Managing Sustainability: A Study on Global Sustainability and SDG Framework

This essay explores the context of sustainability concerning the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) framework, focusing on poverty alleviation, quality education, environmental sustainability, and gender equality. It also discusses the impact of COVID-19 on sustainability and presents an action plan for future learning.

Managing
Sustainability

Table of Contents
Introduction:.....................................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Global sustainability...............................................................................................................3
Background information:........................................................................................................4
Poverty....................................................................................................................................6
Quality Education...................................................................................................................7
Environmental sustainability..................................................................................................8
Gibbs reflective cycle.............................................................................................................9
CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................12
References......................................................................................................................................14

INTRODUCTION
In the modern business scenario which has made the process of conducting business very
streamlined and smooth compared to previous years, the development has been a mixed bag.
Despite the world forming into an interconnected trading hub and the economy of many nations
worldwide has gained much needed economic injections which have boosted their GDP, the
damaged to the environment and stakeholders has been immense. In order for businesses to
overcome he complex challenges imposed by the increasingly disruptive business environment
and to make sure their competitive edge is sustained in modern markets, following the
Sustainable development goal (SDG) is very important. Gone are the days where businesses
could function effectively in society and only focus their operations on earning profits from their
local communities without giving them something back and now, enterprises whether they
belong to public or private sector are required to make due on their promises of CSR activities
and social services. In this essay, all the detailed research that I undertook to properly analyze the
current levels of sustainability existing on a global scenario was based on the SDG framework
which consists of the 17 interlinked global goals which were designed by the United Nations
General assembly to develop a more sustainable future for all the population existing on our
planet.
MAIN BODY
Global sustainability

I undertook this assignment as I was interested in developing my knowledge about the
current wrongdoings that are happening in this world and learn about how sustainability is
supposed to be the beacon which helps us all. The major goals that were framed by me to
properly structure my reports and to develop a comprehensive understanding regarding this
subject was poverty alleviation, health and hunger issues, quality education and gender equality.
There was also discussion conducted on clean energy and sustainable water usage along with
clean water supply on a global level which is a major pain point for even developing nations
such as India and Pakistan. This essay is all about sustainability and its impact on a global level.
The concept of sustainability has been around for some time but businesses around the world
have not in effect adhered to the core objectives and principles of sustainability. This essay
explores the context of this subject concerning my experience in studying the areas of
sustainability while focusing on some key aspects of SDG framework as I did not have the time
and scope of analysing the entire framework while taking my findings and data on an
international scale.
Background information:

My idea of sustainability perfectly aligns with the SDGs. In other words, I can say that
SDGs are the human perfection of developing and maintaining sustainability which will ensure a
safe and healthy environment for our next generations. I have read a lot of text, attended various
seminars and conferences and I cannot appreciate more, the significance of this subject and its
corresponding impact on society today and in times to come. I personally think that the objective
parameters which were established by the united nations general assembly are well thought out
but the efforts towards making them come true leave a distinct lack of desire as the situation is
grim in many countries.
I am so overwhelmed by the parameters of SDG that I would like to focus on the
individual parameters here starting with no poverty, this is of utmost importance as world
poverty is not sustainable at all. And when I say it is not sustainable I mean that abject poverty
will make people take extreme steps which will result in chaos and disorder as already can be
seen in form of terrorism and extremism narratives around the world (Coccia, 2018). In order to
properly study the current level of world poverty, I undertook both statistical study by analyzing
the current economic trends in countries with large poverty stricken population numbers such as
Africa along with secondary data present in renowned magazines, peer reviewed papers and
world economic reports.
Poverty

The problem with poverty is that is a very complex phenomenon which is hard to get rid
of as in order to make the world more sustainable, poverty removal means mass behavioral and
business oriented changes both between and within countries, between rural and urban areas and
even between man and women. By studying the global poverty to understand why it is a threat
to sustainability in the long run, I also noticed that the COVID-19 pandemic made the situation
worse as approximately 119-124 million people were pushed into poverty in 2020 as a result of
economic fallout and widespread chaos. By focusing my area of study of poverty towards Africa,
I was also able to understand the current economic condition of the country and the current
problematic status that the people living there faced in their daily lives.
The goals of zero hunger and good health are also strongly related to this issue. And
collectively this issue has become a major challenge for the policymakers. When it comes to
world hunger, I identified it as a topic that I resonated with as often times, I crave for food
whenever I am hungry and thinking there are people who cannot even manage one half decent
meal throughout the day fills me with dread. The pandemic has also carried devastating
consequences for world hunger as it has been estimated that on a worldwide scale, there have
been hunger issues among 70-161 million people which is a major roadblock against
sustainability.
Quality Education

