the world population. The UN environment programme also covers various strategies to tackle the problems for the world population on earth, which include:
- Combating climate change
- Improving health and education
- Increasing economic growth (and people living in a more circular economy)
- Ending poverty and other deprivations (primarily for people living in developing countries in the urban population who need better water and sanitation quality)
- Preserving our forests and oceans
- Increasing gender equality
The Sustainable Cities and Communities Goal
After covering the broad topic of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, let’s discuss the 11th goal. The sustainability goals can significantly improve our future by making cities and civil society more inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable. The UN provided a list of targets for the world leaders to promote sustainable goals, just like the other goals. We are going to list the ones that are related to sustainability and bettering the environment:
Target 11.2
Provide access to safe, accessible, affordable, and sustainable transport systems for all.
Target 11.3
Enhance inclusive and sustainable urbanisation and participatory, integrated, and sustainable human settlement urban planning and management in all countries.
Target 11.4
Strengthen safeguarding and protection efforts of the world’s cultural and natural heritage.
Target 11.5
Greatly reduce the number of deaths and the number of people affected. Substantially decrease the direct world economic losses relative to the global gross domestic product through the world economic forum caused by natural disasters, including water-related disasters, focusing on protecting the poor and people in vulnerable situations.
Target 11.6
Reduce cities’ adverse per capita environmental impact, such as paying particular attention to air quality and municipal and other waste management.
Target 11.7
Provide universal access to safe, accessible, inclusive, and green buildings and public spaces.
Target 11.a
Support positive social, economic, and environmental links between urban population and rural areas by strengthening national and regional development planning.
Target 11.b
Greatly increase the number of cities and human settlements implementing integrated policies towards:
- Mitigation
- Resource efficiency
- Inclusion
- Resilience to natural disasters
- Adaptation to climate change
- Develop holistic disaster risk management
How Wood Heating Can Help Sustainable Cities
Woody fuel is a renewable and low carbon alternative to fossil fuels (you can read more about fossil fuels vs. renewable energy in our other article, as well as the different types). Wood from trees grows by absorbing the carbon dioxide in the air, so it is still a low carbon process by sensibly burning wood. Using biomass as fuel replaces fossil fuels and allows the carbon released by the decaying wood to be used more helpfully.
The government developed the biomass suppliers list (which Woodyfuel happens to be on!) so that only the use of sensibly sourced wood can be obtained. This ensures that biomass fuel provides a minimum of 60% greenhouse gas savings against the EU fossil fuel average.
How Can We Help You?
At Woodyfuel, we want to help you begin following the UN SDGs in the best way we know how: biomass! We provide wood chips, pellets, and logs to aid you in starting your switch to a more sustainable way of life.
Because wood needs to be cut down sensibly to preserve our resources, we manufacture biomass by cutting trees and then replanting several trees in their place. The procedure of strategic forest replants and correct sustainability management safeguards the harvesting of trees each year. The trees that grow can use up more carbon dioxide than older trees as well, so by planting several trees in the place of one, we are fully repaying our carbon debt and promoting carbon neutrality while still being able to provide you with high-quality wood fuel. If you want to read more about our environmentally sustainable actions, check out our about us page.
We hope your ethos matches ours to work together in helping our planet and world population; call us today!
