SDSN Commitment

Western Sydney University Commitment to the SDGs

UN Sustainable Development Goals for 2030

This United Nation (UN) 2030 Agenda (opens in a new window) is a plan of action for people, planet and prosperity. Western Sydney University has signed the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network Higher Education Commitment in March 2017, joining an innovative group of Australian universities. As a SDG educational signatory, the University is well placed to meet this educational commitment. There are existing education and research strategies, as well as planned new curriculum partnerships and initiatives that will support this work.

Western Sydney University is also host to a UN endorsed Regional Centre of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development, namely RCE Greater Western Sydney and is already working in this space regionally and globally.

Our Commitment

Universities, including Western Sydney, have acknowledged the responsibility 'through their teaching to equip the next generation of leaders, innovators and thinkers to understand the global challenges facing the world and the role they can play in rising to meet these challenges'. In becoming an educational signatory to the SDSN Australia, New Zealand and Pacific Initiative the University has committed to:

  1. Support and promote the principles of the SDGs;
  2. Undertake research that provides solutions to sustainable development challenges;
  3. Provide the educational opportunity for our students to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development;
  4. Contribute to the achievement of the SDGs by ensuring our campuses and major programs are environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive, and
  5. Report on our activities in support of the SDGs.

See what we are working on around the Sustainable Development Goals (opens in a new window) at Western.

What are the SDGs?

At the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit on 25 September 2015, more than 150 countries adopted the new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The 17 new SDGs replaced the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and aim to end global poverty, hunger and inequality, take action on climate change and the environment, improve access to health and education, build strong institutions and partnerships by 2030. The sustainable development goals (opens in a new window) (SDGs) are a new, universal set of goals, targets and indicators that UN member states will be expected to use to frame their agendas and political policies over the next 15 years.