About Sustainability…

Our guest on this episode is Akihisa Kuriyama, a policy researcher in IGES’ Climate & Energy Unit. He joins us to talk about SDG7 on energy. We spoke about the relationship between energy and climate; what’s new about SDG 7 in the global discussion on energy; some of the barriers and challenges in achieving the goal; the possibilities of nuclear energy; and the best ways of getting energy to the largest possible number of people, as quickly as possible. A number of examples were given to illustrate parts of the discussion.

Relevant links:

• SDG7: GOAL 7: Affordable and Clean Energy
• Kuriyama-san’s work at IGES: https://www.iges.or.jp/en/about/staff/kuriyama-akihisa  

"About Sustainability..." is a podcast brought to you by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), an environmental policy think-tank based in Hayama, Japan. IGES experts are concerned with environmental and sustainability challenges. Everything shared on the podcast will be off-the-cuff discussion, and any viewpoints expressed are those held by the speaker at the time of recording. They are not necessarily official IGES positions.

In this episode we met with Amila from IGES who shared the latest updates on  international plastics governance.  Among others, he described details on the international negotiations committee that was formed last year to define a legally binding instrument to curb plastic pollution. We heard who is on that committee and what they do when they meet. He also explained details and challenges around what is called the life cycle approach and explained why experts are working on approaches to account for the impacts of plastics throughout its entire life cycle. In this regard we were also able to hear some examples of the work he and his colleagues are doing to help build the needed capacity at local levels to measure plastic pollution and to be able to take steps to reduce it.


Relevant links:

• Information on the lifecycle approach: https://www.lifecycleinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/UNEP-D010-Food-Packaging-Re[…]Version-1-1.pdf/UNEP-D010-Food-Packaging-Report-2-1.pdf 

• What makes reliable data for microplastics policy? ​​https://isap.iges.or.jp/2022/en/t13.html 

"About Sustainability..." is a podcast brought to you by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), an environmental policy think-tank based in Hayama, Japan. IGES experts are concerned with environmental and sustainability challenges. Everything shared on the podcast will be off-the-cuff discussion, and any viewpoints expressed are those held by the speaker at the time of recording. They are not necessarily official IGES positions.

In this episode of About Sustainability…

Erin and Bob talked to Binaya Raj Shivakoti, an IGES expert in the Adaptation and Water team, about SDG6, which is on “ensuring availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all” (or simply ‘Clean Water and Sanitation’). This goal’s environmental dimensions are clear, and has targets on the universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene for all; improving water quality and water-use efficiency; implementing integrated water resource management; protecting and restoring water-related ecosystems; fostering international cooperation, and involving local communities in water and sanitation management.

During our chat, we talked about water being fundamental to all aspects of life and what life can be like for communities without access to these basic needs. We then explored integrated water resource management (IWRM), which Binaya argued is a natural starting point for implementing all the SDGs.

Related links

• UNDESA’s SDG6 Page
• Recent work on integrated river basin management (a form of integrated water resource management)
• Binaya’s recent publication on Tonle Sap Lake
• IGES publications relevant to SDG6

About our guest:

Binaya Raj Shivakoti is a Senior Policy Researcher in the Adaptation and Water team at IGES. His expertise includes, among others, local disaster risk management and planning, promotion of traditional/indigenous and local knowledge, wastewater management, and integrated implementation of the SDGs using river basin approaches.

"About Sustainability..." is a podcast brought to you by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), an environmental policy think-tank based in Hayama, Japan. IGES experts are concerned with environmental and sustainability challenges. Everything shared on the podcast will be off-the-cuff discussion, and any viewpoints expressed are those held by the speaker at the time of recording. They are not necessarily official IGES positions.

In this episode of About Sustainability..., Andre and Erin spoke with their colleague, Maiko Morishita, about SDG5, on achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls. Maiko is part of the IGES finance task force, which covers a variety of topics but she also previously worked in the NGO world where gender was a key component of her work. We started by asking Maiko why she thinks this goal is important. We then proceeded through a winding conversation that touches on various aspects of SDG5, albeit not all aspects of this diverse goal. The idea was to explore this SDG and really dig into some of the ideas behind it. So we hope it provides a bit of depth and a bit of breadth, and hopefully some fresh perspectives. 

Related links

• UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs’ Goal 5 Page
• Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN)’s 2022 Sustainable Development Report

About our guest:

After working at a foreign investment bank, Maiko Morishita was involved in a development education program for an NGO involved in international exchange. Since 2010, Oxfam Japan has conducted research and proposals on climate change (adaptation finance), food issues (support for small farmers, land rights), development finance (ODA, environmental and social considerations, public-private partnerships), business and human rights, etc. In February 2019, Maiko joined the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES). She graduated from Keio University’s Faculty of Law.

