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Young people have a huge stake in sustainable development which makes them the best leaders for responsible production and consumption. August 12 marked International Youth Day which was celebrated at an event held at UN Headquarters in New York. The International Youth Day 2016 theme was entitled The Road to 2030: Eradicating poverty through Sustainable Consumption and Production which emphasised the role youth had to play in achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 1 and 12 as part of the 2030 Agenda.
The event included speakers from UN representatives and Member States, but also featured youth panelists and speakers. Youth have a big role to play when it comes to sustainable development that helps to improve the environment, stop climate change and eradicate poverty for future generations. But young people do face barriers when it comes to responsible consumption choices and with widening inequality and accelerating climate change, sustainable consumption and production becomes much more critical. Youth need to “do more and better with less.”
The panelists throughout the day’s celebrations explored youth strategies for sustainable extraction, production, consumption and disposal as well as innovation for doing more and better with less. Sustainable consumption and production, for example, means examining the entire system and lifecycle of a product; from the resources extracted to make the product, to the amount of use it receives and, lastly, how it is disposed of. Avery Kelly, a Georgetown law student and resource mining activist, called on young people need to be more informed of all the real and possible negative externalities that could happen as a result of extraction processes that could lead to unsustainable consumption or production.
Steven Lee, Executive Director of the Foundation for Environmental Stewardship, also urged youth to be conscious about how they spend their money. How much is our consumption contributing to the climate crisis? Could our lifestyle change to support more responsible consumption and production? Lauren Singer, CEO of The Simply Co., promoted her zero waste lifestyle as a way to empower youth to challenge how businesses and policymakers deal with disposal. Youth must hold these systems accountable to ensure that climate change is reduced and that poverty is eradicated.
The International Youth Day celebrations also featured artistic expressions and films about youth at the center of sustainable development and remarks from UN representatives and Member States encouraged youth to engage more in responsible consumption and production. If youth are able to lead with “doing more and better with less,” then they are able to secure a sustainable world for future generations.
Learn more about our work on youth at social.un.org/youth
Source & Copyright: UNDESA DSPD