The contribution of water as a resource to the challenge of Sustainable Development

In 2015, the governments of 193 countries in the UN approved an agenda with 17 goals aimed at sustainability called SDGs, Sustainable Development Goals. These objectives represent a global challenge and a call for action for all sectors of society from all countries, being economical, institutional, social and cultural ones. The main purposes of said agenda include fighting against poverty, inequality, human rights violations and pollution, the cause of climate change.

The agenda has to reach these goals by 2030, and so it’s time to intensify all actions of civil society to truly build a better world.

Our world is deeply tied to water: a fundamental and invaluable resource. Goal number 6 is devoted to water and its main objective is to ensure that access to clean water and sanitation will be possible for everyone. A challenging goal, considering that, in 2020, 25% of the world population still didn’t have access to basic water resources.

Goal number 6 is comprised by 6 sub-objectives in regards to sustainability, that are planned to be reached by 2030:

1) Gain access to clean water for everyone;

2) Gain access to sanitation for everyone, with a focus on women, young or not, and more vulnerable people;

3) Improve the quality of water, reducing pollution and the release of chemical and dangerous substances, increasing recycling and safe reuse;

4) Increase water efficiency, dealing with water shortage and significantly reducing the number of people that experience it;

5) Carry out integrated management of water resources;

6) Protect and restore all ecosystems that are tied to water, like rivers, wetlands, groundwater and lakes.

Also, there are 2 more objectives to be considered:

Objective 6.A is about the expansion of international cooperation in regards to activities and programs which aim to streamline the use of water resources, a better administration of waste water and development of recycling technologies;

Objective 6.B is about the support and reinforcement of the participation of local communities to improve the management of clean water and sanitary conditions.

This last objective affects us more closely because it encourages us to work for our community with concrete actions that we can promote to others. It’s ideally linked with all the activities that define our B Corp, which has the purpose of acting in a practical way for our territory to improve water efficiency and eliminate pollution caused by plastic bottles.