"About Sustainability..." is a podcast brought to you by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), an environmental policy think-tank based in Hayama, Japan. IGES experts are concerned with environmental and sustainability challenges. Everything shared on the podcast will be off-the-cuff discussion, and any viewpoints expressed are those held by the speaker at the time of recording. They are not necessarily official IGES positions.

In this episode of About Sustainability…

In episode 2 of the Sustainability Afoot series, Bob took a walk with Dr. Bijon Kumer Mitra to find out what Regional/Local CES (Regional or Local Circulating and Ecological Spheres) is.   In brief, CES is an approach supported by the Government of Japan that is focused on bottom-up policy development that seeks to simultaneously address local or regional Economic, Environmental, and Societal issues in an integrated and sustainable way.

Relevant links:

• IGES’ CES Publications
• The Japanese Government’s 5th Basic Environment Plan

About our Guest:

Bijon Kumer MITRA is a Deputy Director of the Integrated Center for Sustainability and Water and Adaptation Unit of the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies in Japan. He has more than 17 years of experience in the field of integrated natural resource management with a focus on sustainable water resource management. He uses a quantitative assessment framework to assess natural resource allocation trade-offs, aiming to provide guidance for optimal decision-making. His research interests include water-energy-food-climate nexus, water environment management, and rural-urban linkages. He leads the Circulating and Ecological Sphere (CES) projects at IGES. Mitra holds a Ph.D. degree in the Science of Biotic Environment from Iwate University, Japan.

"About Sustainability..." is a podcast brought to you by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), an environmental policy think-tank based in Hayama, Japan. IGES experts are concerned with environmental and sustainability challenges. Everything shared on the podcast will be off-the-cuff discussion, and any viewpoints expressed are those held by the speaker at the time of recording. They are not necessarily official IGES positions.

In this episode of About Sustainability…

Erin and Simon caught up with Andre just before his trip to Montreal, Canada for the second part of the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP15). A few things have changed since the release of our CBD episode back in March. CBD COP15 will now be convened from the 7th to the 19th of December 2022 in Montreal, Canada under the Chinese COP15 presidency.

After a two-year delay, Parties will finally come together to negotiate and agree on the text of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework (or GBF). We explored some of the highlights and interesting aspects of the GBF, including the “30by30” target, other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs), and digital sequence information.

Relevant links:

• IGES’ Special Webpage on CBD COP15
• About Sustainability… episode on the CBD
• Preparations for the post-2020 GBF

"About Sustainability..." is a podcast brought to you by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), an environmental policy think-tank based in Hayama, Japan. IGES experts are concerned with environmental and sustainability challenges. Everything shared on the podcast will be off-the-cuff discussion, and any viewpoints expressed are those held by the speaker at the time of recording. They are not necessarily official IGES positions.

In this episode of About Sustainability…

Bob kicked off a new experimental format, tentatively called “Sustainability Afoot”.  The concept is simple: go for a walk near the headquarters of the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) in Hayama, Japan, and discuss some basic questions about a topic, concept, or methodology that IGES works in. The first episode of this format is about the concept of the “circular economy.”  Yasuhiko Hotta, Programme Director of the Sustainable Consumption and Production unit at IGES, explained the circular economy concept, gave a few examples, and talked about some of IGES’ work on the topic.  This naturally led to marine plastic litter, and the ongoing work of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) on Plastic Pollution that came out of UNEA 5.2 (the second part of the 5th session of the United Nations Environment Assembly), a conference that we discussed on this podcast  before and after it happened.

The sound quality of this format will not match that of  our regular episodes.  We’ll try to get better at recording these types of episodes, but the audio will never be as clean. Whether  we should do more episodes like this, or the sound quality will make you stop listening, we want to know.  Please tweet us at @IGES_EN to let us know what you think!

About our guest:

Yasuhiko Hotta is Programme Director of the Sustainable Consumption and Production unit at IGES. His expertise includes 3R (reduce, reuse, recycle) policies, sustainable resource management, extended producer responsibility (EPR), the circular economy, and plastics. 

"About Sustainability..." is a podcast brought to you by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), an environmental policy think-tank based in Hayama, Japan. IGES experts are concerned with environmental and sustainability challenges. Everything shared on the podcast will be off-the-cuff discussion, and any viewpoints expressed are those held by the speaker at the time of recording. They are not necessarily official IGES positions.