Moving on to the next goals, I believe that quality education is one of the major
challenges across the globe. While education may be having impressive stats attaining quality in
education is not something that all countries have attained with any impressive benchmark.
Education is fundamental to human progress. A society can’t perform and develop if it lacks in
imparting quality education to its youth (Duerrenberger and Warning, 2018).
Continuing with education, the next critical element of sustainability as per my
observation and completely aligned with SDG is women empowerment. And it is extremely
agonizing to see the girls in Afghanistan being barred from going to school. Women should
contribute equally in any society and when it comes to the developing world, the disparity seems
to be of light-years! Women empowerment will also reduce the number of violence by a great
degree (Angelucci and Heath, 2020). This is because when a woman is more aware of her right,
she is in a better position to protect herself and is more confident of future economic viability
and sustainability on her own. It has been observed in my research that women empowerment is
a major issue that needs further research by the people over at world renowned institutions such
as United Nations as despite multiple campaigns and rulebooks being published which
organizations have to adhere to, there is still a huge gap between the way both genders are
treated at the workplace. Women still need much better opportunities as they make up for a
measly one quarter of employment in major avenues such as national parliaments and managerial
positions. The amount of pay disparity is also very obvious and I was stunned find out that
women actually received less pay even when the position they are working at is much more
complex.
Environmental sustainability

Focusing on the environment and human sustainability brings us to water conservation. It
is extremely tragic to learn that there is a severe dearth of awareness of water conservation and
people, in general, are not quite aware of the consequences. They even do not have the basic
concepts of water table! This again is especially acute in the developing world. While the
developed world has made robust policies and is more effective in implementing them, the
developing world is a far cry and still has a lot to catch on. Water is of critical importance to
human civilization and there is no denying this fact (Koop et al., 2019). The water crisis is also a
major area of learning that I developed while studying this module as I found out through both
statistical and secondary study that even developed nations such as India are having problems as
the rate at which the world population in increasing, the current reserves of water will not be
enough in the future to sustain the demands. The pandemic has been a key part of my learning
from this overall module as the coronavirus has arguably affected almost the entirely of the SDG
framework in a negative manner as being in constant lock downs has also raised the consumption
of water in domestic chores.
Gibbs reflective cycle
Gibbs Reflective Cycle is an effective practice which helps to get valuable insights by
focusing on personal thoughts, feelings, and motives throughout the event, as well as the
behaviours of others and the author's reactions to them (Potters, 2015). In this section of the
essay, I will highlight my learning experience from studying this model regarding world
sustainability along with my experiential learnings from undertaking previous assignments from
the same domain.

It was during my training that we were told about managing sustainability. I had to
choose the topic that focused on managing educational sustainability at rural areas (Findler et al.,
2019) I was instructed to go on a visit to know the condition over there and I realized that it was
not easy to convince the population for at least primary education. I found it difficult to make
them understand. I told my manager that it was not easy to tackle the situation. Learning from
this module was overly beneficial for me as I got to undertake both qualitative and quantitative
analysis of diverse range of topics such as poverty, gender inequality and water crisis which are
all major determinants of global sustainability under the SDG framework. All of the major goals
of the SDG framework were studied with individual focus which makes my overall scope of
learning fall within the framework’s constraints. The major description of the entire learning
that I undertook can be summarized from the fact that poverty and water distribution are two
major global roadblocks of sustainability which currently have no major solutions as they are too
complex to completely solve.
At first, I felt sad over this situation. Most of the time I was discouraged by my
colleagues. Yet, I continued to struggle so that this deprived population can at least think about
it. My team members also realized that they do not even have access to food, how can they think
about sending their children to school. We even offered different welfare programs but to no
avail (Visvizi & Lytras, 2018). My overall feelings during studying and writing about such
complex SDG goals and developments were a mixed bag as I was happy that I got to understand
various key concepts regarding business and world stability however the results which I found
were very grim as there is still major poverty and social imbalance between male and female
genders.

