Sustainable Development Goals: Catalysts for a Better Future?

When
June 10, 2021 12:00 pm — 1:30 pm
Where
Webinar Only

An Environmental Law Institute Public Webinar

In 2015, the United Nations Member States, including the United States, unanimously approved 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved by 2030. This program explores the potential for the U.S. to use the SDGs as a sustainable development policy framework to help accelerate the transition to a sustainable society. It draws upon lessons gathered in the Environmental Law Reporter article, “Making America a Better Place for All: Sustainable Development Recommendations for the Biden Administration.” The piece compiles recommendations from 21 leading subject matter experts on how the SDGs can form a critical normative framework to improve human quality of life, freedom, and opportunity by integrating economic and social development with environmental protection.

What is the value for federal, state, and local governments as well as companies and other organizations in employing SDGs as metrics for sustainability goals? Could employing an SDG framework risk watering down environmental protection? In the face of multiple challenges and opportunities, join the Environmental Law Institute, article authors, and leading experts for a dynamic investigation of the potential for SDGs to inform federal, state, local, and private policy moving forward.

Panelists:
John Dernbach, Director, Environmental Law and Sustainability Center, and Commonwealth Professor of Environmental Law and Sustainability, Widener University Commonwealth Law School, Moderator
John Bouman, Resident Fellow, University of Chicago Institute of Politics, and former President, Shriver Center on Poverty Law
Kimberly Marie Brown, Advisor on Governance and Justice, and Obama Foundation Scholar and Foreign Policy Interrupted Fellow
Sally Fisk, Vice President and Assistant General Counsel, Chief Counsel, Environment and Sustainability Law, Pfizer, Inc.
Christopher Gray, Senior Director, Environment, Social, Governance (SDG) Lead, Pfizer Inc.
Jane Nelson, Director, Corporate Responsibility Initiative, and Adjunct Lecturer, Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School
Audra Wilson, President and CEO, Shriver Center on Poverty Law

Materials:
ELI members will have subsequent access to any materials/a recording of this session (usually posted w/in 48 hours). If you are not an ELI member but would like to have access to archived sessions like this one, go HERE to see the many benefits of membership and how to join.