This is the second part of our episode on SDG4 and education for sustainable development. In this part we focused on whether the right skills are taught in schools to equip people with skills and priorities necessary to bring about a more sustainable world rather than one characterized by competition and scarcity.  Robert shared more information and examples from his work on education for sustainable development, and we discussed what approaches to education might be needed to help achieve important sustainable development and climate goals ahead of 2030.

"About Sustainability..." is a podcast brought to you by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), an environmental policy think-tank based in Hayama, Japan. IGES experts are concerned with environmental and sustainability challenges. Everything shared on the podcast will be off-the-cuff discussion, and any viewpoints expressed are those held by the speaker at the time of recording. They are not necessarily official IGES positions.

In this episode we talked with our good friend Robert Didham. He is Centre Director and Associate Professor at the Centre for Collaborative Learning for Sustainable Development Faculty of Education, Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences. 

We talked to Robert about education for sustainable development and its place in Agenda 2030 as SDG 4. He explained how SDG 4 takes a comprehensive focus on education when compared to earlier approaches such as the Millennium Development Goals. We then discussed some of the different facets of education such as a more qualitative view on education that is being promoted including focus on youth, technical vocational education and training, gender, jobs and education as lifelong learning. 

This episode is divided into two parts to allow for more space for discussion. Part two focuses more on Robert’s work on education for sustainable development, and what approaches to education are needed to help achieve important sustainable development and climate goals. But that will be in our next release. 

At small correction shall be noted: At 2:20 in the recording, when Robert was referring to the international framework that is the follow-up to the Global Action Programme on Education for Sustainable Development, he misnamed this framework by referring to it as the Education for 2030 framework, and it should have been correctly referred to the Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) for 2030 framework.

Please visit ESD for 2030 framework and the subsequent ESD for 2030 roadmap for further information on these initiatives.

"About Sustainability..." is a podcast brought to you by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), an environmental policy think-tank based in Hayama, Japan. IGES experts are concerned with environmental and sustainability challenges. Everything shared on the podcast will be off-the-cuff discussion, and any viewpoints expressed are those held by the speaker at the time of recording. They are not necessarily official IGES positions.

In this episode of About Sustainability..., Erin, Andre, and Bob invited Eric Zusman back to talk about SDG3 on Health. Eric works on co-benefits between air pollution mitigation and climate action, which has significant implications for public health. Meanwhile, Erin provided some context and perspectives based on her public health background. 

We started the discussion with what it means to be ‘healthy’ and what is required to attain good health. We then moved onto what SDG3 emphasises (and what it does not), what is missing from SDG3, global progress on the goal, and COVID-19’s impacts on our efforts and on health systems more generally. We then looked more deeply into air pollution specifically, as it is responsible for the premature deaths of approximately seven million people annually. We explored linkages with climate change, solutions that benefit air quality, climate mitigation and health, and the challenges or tradeoffs of implementing such solutions.

Related links

• UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs’ Goal 3 Page
• Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN)’s 2022 Sustainable Development Report
• Strengthening the Linkages Between Air Pollution and the Sustainable Development Goals
  • This policy brief argues featuring air pollution more prominently in the structure of the SDGs could deliver significant health benefits.
• Sustainable and Inclusive Solutions to Air Pollution and Climate Change in Southeast Asia: Participatory Governance, Social Co-benefits and Co-Innovation
  • This issue brief presents ways that policymakers in Southeast Asia can support sustainable and inclusive solutions to air pollution and climate change with health co-benefits.
• One Atmosphere: Integrating Air Pollution and Climate Policy and Governance
  • This paper argues that more rigorous research is needed on how governance can help achieve air quality, climate and health co-benefits.
• Integrating Clean Air, Climate, and Health Policies in the COVID-19 Era: The Role of Co-benefits and the Triple R Framework
  • This policy brief argues that co-benefits can be a useful concept to integrate climate, air pollution and health policies in the COVID-era.

About our guest:

Eric Zusman is a Research Leader at the Integrated Sustainability Centre at IGES. Apart from his expertise in multilevel governance, sustainability transitions, and SDGs generally, he has extensive experience in air pollution mitigation and co-benefits of climate mitigation and air quality improvements (and health).

"About Sustainability..." is a podcast brought to you by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), an environmental policy think-tank based in Hayama, Japan. IGES experts are concerned with environmental and sustainability challenges. Everything shared on the podcast will be off-the-cuff discussion, and any viewpoints expressed are those held by the speaker at the time of recording. They are not necessarily official IGES positions.