Current Research
Drawdown’s System of Solutions
ACHIEVING THE UN GLOBAL GOALS
"The results of this review and mapping of the Drawdown solutions to the SDG Framework show: (1) that the fulfillment of SDG17 through the creation of long-lasting, collaborative partnerships across scales and levels of agency are imperative to implementing all Drawdown solutions and sectors; and (2) that all existing solutions, when implemented as a “system of solutions,” can contribute in direct and indirect ways to achieving all the SDGs." (Frischmann et al., 2020)
New paper published linking Drawdown's 'system of solutions' to the United Nations Global Goals.
The 17 United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) provide a framework for addressing the most pressing global challenges by 2030 and setting the stage for a sustainable future for humanity and the planet. To-date, progress on actually achieving the SDGs has stalled, in part due to the lack of clearly defined solutions that can be readily implemented at the scale required.
In a new paper published by Springer Nature, Project Drawdown’s research team mapped all of the technologies and practices Project Drawdown identifies as global climate solutions to each of the SDGs and their respective targets. “All of the Drawdown solutions have direct and indirect links to one or more of the SDGs,” says lead author Chad Frischmann. “Implementing solutions to stop global warming turns out to have multiple co-benefits that help alleviate poverty, improve human and planetary health, eliminate hunger, reduce inequalities, promote gender equality, etc.”
According to Frischmann et al., these co-benefits, and the SDGs themselves, can be achieved more urgently, safely, and equitably when solutions are implemented in parallel as a ‘system of solutions’ rooted in social justice and inclusion. “The system needs to shift from one that provides well-being for a few, to one that offers well-being for all.” This can happen, continues Frischmann, “only when we link arms through collaborative partnerships at all scales, from local to international, and across levels of agency to implement solutions. We need distributed networks that include businesses, policymakers, civil society organizations, investors, educators, and communities working together for our collective well-being.” The authors argue that such multistakeholder partnerships are a prerequisite for accelerating Drawdown’s ‘system of solutions’, which, in turn, provides a concrete mechanism for helping to achieve all the SDGs. Hence, achieving SDG17 ‘Partnerships for the Goals’, the paper concludes, is the lynchpin to creating the sustainable future we want.
Link to paper: https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-319-71067-9_100-1
Contact: Chad Frischmann, VP & Research Director, Project Drawdown chad@drawdown.org
Author(s): Chad Frischmann, Mamta Mehra, Ryan Allard, Kevin Bayuk, João Pedro Gouveia, Miranda R. Gorman
“The system needs to shift from one that provides well-being for a few, to one that offers well-being for all.”