I realized that it might end up in total fiasco. The population had no basic knowledge of
their basic human rights. All they know is poverty and hunger. Men were busy to struggle for
livelihood. It was in my heart to help not just meeting the goals of training. Their tragic situation
made me to realize their real situation. All my team members did up to the mark and they tried
their best to produce the best quality work for the agreed deadline. However, we can say that the
objectives were not attained properly (Wall, Bellamy, Evans & Hopkins, 2017). My major
evaluation of global poverty, educational availability and water supply on a worldwide scale is
basically done in the form of a literature review as I studied various articles published by
renowned institutions by experts which not only provided me with exceptional statistical data but
also know about the current SDG framework quality. All the three major learning areas had one
thing in common, which is the negative effect which flooded them due to the COVID-19
pandemic which leaves me with a question that how exactly will be achieve sustainability with
the pandemics till running amok.
I believe our initial task division went well since everyone had a choice in whatever part
of the assignment they wanted to concentrate on, and we split based on people's self-identified
capabilities. I've done this before and noticed that when I'm working alone, I prefer to work in
areas that match my talents. This appears to me to be the case in groups as well. I am very good
at researching complex skills about topics and I used that to be full potential as I undertook
various study of cases and data reports which will help me undertake much more complex
researches in the future. The overall analysis of the learning process that I experienced over the
course of this curriculum contains both positive and negative aspects. I managed to learn quite a
lot of accurate numerical facts and figures regarding sustainable actions being taken by world
governments but I also failed to analyze the entire 17 goals included in the framework which
limited the scope of my study.
I learnt that when a group divides work, we must first consider how each piece would
appear and feel; if we had done so, we would have been able to bring the sections together and
submit without much or any revising. Finally, I learnt that we should explore new areas of
interest and do not dread the insufficient outcomes or difficult journey of experience. The next
time I undertake learnings which are this complex in scope I will make sure that I arrange all
major peer reviewed articles which are need in advance so that I face no deadline issues which I
faced this time around. The current level of poverty is ingrained in class inequality and the major

difference between the wealth hoarded by the elite class compared to the starving lower class
people and it was concluded that that in order to make the world more sustainable, better
chances for women need to be presented along with a way to tax the rich in a more judicious
manner (Avelar,and et.al., 2019).
The action plan which will be based upon my entire learning experience which
concluded rigorous course work alongside routinely scheduled study sessions will include
multifaceted approach to make sure that I encounter minimum amount of problems next time.
One major problem that I identified is that getting my operational flow disturbed is a major blow
to my productivity and next time I will get my entire workstation sorted along with each and
every type of major data I need so that I can study and write for long hours without disruptions.
CONCLUSION
The above essay went into retail regarding the amount of detailed learning processes
which are experienced by an individual when they learn detailed frameworks regarding global
sustainability and related measures. The essay highlighted three major areas of the SDG
framework which was officially formulated by the United Nations General Assembly which
were poverty, education, water supply and there was also discussion on gender inequality as it is
major reason behind class and income divide which was noticed through statistical study. The
learning experience was listed using Gibbs reflective cycle and it was concluded that the

experience was fruitful and resulted in lots of key learnings regarding sustainable measures and
the SDG framework.

References
Books and Journal
Angelucci, M. and Heath, R., 2020, May. Women empowerment programs and intimate partner
violence. In AEA Papers and Proceedings (Vol. 110, pp. 610-14).
Avelar, A.B.A., and et.al., 2019. Education for advancing the implementation of the Sustainable
Development Goals: A systematic approach. The International Journal of Management
Education, 17(3), p.100322.
Books and Journals
Coccia, M., 2018. Growth rate of population associated with high terrorism incidents in
society. Journal of Economics Bibliography-J. Econ. Bib.-JEB, 5(3), pp.142-158.
Duerrenberger, N. and Warning, S., 2018. Corruption and education in developing countries:
The role of public vs. private funding of higher education. International Journal of
Educational Development, 62, pp.217-225.
Findler, F., Schönherr, N., Lozano, R., Reider, D. and Martinuzzi, A. (2019), "The impacts of
higher education institutions on sustainable development: A review and
conceptualization", International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, Vol. 20
No. 1, pp. 23-38.
Koop, S.H.A., Van Dorssen, A.J. and Brouwer, S., 2019. Enhancing domestic water
conservation behaviour: A review of empirical studies on influencing tactics. Journal of
environmental management, 247, pp.867-876.
Potter, C. (2015), "Leadership development: an applied comparison of Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle
and Scharmer’s Theory U", Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 47 No. 6, pp. 336-
342.
Visvizi, A. and Lytras, M.D. (2018), "Rescaling and refocusing smart cities research: from mega
cities to smart villages", Journal of Science and Technology Policy Management, Vol. 9
No. 2, pp. 134-145.
Wall, T., Bellamy, L., Evans, V. and Hopkins, S. (2017), "Revisiting impact in the context of
workplace research: a review and possible directions", Journal of Work-Applied
Management, Vol. 9 No. 2, pp. 95-109.
Zuber-Skerritt, O. and Abraham, S. (2017), "A conceptual framework for work-applied learning
for developing managers as practitioner researchers", Higher Education, Skills and
Work-Based Learning, Vol. 7 No. 1, pp. 35-50.